Chinese MTT S80 graphics card with 16GB memory drops to $164
The first gaming graphics card with PCIe Gen5 interface is available for purchase in China at a very affordable price, with a valid reason.
The MTT GPU series includes S80 and S70 SKUs, both supporting DirectX11 graphics API. On paper, these graphics cards boast impressive specifications. The S80, in particular, stands out as the world’s only card to support PCIe Gen5 specifications and comes with 16GB of GDDR6 memory. However, when it comes to real-world performance, it struggles to compete with a few year old NVIDIA cards.
For the upcoming 11.11 shopping festival in China, MTT is offering the S80 GPU for 1199 RMB ($164) and the S70 for 899 RMB ($122). These are competitive prices for new cards from a new company, but for gaming purposes, neither card is a compelling choice.
MTT S80 price, Source: JD
According to a PC Watch review, the S80 lags significantly behind the GTX 1050 Ti in gaming performance and consumes three times as much power. MTT hasn’t addressed idle power consumption either. Therefore, power efficiency and performance per watt become more critical than price. Even in this regard, the GTX 1050 Ti can be found cheaper in the second-hand market.
The S80 card does have an advantage in its 16GB memory capacity, which MTT promises to optimize for various professional workloads, including AI tasks. This emerging market could be a focus for MTT, as it struggles to compete in gaming, even against a 30W GT 1030 GPU. This situation hasn’t changed much in over a year since the card’s release. Interestingly, 16GB of memory would cost around $57, so technically speaking that’s 1/3 of the card’s cost.
There are rumors that MTT is developing a new card, possibly the S90, with a potentially improved architecture. While the company has not confirmed this officially, traces in public repositories suggest it may be in the works. If the S90 outperforms the S80 and maintains a reasonable price point, MTT might have a chance to carve a niche in the Chinese GPU market, as these cards are not available in other regions.
