Chinese graphics card manufacturer Lisuan Tech has proven to the world that you don't need to release one of the best graphics cards to attain commercial success. Although the LX 7G100 graphics card fell short of performance expectations and did not compete directly with the latest generation models, the company nonetheless managed to sell out more than 30,000 preorders. The LX 7G100's remarkable success reflects consumers' appetite for alternatives in a market traditionally dominated by major players like Nvidia and AMD.

The LX 7G100 has an MSRP of $485 in China. With more than 30,000 units already spoken for through preorders, Lisuan Tech has generated over $14.55 million in advance sales. While the exact Bill of Materials (BOM) cost for the LX 7G100 remains undisclosed, the level of early success is a remarkable milestone for Lisuan Tech, a newcomer to the highly competitive graphics card market.

Lisuan Tech’s rapid rise to the spotlight has landed the company in the sixth position among big names on JD.com, China’s leading e-commerce platform for electronics, where it officially sells its products. The brand trails behind established industry giants like Asus, Colorful, Gigabyte, and MSI. The strong sales not only demonstrate effective marketing by Lisuan Tech but also reflect consumer curiosity and willingness to support emerging domestic brands, even if their products are not the highest-performing on the market.

Lisuan Tech often markets the LX 7G100 as a competitor to the GeForce RTX 4060. However, reviews have revealed that the LX 7G100 didn't hit the performance goal. Instead, it's more along the lines of a GeForce RTX 3060, one generation behind the target, and two generations behind the latest GeForce RTX 5060. The issue was that Lisuan Tech priced the LX 7G100 like a GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB; however, it seems the high price didn't impede its early adoption at all.

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Borrowing a page from Nvidia's playbook, Lisuan Tech launched a special Founders Edition of the LX 7G100, mirroring the approach that Nvidia takes with some of its mainstream GeForce RTX graphics cards. This exclusive batch was limited to just 1,000 LX 7G100 Founders Edition units. Each graphics card is individually numbered and personally signed by Lisuan Tech’s co-founder and co-CEO, Xuan Yifang. The initial batch sold out almost instantly, but the company has announced that a second batch of Founders Edition cards will be released and ready for shipping on June 18.

The LX 7G100 is only the beginning for Lisuan Tech, and June 18 will not only mark the highly anticipated restock of the Founders Edition but also serve as the official launch date for two new graphics cards: the LX Pro and the LX Ultra. The LX Pro specifically meets the demands of professional engineering applications, whereas the LX Ultra caters to cloud computing. Meanwhile, the LX Max, designed for creative professionals, has an uncertain launch date.

Lisuan Tech may be a startup in the graphics card market, but its leadership brings a wealth of experience and industry knowledge. Silicon Valley veterans Xuan Yifang, Kong Dehai, and Niu Yixin founded Lisuan Tech in 2021, all of whom had previously worked at the renowned but now-defunct S3 Graphics. It only took the company five years to put out a working graphics card that's competitive with models two generations behind. Everybody has to start from somewhere, and Lisuan Tech has a firm stepping stone.

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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.