Thursday, December 7th 2023

No Overclocking and Lower TGP for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D Edition for China

NVIDIA is preparing to launch the GeForce RTX 4090 D, or "Dragon" edition, designed explicitly for China. Circumventing the US export rules of GPUs that could potentially be used for AI acceleration, the GeForce RTX 4090 D is reportedly cutting back on overclocking as a feature. According to BenchLife, the AD102-250 GPU used in the RTX 4090 D will be a stranger to overclocking, as the card will not support it, possibly being disabled by firmware and/or physically in the die. The information from @Zed__Wang suggests that the Dragon version will be running at 2280 MHz base frequency, higher than the 2235 MHz of AD102-300 found in the regular RTX 4090, and 2520 MHz boost, matching the regular version.

Interestingly, the RTX 4090 D for China will also feature a slightly lower Total Graphics Power (TGP) of 425 Watts, down from the 450 Watts of the regular model. With memory configuration appearing to be the same, this new China-specific model will most likely perform within a few percent of the original design. Higher base frequency probably indicates a lack of a few CUDA cores to comply with the US export regulation policy and serve the Chinese GPU market. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D is scheduled for rollout in January 2024 in China, which is just a few weeks away.
Sources: Benchlife.info, via VideoCardz
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34 Comments on No Overclocking and Lower TGP for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D Edition for China

#26
londiste
Dr. DroBut perhaps the one to blame here is not Nvidia, who has a product and as a business, is interested in selling it, but the US Government's restrictions not being restrictive enough. If the product meets the allowed performance threshold and does not exceed the amount that has been defined by the order, it doesn't qualify as circumventing sanctions. They are simply releasing a product that meets the criteria defined by the government itself.

I'm sure AMD isn't allowed to sell Radeon Instinct MI300X to Chinese customers either, and supply them with a product that performs accordingly to allowed performance thresholds to the Chinese market instead.
This. Government says you are not allowed to sell GPUs (or Accelerators) that have 4800 TPP or more. Manufacturer redesigns their product so that it stays under the threshold government mandated. This is not circumventing sanctions.

AMD and others are not allowed to sell GPUs/Accelerators of the same class either. The difference here is the fact that Nvidia made something like $400M last quarter from China and others... didn't. :)
KissamiesI'm pretty sure that those limits will last as long as LHR on the 30 series cards.
LHR was not mandated by anybody. It was done and imposed by Nvidia. If 4090D is restricted in similar way - which I seriously doubt - and someone provides a way to make it open both Nvidia and whoever did it are in deep deep shit. That is a serious motivator not to try something like that.
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#27
720p low
I don't know beans about AI-related hardware, which I'm probably about to make painfully apparent, but except for a AI task to take a fractionally longer amount of time to complete, how does this 4090D variant become meaningfully less performant than regular AD102?

Or, let me put it another way. If the 4090 had originally come into the world designed precisely as this "D" model is, would that configuration have made it any less suitable or desirable for AI purposes?
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#28
pavle
720p lowOr, let me put it another way. If the 4090 had originally come into the world designed precisely as this "D" model is, would that configuration have made it any less suitable or desirable for AI purposes?
It would be less desirable only for the percent of disabled compute units inside, and because of quite possibly less wide path to memory and lesser amount of it.
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#29
jksoftware
I hope the us government bans that chip in China too. Especially with the way NVIDIA basically shipped the world's supply of 4090's to China before the ban went into effect. Screwing the rest of the world from getting any. Just outright ban AD102 from being able to be sold to China. Also make it immediate.
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#30
RedBear
Space LynxI don't think the government national defense lady is going to care one bit about any of that. She will seize them, already said as much. If Nvidia ships them there will be massive fines. Who knows.
That bit from Raimondo referred most likely to the H20 and possibly the other data-center GPUs that they're going to launch , this *expletive* GPU can't even get connected through SLI, it's usefulness for AI is limited to what kids can do in a garage.
ChomiqIf it can be used for AI it is bypassing sanctions, Nvidia's about to get slammed hard.
You can use even a 4080 for AI. For that matter you can train and run models even on much less high end GPUs. If the point is blocking any kind of AI they should directly block the sales of every GPU in China. They're going to do that sooner or later, of course, since they're just too stupid to realise that they're forcing China to develop its own alternatives after all. But they're also too stupid to realise that they're giving a window of opportunity to the Chinese. Let Raimondo keep achieving more records, she saw the introduction of the first Chinese 7nm chip, probably she will also see the first 5nm one before the end of 2024. Good job!
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#31
R-T-B
damricIs the current U.S. administration such bullheaded warmongers that they would start WWIII over some graphics cards that will be obsolete in a couple years?

yeah probably
We going to war with nvidia now?

Begun the GPU wars have.
Posted on Reply
#32
damric
R-T-BWe going to war with nvidia now?

Begun the GPU wars have.
omg I'm dying thank you
Posted on Reply
#33
b1k3rdude
Dr. DroSpeaking of grudges from the 1990's, I'm sure you refuse to buy Radeon cards to this day because ATI cheated at Quake III.
Hmm random much? If your gonna go down that particular rabbit hole, then you need to include nvidia and intel.

I have no brand loyality, and over the years I have bought a mixture of nVidia and Ati/Amd. Were it not for the high power consumtion, I would own a 7900 now instead of the 4080 atm.
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