Thursday, November 30th 2023

NVIDIA Readies GeForce RTX 4090 D for China to Comply with U.S. Export Controls

NVIDIA is giving final touches to the new GeForce RTX 4090 D, a graphics card SKU specific to the Chinese market, aimed squarely at gamers. The card fills the void for gamers shopping in the enthusiast segment, as all inventory of the regular RTX 4090 has been bought up by Chinese companies to accelerate AI, and controls are in place that prevent NVIDIA from selling the card in its current form in the Chinese market.

What sets this SKU apart is that it is designed to comply with U.S. export controls of GPUs that have the dual use as a high compute-density AI accelerator. In other words, its performance with AI will be artificially limited. This is being done by lowering the card's TPP (total processing performance), which could mean that it ends up slower than the regular RTX 4090. This is somewhat similar in concept to LHR (lite hash rate) GPUs NVIDIA designed for gamers as their regular GPUs were being heaped up by crypto currency miners, although LHR wasn't created due to government policy, but in response to market demand. The RTX 4090 D is expected to retail for RMB 13,000, which is similar to the baseline price of the RTX 4090.
Source: Wccftech
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55 Comments on NVIDIA Readies GeForce RTX 4090 D for China to Comply with U.S. Export Controls

#26
neatfeatguy
the54thvoidWas that not overcome by software/driver level mods?
When those LHR cards were released, that same day (if I remember correctly), a driver was released leaked mistakenly put out into the wild bypassed the LHR functionality of the cards. That driver was then pulled almost immediately.

Fast forward about 2 year later and the LHR - which had more or less already been bypassed by miners (even Nicehash could gain full mining functionality of LHR GPUs by now) - was officially "turned off" in Nvidia drivers.
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#27
N/A
Is 10-20% less tensor noticeable for games?
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#28
Tomorrow
Tsukiyomi91D stands for Deez Nutz.
No this is big D energy...
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#29
MacZ
And the sanctions will adjust accordingly...
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#30
natr0n
Would you ever think gpu's would have to comply with government agencies back in the day...
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#31
Chrispy_
LHR was Nvidia's attempt to limit hashrates and all it took was one leaked driver version to blow that into irrelevance. China's AI progress isn't dependent on the latest drivers. If there's any way around a software limitation in any version of the drivers, the limitation may as well not exist. Once a workaround is discovered, China is more than capable enough of writing/reverse-engineering their own damn drivers, to hell with Nvidia and US sanctions.

Once LHR was done in hardware, creative mining algo writers worked out how to get around it and still achieve 70%+ functionality from a LHR hardware that was supposed to provide only 1/4 of the unlocked ETH mining performance...
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#32
boomheadshot8
So a card made in taiwan, can't be exported to china ?
nice joke
Chineese people already buying it trought india or russia... and other countries
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#33
Gooigi's Ex
Tsukiyomi91D stands for Deez Nutz.
I was looking for this comment. When I first saw the news about the new GPU, this was my first thought LMAO. Knowing Nvidia, it probably means that.

Also 4090 Initial D edition when?
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#34
Dr. Dro
N/ARTX 4090 PCIe 8x edition. They can't cut any other spec. the green area for less pcie lanes goes up to 4800. for more is limited to 2400. Well. Could be 1% less cores or clock speed since 4090 is exactly 4800 go figure.
They can cut the spec further, but these restrictions are ridiculous. The RTX 4090 isn't even close to a fully enabled chip, imagine if they had made one with all of AD102's resources present.
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#35
Easo
I wonder how long until USA restricts this one as well.
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#36
QUANTUMPHYSICS
America's sanctions have been aggressively racist. Eventually it will backfire.
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#37
yannus1
These fake restrictions just show how much all of these sanctions are but theater. The US government fakes worrying for the economy and push to the collapse. The same can be said about all non-ex communists governments.
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#38
mama
Done with inflating the price of the 4090, especially in China? Next step is to introduce an inferior product for the price of the old 4090. Nice work Nvidia. Getting away with market manipulation again.
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#39
ratirt
QUANTUMPHYSICSAmerica's sanctions have been aggressively racist. Eventually it will backfire.
God I hope that's a joke.

Nvidias sleazebag profit attitude will only help China. No mattter if NV gets smacked for evading sanctions and restrictions, China will benefit from both.
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#41
TheinsanegamerN
kapone32Isn't Gaming heavily restricted in China?
Heavily censored, yes.
kapone32Is that just for kids?
Ys, the time limits apply to those under 18.
kapone32Is their economy that much better that 4090s can be bought by the public to make this necessary? I guess Nvidia are apathetic to certain important details that make that seem rather desultory.
China has a middle class twice the size of the whole USA.
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#42
kapone32
TheinsanegamerNHeavily censored, yes.

