Can't afford a high-powered graphics card? This DIY engineer made his own GPU out of 8,192 RISC-V chips

Date:
Wed, 08 Jul 2026 22:40:00 +0000

Description:
DIYer bitluni has built his own 160-core GPU using RISC-V microcontrollers.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter YouTuber bitluni has unveiled a RISC-V DIY Graphics Processing Unit Builder has a library of insane DIY projects on his YouTube channel RISC-V microcontrollers were sourced from AliExpress YouTuber bitluni has unveiled his latest project, which might put any concerns you have over GPU pricing into context. The German DIYer, who
has built up a strong following with his selection of intriguing and off-the-wall projects, has assembled a GPU using a large collection of affordable RISC-V microcontrollers (MCUs).

While the results are impressive for a DIY build, the GPU is unfortunately quite modest, and would probably have been abandoned long before now had a
PCB design firm not got in touch to explore a partnership over the build. Demonstrating the project on his channel, bitluni real name Matthias
Balwierz expressed how difficult the build was, and how it almost drove him mad. Latest Videos From Watch full video here: I made a GPU at home - YouTube Watch On 8000+ RISC-V MCUs output at 320x200 resolution In his latest video, bitluni recalls a previous attempt at building a GPU in late 2025 which lead to PCB designers Altium getting involved, explaining, The clusters I made before were already challenging my sanity. I thought I was done with the topic, but the budget and these tools would allow for a cluster of a
different magnitude, and the magnitude I had in mind was just insane.

Pushing things to the next level is a hallmark of bitlunis videos, and the finished build has an incredible 8,192 RISC-V CH570 microcontrollers, each running at 100 MHz, with 12KB of SRAM. These are mounted on blades, which
went through several revisions as the PCB company declared them too complicated. You may like A YouTuber tried using an ice machine to cool down his Nvidia RTX 3060 rig YouTuber makes giant fan that looks amazing and
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Each CH570 has an array of LEDs mounted, and these correspond to each MCU,
and the equivalent QVGA pixel. With 8,192 MCUs, the resulting 320x200 might seem modest, but bitluni already has plans for a more power version with 32,000 MCUs. Graphics or hashing? The spike in GPU prices before the AI boom was thanks to industrial-scale cryptocurrency hashing, which graphics cards a particularly suited to. It is this relationship between hashing and graphics that gives bitlunis project some hope beyond displaying images and video. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro
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Identifying the serial port as the bottleneck to the projects success as a working (if unwieldy) GPU, bitluni has appealed for help from his community
of viewers to find a workaround, but that didnt bring the project to a close.

Changing tack, he used the microcontrollers for hashing and found it outperformed his PCs 8 core CPU, with a low 4 watt power draw, so perhaps there is a use for this approach after all. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/cant-afford-a-high-powered-graphics-card-this-di y-engineer-made-his-own-gpu-out-of-8-192-risc-v-chips


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