Moore Threads MTT S30 released at $55, the cheapest desktop GPU with AV1 decoding
The entry-level segment for the Chinese market.
As expected, Moore Threads is now making their S30 GPU available for sale. This company, established by a former NVIDIA China executive, has developed their own architecture called MUSA and in many aspects it borrows the marketing from the larger competitor.
The MTT S-Series of desktop cards now features 5 different models, but neither of them is fast enough to make any change in the GPU market. The most capable MTT S80 variant struggles to compete with NVIDIA’s GT 1030/GTX 16 series. However, Moore Threads have made tremendous progress with their drivers, often showing double-digit performance gains in gaming titles, akin to what we were seeing with Intel Arc GPUs. Based on some reviews, in just one year, the GPU drivers have shown doubled performance .
MTT S30, Source: Moore Threads
The latest desktop GPU to launch is the S30, the entry-level model with 1/4 of the S80 cores and memory. The card ships with 1024 MUSA cores and 4GB 128-bit memory. It does not need any power connectors, and it supports up to 4K resolution at 60 FPS through its HDMI 2.0 output. Interestingly, the S30 also comes with an analog VGA connector.
The S30 is not a gaming GPU, it is designed to offload the hardware acceleration for videos to the GPU. One of the biggest strong points is the H.264, H.265 and AV1 video decoding. The company shows off how much of the CPU utilization can be avoided by using this GPU:
MTT S30, Source: Moore Threads
Another feature worth highlighting is support for the DirectX graphics API. This support was added with the recent Windows driver, but interestingly, it is not stated which version of DX is supported.
MTT S30, Source: Moore Threads
The MTT S30 is now listed at 399 RMB, which is just 55 USD. The card is now expected to ship beginning February 29.
| Moore Threads MTT Gaming GPUs | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VideoCardz.com | MTT S80 | MTT S70 | MTT S50 | MTT S30 | MTT S10 |
| Picture |  | |  |  | |
| Purpose | Gaming | Gaming | Workstation | Business | Business |
| MUSA Cores | 4096 | 3584 | 2048 | 1024 | 1024 |
| GPU Clock | 1.8 GHZ | 1.6 GHz | 1.2 GHz | 1.3 GHz | 1.0 GHz |
| FP32 Compute | 14.4 TFLOPS | 11.2 TFLOPS | 5.0 TFLOPS | 2.6 TFLOPS | 2.0 TFLOPS |
| Mem. Capacity | 16GB GDDR6 | 7GB GDDR6 | 8GB GDDR6 | 4GB GDDR6 | 2GB GDDR6 |
| Mem. Bus | 256-bit | 224-bit | 256-bit | 128-bit | 64-bit |
| TDP | 255W | 220W | 75W | 40W | 30W |
| PCle interface | Gen5 x16 | Gen4 x16 | Gen4 x16 | Gen4 x8 | Gen4 x8 |
| Connectors | 3x DP 1.4a, 1x HDMI 2.1 | 3x DP1.4a, 1x HDMI 2.1 | 2x DP 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.0 | 1x HDMI, 1x VGA | 1x HDMI, 1x VGA |
| Dimensions | 285×112×49 mm | 285×112×49 mm | 264×126×25 mm | 14.4×6.70×2.5 mm | 14.4×6.70×2.5 mm |
Source: Moore Threads