Ys, the time limits apply to those under 18.

China has a middle class twice the size of the whole USA.
How much is a 4090 in China? What percentage of PC users in China are on 4K high refresh monitors? Why are the 4080 and below not part of it? Why is there a thread now stating that 7900 cards from AMD are being gobbled up?
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#43
TheinsanegamerN
kapone32How much is a 4090 in China?
Use google.
kapone32What percentage of PC users in China are on 4K high refresh monitors?
What percentage of Chinese players enjoy Battlefield? Or enjoy a good burger?
kapone32Why are the 4080 and below not part of it?
Part of what?
kapone32Why is there a thread now stating that 7900 cards from AMD are being gobbled up?
Because Chinese consumers want high end GPUs, and the 4090 was banned? Duh?
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#44
kapone32
TheinsanegamerNUse google.

What percentage of Chinese players enjoy Battlefield? Or enjoy a good burger?

Part of what?

Because Chinese consumers want high end GPUs, and the 4090 was banned? Duh?
I guess consumers own server farms in China. The 4090 is a Unicorn card for Gaming and though every Youtuber of significance has suddenly been doing builds with 4090s does not mean the buying public is doing the same. Where I live a 4090 is $2500. Even a 4080 is not even $2000. If you put it up against AMD it becomes laughable as you can build a pretty high end AMD system for the cost of a 4090. The fact that other cards are not effected speaks volumes as to their real use.
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#45
TheinsanegamerN
kapone32I guess consumers own server farms in China. The 4090 is a Unicorn card for Gaming and though every Youtuber of significance has suddenly been doing builds with 4090s does not mean the buying public is doing the same. Where I live a 4090 is $2500. Even a 4080 is not even $2000. If you put it up against AMD it becomes laughable as you can build a pretty high end AMD system for the cost of a 4090. The fact that other cards are not effected speaks volumes as to their real use.
I'm sorry, what point are you trying to make here? You're mixing points and rambling. Are you suggesting that the only reason the 4090 exists in china is because of server farms? That because the 4090 is a luxury product nobody actually buys them?
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#46
kapone32
TheinsanegamerNI'm sorry, what point are you trying to make here? You're mixing points and rambling. Are you suggesting that the only reason the 4090 exists in china is because of server farms? That because the 4090 is a luxury product nobody actually buys them?
If the 4090 was so desirable it would be the top selling card in markets where none of the restrictions you listed exist. If China was as free as the West in terms of social freedom then we would not question this. If, as I keep saying the rest of the stack was banned it would make more sense to say that the US is trying to punish China somehow by restricting them from a "luxury" product just because. Even though we try to be as objective as possible on TPU one cannot deny that China has full control of most of it's society. It's like we forget that this was the same country that was grabbing mining farms from the consumers. There is a real reason Japan have built an Aircraft Carrier. People forget that the US was the biggest trading partner of Japan during the 2nd world war until the US imposed sanctions and stopped supplying (trade) the Japanese. Does that sound familiar? Today we have Taiwan and specifically TSMC. How long will it take for the West to establish fabs to make that redundant? I would say 2 to 5 years. That makes technology that is state of the art quite attractive. What has happened in Ukraine is also a huge part of the AI craze that no one is talking about in that context. Imagine a server that can control 100 drones at at time, with all the information on Western Military Technology on a database available in real time, attached. With a 4090 you could potentially do all of that and more. If they use the same silicone to drive Tesla's using radar. Now imagine if you have 100 of them in a server for said database.
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#47
R-T-B
natr0nWould you ever think gpu's would have to comply with government agencies back in the day...
My man pretty much every electronic thing since the dawn of PC goes through all kinds of regulatory approvals before massmarket sale.
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#48
mb194dc
So easy for people in China to just get a full 4090 via a third country... Same as Russia has been doing.

Guess selling a legit one in China makes them look better.

Unless they stop selling to all third countries that will turn just ship or truck them in to China anyway pretty pointless.
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#49
goodeedidid
How can the US-government ban this product when it is being made in China? Can somebody explain the dynamics to me? :D
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#50
Assimilator
goodeedididHow can the US-government ban this product when it is being made in China? Can somebody explain the dynamics to me? :D
I don't know where you get your information from, because no Western graphics cards are manufactured in the PRC, but in Taiwan.
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