Tuesday, November 26th 2024

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090D "China Edition": A Regular RTX 5090 SKU with Firmware Modification

NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 50-series is expected to make a debut during the CES 2025 show in January. However, NVIDIA serves a lot of markets, and its significant presence is also recorded in the Chinese market as well. Hence, the company has prepared its "Dragon" version of the top-of-the-line GPU versions for Chinese gamers, complying with export regulations that forbid Chinese entities from acquiring GPUs powerful enough to train AI models. NVIDIA appears to be developing "D" variants for both RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 cards, but we only have the confirmation for the GeForce RTX 5090D so far, thanks to MEGAsizeGPU. However, a new leak from the Chinese Chiphell forum points to RTX5090D having the same hardware specification as the regular RTX 5090.

In the last generation, RTX 4090 and RTX 4090D were different, with the RTX 4090D having lower TGP and core count. However, this time around, NVIDIA will physically leave the same expected GB202 "Blackwell" die with CUDA core count and memory, only to lock certain features through firmware. Since the primary goal of export regulations the US is imposing is slowing down Chinese access to GPUs powerful enough to train and inference AI models, we expect to see the RTX 5090D with reduced Tensor core capability and maybe a lowered frequency of the overall chip. This could limit some applications from using these Tensor cores for inference, while NVIDIA's AI features like DLSS could also be a bit slowed down. NVIDIA may find a way to allow DLSS and other gaming-related technologies to operate normally while other general-purpose AI tasks are limited. Readers may recall Low Hash Rate (LHR) cards during the crypto mining boom, which had a similar firmware lock to cap mining hash rate.
Sources: MEGAsizeGPU, Chiphell, via VideoCardz
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18 Comments on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090D "China Edition": A Regular RTX 5090 SKU with Firmware Modification

#1
Caring1
That won't stop China doing what they currently do to the 4090s, stripping the core and vram off to bypass export regulations.
Posted on Reply
#2
wNotyarD
Wait, will the only restriction be firmware-based? The Chinese will break this restriction in record time.
Posted on Reply
#3
ebivan
this is gonna be the same great success as the cards that had the firmware-mining-lock ;)
Posted on Reply
#4
R0H1T
Caring1That won't stop China doing what they currently do to the 4090s, stripping the core and vram off to bypass export regulations.
Well if the US Nvidia wasn't interested in making billions upon billions they could easily stop that! Guess why the govt's still allowing this o_O
Posted on Reply
#5
A Computer Guy
wNotyarDWait, will the only restriction be firmware-based? The Chinese will break this restriction in record time.
Ha ha, jokes on the US Gov't as they somehow forgot China can write firmware long time.
Posted on Reply
#6
Bwaze
wNotyarDWait, will the only restriction be firmware-based? The Chinese will break this restriction in record time.
Remember the anti-cryptomining RTX 30x0 LHR models, that were be released to satisfy the gamers, and which should be crappy at mining? Nvidia themselves "accidentally" released the driver that had those limiters removed!

No hacking was necessary.

:-P
Posted on Reply
#7
NoneRain
NVIDIA will do anything to bypass regulations, because missing China's market is equivalent of not selling those products to the rest of the world.
Posted on Reply
#8
mb194dc
It's a charade, of course third parties will import regular 5090 in to China from neighbouring countries. Exactly the same as why the sanctions on Russia totally failed.
Posted on Reply
#9
Space Lynx
Astronaut
If Nvidia was smart, they would triple the costs of the 5090, 4 grand MSRP, and it would still sell out thanks to AI "hobbyist farms" and China, etc. So, I guess Jensen isn't that smart after all.
Posted on Reply
#10
AGlezB
Companies will always find clever ways to bypass stupid sanctions.
By "stupid sanctions" I mean those that were put in place to save face but everyone and their mother knew weren't going actually do anything more than inflate the price of the products.
Posted on Reply
#11
phints
5090D is probably still faster than 99.9% of people's GPUs so it's not like it matters.
Posted on Reply
#12
TSiAhmat
phints5090D is probably still faster than 99.9% of people's GPUs so it's not like it matters.
i assume it will be second to none
Posted on Reply
#13
Leiesoldat
lazy gamer & woodworker
Defying export regulations with a silly firmware lock isn't something any sane corporation would test with the US Government. With how happy the incoming administration is to go after tech companies, I thought Jensen Huang would be smarter about selling to China. What's he going to do if export control comes down hard and says any tech that Nvidia makes is banned from being sold in China?
Posted on Reply
#14
kapone32
LeiesoldatDefying export regulations with a silly firmware lock isn't something any sane corporation would test with the US Government. With how happy the incoming administration is to go after tech companies, I thought Jensen Huang would be smarter about selling to China. What's he going to do if export control comes down hard and says any tech that Nvidia makes is banned from being sold in China?
Find a back door.
Posted on Reply
#15
neatfeatguy
@AleksandarK
Last sentence, you're missing a letter "h" in the word "Hash".
Readers may recall Low Has Rate (LHR) cards during the crypto mining boom, which had a similar firmware lock to cap mining hash rate.
Posted on Reply
#16
phxrider
wNotyarDWait, will the only restriction be firmware-based? The Chinese will break this restriction in record time.
I was thinking the exact same thing... it's almost like this is the goal.
Posted on Reply
#17
TheinsanegamerN
LeiesoldatDefying export regulations with a silly firmware lock isn't something any sane corporation would test with the US Government. With how happy the incoming administration is to go after tech companies, I thought Jensen Huang would be smarter about selling to China. What's he going to do if export control comes down hard and says any tech that Nvidia makes is banned from being sold in China?
Well, if they DID get pissed, you'd more likely see the petty hand slapping you've been seeing, where the US sets a restriction, nvidia meets that restriction, then the government whines "nooooo you cant we lowered the restrictions now waaah", rinse and repeat.

If someone actually grew a pair and banned all chinese sales, then resellers from non US aligned countries are gonna start buying a LOT of GPUs. Then resell them in china.
Posted on Reply
#18
Wirko
Should be named Snake, not Dragon, unless it starts selling before 29th January next year.
Posted on Reply
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