Bolt Graphics Taunts Nvidia With Bold Claims — but Where’s the Silicon?

In the tech world, bold claims and bigger promises aren’t exactly a new phenomenon. But California-based startup Bolt Graphics has recently turned heads by claiming their upcoming Zeus architecture could leave Nvidia’s RTX 5090 eating dust. According to them, their yet-to-arrive graphics cards will not only outperform Nvidia’s best in path tracing workloads, but they’ll do it using less power. Now, before you start dreaming of filling up your gaming rig with one of these bad boys, you might want to hold your horses.

Zooming In

Bolt Graphics recently announced their specifications, stating a jaw-dropping performance leap over the Nvidia RTX 5090. Their numbers sound like something out of a sci-fi movie — 13 times better performance in path tracing, they say. All of this, with an energy consumption of just 120W, makes it sound like a miracle of modern engineering. But, as the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

The company claims their Zeus lineup boasts phenomenal TFLOP numbers and extensive VRAM options, emphasizing memory configurations ranging from 32GB up to 384GB with expandable SO-DIMM slots. However, they’re using older VRAM formats which throw shade over the real capabilities of these GPUs in tackling modern gaming requirements.

In March, Bolt first laid out these ambitious plans, highlighting massive memory pools and revolutionary graphics processors. Zeus is said to deliver a whopping 307 gigarays, with 512 MB of cache and a total of 2.3 TB of VRAM supported. However, practical application and real-world benchmarks have yet to see daylight.

If that’s not enough to pique your curiosity, Bolt is also keen on letting us know Zeus GPUs will use trusty 8-pin power connectors, unlike some other GPUs that have made headlines for the wrong reasons. Yet, without so much as a prototype to showcase, the tech world remains skeptical.

This whole scenario begs the question of whether this is hardware actuality or merely a masterclass in marketing. Is Bolt Graphics grabbing attention to secure some much-needed investment, riding the hype wave in the land of GPUs? The GPU sector is indeed getting more attention these days, largely thanks to advancements in AI, but some believe Bolt might be taking this opportunity a bit too far.

It’s clear the tech-savvy public needs more than just spicy marketing to be convinced. Without concrete test results and a tangible product, Bolt Graphics may quickly find themselves dismissed as another memory on the tech industry’s long list of bold claims that never materialized into actual products. Stay tuned for more developments.