Bolt Graphics Zeus GPU: up to 10x faster than RTX 5090 in rendering workloads, expandable RAM

Bolt Graphics says its upcoming Zeus GPU will be the first current-gen GPU with expandable RAM, up to 10x faster than RTX 5090 in rendering workloads.

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Anthony Garreffa

Gaming Editor

Published Aug 6, 2025 7:07 PM CDT

1 minute & 30 seconds read time

TL;DR: Bolt Graphics is launching the Zeus GPU in 2027, featuring expandable RAM up to 384GB, built-in RISC-V CPUs, and ultra-fast 400GbE connectivity. Pre-silicon benchmarks claim Zeus 4c outperforms NVIDIA's RTX 5090 by 10x in 4K path-traced rendering, targeting HPC and developer markets.

Bolt Graphics might not be a brand you've heard of, but it is coming to the GPU market with some surprising features that aren't on its competitors' hardware just yet, like expandable RAM and insane amounts of AI performance.

Bolt Graphics is currently cooking up their Zeus GPU for a 2027 release, with some interesting specifications shared by the company on X recently. Zeus will feature expandable memory with 32GB / 64GB / 128GB soldered + 2x/4x SO-DIMM slots for up to 384GB of memory.

The company claims "massive improvements" to path tracing performance, an ultra-fast 400GbE QSFP-DD port, with built-in high-performance RISC-V CPU cores that are capable of running Linux. All of this is also using the "good old" 8-pin PCIe power connector, which the company quips "is known to not melt". Bolt Graphics says that its Zeus GPU will be in developer kit form in 2026, with mass production planned for 2027.

Bolt Graphics Zeus GPU: up to 10x faster than RTX 5090 in rendering workloads, expandable RAM 104

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The company ran some "pre-silicon benchmarks" on the Zeus GPU -- so hypothetical, really -- where Bolt Graphics' upcoming Zeus 4c beats NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 5090 in rendering workloads by a huge 10x, and that's in full-quality 4K path-traced graphics.

Read more: This startup says its new Zeus GPU is 10x faster than NVIDIA's flagship RTX 5090

Those performance numbers aren't just from a single Zeus GPU, as Bolt Graphics will be introducing three architectural variants of the card: Zeus 1c with a single chiplet design that acts as an add-in card, Zeus 2c uses dual chiplets with 128GB of memory, and Zeus 4c is a quad-chiplet server platform for high-performance computing (HPC) workloads.