Nvidia skirts US sanctions with new GeForce RTX 4090D GPU

Nvidia has announced a new version of the RTX 4090 designed to comply with US export regulations regarding China.

Since the US government imposed sanctions on high-end AI chips being exported to China, Nvidia has been working on engineering a GPU that could get around the regulations and maintain its share of the lucrative Chinese market. Now Nvidia has officially unveiled the RTX 4090D, a modified version of the existing RTX 4090 GPU.

Earlier rumors suggested that Nvidia was planning to focus on modifying the RTX 4090, instead of the allegedly upcoming RTX 4090 Super. The RTX 4090D features a reduced core count, 14592 compared to the 16384 of the standard RTX 4090. In addition, the Tensor core count has also been cut down from 512 to 456.

Reduced cores but the same memory

For memory, the RTX 4090D keeps 24GB GDDR6X memory, operating at a clock speed and 21Gbps, using a 384-bit interface, thus maintaining consistency between the standard model of RTX 4090 and the RTX 4090D. Another change is the TDP or Thermal Design Power has been reduced by 25W, down to 425W compared to the standard model.

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Some Nvidia board partners have already revealed designs for the RTX 4090D, and unsurprisingly they closely resemble the RTX 4090 counterparts. The official price also remains the same as the standard model, despite the reduction in specifications. In addition, the option for factory overclocking seems to have been removed from all models of RTX 4090D.

The US Government has indicated that it is unhappy with Nvidia’s continued attempts to re-engineer chips to comply with regulations, with US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo saying that “China is not our friend,” and warning Nvidia that “If you redesign a chip around a particular cut line that enables them to do AI, I’m going to control it the very next day.”