Nvidia's cut-down version of the RTX 4090 graphics card for the Chinese market is coming, and we're told the GPU is on track for its rumored release, likely in early 2024.
This new twist, supposedly called the RTX 4090 D (with the 'D' referring to Dragon, as 2024 is the Year of the Dragon in China), has also seen some specs leaked.
Previously we weren't told anything about the specs at all, except that it will apparently use an AD102-250 chip with quite a few CUDA cores disabled compared to the full-featured RTX 4090 flagship (with AD102-300 or 301) .
But now we have clock speeds thanks to a well-known leaker on X (formerly Twitter), MEGAsizeGPU.
4090D is on schedule, without delay. More specs: Base clock 2280 (higher than 4090) Boost clock 2520 (same as 4090)December 6, 2023
While the RTX 4090 D's stock boost clock will remain the same as the stock RTX 4090, we're told the base clock will actually be bumped up a bit to 2280MHz. That could be to at least partially offset some of the performance loss from dropping some of the graphics cores.
We're not told any other specs, and in particular there's no information on exactly how bold Nvidia could be with its core improvements on this RTX 4090 D variant.
Analysis: Are we looking at a February launch date?
It's likely that if the RTX 4090 D graphics card is real, it will be available soon. As the leaker notes further down the thread of that tweet, they have all the specs – including the aforementioned core count – but aren't sharing them to protect their source.
MEGAsizeGPU apparently has the box art – and if it's ready, it once again suggests that the RTX 4090 D could hit shelves soon. Given that the Year of the Dragon starts in February 2024, that seems like the most likely launch date at this point – in terms of Nvidia pushing this out sharply, which it will certainly want to do to tap into the profits that can be made in China. (Some rumors even point to a possible January launch).
The other thing we don't know for sure is availability and whether the RTX 4090 D will be a China exclusive. This seems likely given the name of the variant, and that it is specifically designed to circumvent the US import ban, allowing Nvidia to capitalize on a Chinese market desperate for these high-end Lovelace graphics cards. Demand for RTX 4090s has been so high, and so many have been shipped to Asia, that prices in the US and elsewhere have unfortunately actually skyrocketed.
Through VideoCardz