Like the previous generation of Nvidia graphics cards, the next-gen GPUs will have a special version for China, which will have limited power, particularly in AI tasks, due to US sanctions. Interestingly, this time, despite the reduced performance, the RTX 5090D has identical specifications to the full version of the graphics card.
Like the previous generation of Nvidia graphics cards, the next-gen GPUs will have a special version for China, which will have limited power, particularly in AI tasks, due to US sanctions. Interestingly, this time, despite the reduced performance, the RTX 5090D has identical specifications to the full version of the graphics card.
As Videocardz notes, without these restrictions, the Chinese market would not have received the new GB202 GPUs at all. However, the RTX 5090D has the same specifications as the RTX 5090.
Both cards feature 21,760 CUDA cores and 32GB of GDDR7 memory. However, to comply with sanctions restrictions, Nvidia has limited the performance of the Tensor Core. While the hardware in both cards is the same, the Chinese version’s Al TOPS has been reduced from 3352 to 2375. This means that the RTX 5090D offers only 70% of the AI performance.
Nvidia did not limit the clock speed, which remains the same for both models. The only aspect that is not specifically mentioned is whether this affected the TDP. In the RTX 4090D, the TDP was adjusted, but Nvidia had much more time to prepare the new generation.
As for the less powerful version of the RTX 5080D, it will be sold on the Chinese market without restrictions. According to NVIDIA’s specifications, the RTX 5080D will produce 1,801 AI TOPS, which fits within the sanction limits.
Recall that in the summer of 2023, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order blocking and regulating investments by American companies in Chinese technology companies. This applies to semiconductors, microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and artificial intelligence.
This forced Nvidia to release a special RTX 4090D graphics card, a slower version of its flagship graphics card for the Chinese market. It had 12,8% fewer CUDA cores to comply with US sanctions restrictions.
