Yesterday NVIDIA and several manufacturers presented a video card GeForce RTX 4090D, a stripped-down version of the original RTX 4090 intended for China. This new graphics card features fewer cores (CUDA/Tensor) and slightly lower power consumption while maintaining other specs such as 24GB GDDR6X VRAM and all the Ada Lovelace features such as DLSS 3.5 and RTX support. All AI features are also available for use, although reducing the number of Tensor Cores will result in lower performance.
Several models from MSI, GALAX, ZOTAC, Inno3D and others will only be available for purchase at the end of January. The launch is said to be towards the end of January, which would be around the same time as NVIDIA’s “SUPER” series cards, the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER (January 24) and RTX 4080 SUPER (January 31).
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090D will be released just in time for the Chinese New Year on January 21, 2024, which will mark the Year of the Dragon. One interesting hint is that the “D” in the RTX 4090D’s name stands for “Dragon”. As for the cost of the card, the card will officially be sold for 12,999 yuan, which corresponds to the same MSRP price at which the original RTX 4090 was sold in China. In terms of $1,840, which is 15% higher, but also taking into account regional taxes. Some models, such as the ZOTAC RTX 4090D Trinity and 4090D PGF, are already available on JD.com for RMB 13,999 and RMB 16,999 respectively.
In terms of performance, gaming performance is expected to decrease by approximately 10%and the card consumes less power with a TGP of 425W, which is standard across all variants as they all have the same clock speeds as overclocking is limited.
The reason for limiting overclocking is that factory overclocked models can easily violate the TPP parameters set by US regulations, and this could cause problems for the new RTX 4090D, just like the original RTX 4090. As such, partners should follow NVIDIA guidelines to ensure that ultimately this will not happen.
According to I_Leak_VN, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090D will also be available in Vietnam around the same January time frame as in China. Vietnam was on the list of countries where sales of the RTX 4090 were limited.
Overall, the card is better than nothing, but the price isn’t that great for Chinese consumers. It remains to be seen how close the RTX 4080 SUPER will be to the RTX 4090D in gaming performance as it may be a better buy, but for users who prefer more VRAM, the 4090D may be the only option on NVIDIA’s side that allows for more than 20GB of VRAM.
