Until recently, Chinese graphics cards were mostly seen as undercooked and not worth the plastic they were built with. Dodgy hardware, poor driver support and a general lack of care meant they barely competed with Nvidia’s decade-old mid-tier offerings. But the AI boom has changed priorities fast, and local players like Huawei and Lisuan are pushing harder into serious GPU territory.

Moore Threads, previously known mostly for sticking PCIe 5.0 onto a graphics card before anyone else, has finally delivered something worthwhile. Benchmarks shared via MyDrivers show its MTT S4000, essentially the same silicon as the MTT S90, keeping pace with and in some cases beating the RTX 4060.

In 3DMark’s Steel Nomad test, the MTT S90 scored 2,567, just ahead of Nvidia’s 2,340. In Unigine Valley, the Chinese card hit 1,467 against the RTX 4060’s 1,111. Even in Naraka: Bladepoint, running at 4K ultra, the S90 edged out Nvidia with 43 FPS versus 42 FPS.

It’s not all smooth sailing though. In Fire Strike Ultra, the RTX 4060 still led with 5,863 against the S90’s 5,210. But overall, the results show that Moore Threads has finally clawed its way into relevance, something no Chinese gaming GPU has done until now.

A big part of this seems to come down to Moore Threads finally sorting out its drivers. Compared to its previous dud, the MTT S80, the new drivers are claimed to deliver up to 80 per cent better cross-generation performance. That alone might explain why this latest card isn’t the usual embarrassment.

There’s still some caution to be had. Chinese GPUs don’t typically end up on international review benches, and we’re mostly relying on local sources. Specs for the MTT S90 haven’t been officially detailed either, though it’s expected to stick with PCIe 5.0.

Still, for a company whose last effort couldn’t even match a GTX 1050 Ti, this is a serious leap forward. If the S90 is anything to go by, Moore Threads might finally be ready to punch above its weight.