China-only Nvidia RTX 4090 D Specifications leak – No OC Support

Nvidia’s planned RTX 4090 D (Dragon) GPU will feature a lower TDP and no overclocking support

Following the ban of their RTX 4090 graphics card in China, Nvidia hopes to skirt the US’ AI export regulations by creating a new China-only GPU model. This new graphics card is the GeForce RTX 4090 D (Dragon). This GPU is a less powerful version of their RTX 4090 that sits below the US’ AI performance limits.

According to a new report from Benchlife.info, Nvidia’s new RTX 4090 model will feature a lower power limit of 425 watts. The GPU is also said to lack overclocking support. The RTX 4090 D is also said to feature fewer CUDA cores than Nvidia’s original RTX 4090. It is also said feature base/boost clock speeds of 2280MHz and 2520 MHz. This base clock is slightly higher than a normal RTX 4090, though the boost clock speed is identical.

Nvidia’s overclocking limits are designed to keep their GPU’s performance levels below the US’ 4800 TOPS limit. Overclocking from Nvidia’s partners could trigger US export controls, as would the ability to easily enable RTX 4090 performance levels on their downgraded China-only model.

Sadly, the exact CUDA core counts and memory specifications of Nvidia’s RTX 4090 graphics card are unknown. It is likely that Nvidia has downclocked the memory of their new GPU to help lower AI performance. Memory bandwidth is critical for AI workloads. This could make memory performance a key downgrade for Nvidia’s China-only GPU. There is more to AI than raw compute.

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