NVIDIA RTX 4090 D allegedly coming to China soon
The company is rumored to be making a new version of RTX 4090 that complies with US export restrictions.
Just like we thought would happen if the RTX 4090 was banned from exporting to the US, NVIDIA is making a special version for China. The company has a long history of making variants of their discrete GPUs, sometimes only relying on new software (like with Lite Hash Rate editions).
The upcoming graphics card, retaining the name RTX 4090, is set to be designated with a “D” descriptor, reportedly signifying “Dragon.” This name was selected for what is anticipated to be a model exclusive to China, with a potential launch targeted for 2024.
Wccftech, who broke the story, claim that this news was gathered from their sources. The card’s primary goal is to meet US export restrictions that impose a limit on Total Processing Performance (TPP) of 4800 points. The original RTX 4090 model exceeds this threshold, which means it cannot be exported to select nations, including China.
The card’s ability to meet the performance threshold will require some compromises, so the chances of CUDA core specs being affected, or lower clock speeds are all in play. However, it is worth noting that TPP includes all compute power, not just single-precision but also half and double. Any of these compute workloads could be capped by NVIDIA, paving the way to comply with the restrictions without severely impacting gaming performance.
Chinese Gamers Rejoice! NVIDIA’s Bringing Its Flagship Gaming GPU Back With The GeForce RTX 4090 D
“D” To mark the Chinese Year of the Dragon (2024)
New AD102 SKU with cut-down specs
Fully complies with US policies— Hassan Mujtaba (@hms1193) November 29, 2023
Interestingly, this card is said to be China exclusive, although RTX 4090 export has been banned to other countries as well. However, there might be some miscommunication and this means that board partners in China will receive necessary AD102 GPUs for production and will later allow exports to other ‘affected’ countries.
According to the report, the card will launch at the same MSRP as RTX 4090, which is $12,999 RMB or $1,599. Given that the pricing is already discussed, the final SKU specs are finalized, and we should learn more about this card very soon.
Source: Wccftech