The arrival of the “Dragon”: The RTX 4090D is official. (Source huangshunping via Unsplash)
At the end of November, the first rumors emerged that Nvidia was planning a “Dragon” version of the Geforce RTX 4090 specifically tailored to the Chinese market in order to circumvent US trade restrictions.
Around four weeks later, this RTX 4090D is official: on the Chinese Nvidia website The slightly weaker flagship is listed and starts in China at a price of 13,000 yuan, the equivalent of around 1,660 dollars.
Just like the model, the RTX 4090D is based on the AD102 chip, which, however, “only” has 14,592 instead of 16,384 CUDA cores. The tensor cores and the streaming multiprocessors have also been reduced, which now stand at 114 and 456 respectively.
On the memory side, there are no changes between the RTX 4090 and the Dragon version: In both cases, 24 GB of GDDR6X memory is installed, which is addressed via a 384-bit memory interface.
The boost clock also remains the same at officially 2,520 MHz, but the Nvidia Dragon can have a slightly higher base of 2,280 MHz. The power consumption of the China edition is limited to 425 watts, and there is probably no overclocking potential at the factory.
| Geforce RTX 4090D (»Dragon«) | Geforce RTX 4090 | |
| Chip | AD102-250 | AD102-300 |
| Number of cores | CUDA: 14.592 Tensor: 114 SM: 456 |
CUDA: 16.384 Tensor: 128 SM: 512 |
| Timing | Basis: 2.280 MHz Boost: 2.520 MHz |
Basis: 2.235 MHz Boost: 2.520 MHz |
| Storage | 24 GB GDDR6X 384-Bit |
24 GB GDDR6X 384-Bit |
| TDP | 425 Watt | 450 Watt |
In addition to the reference model, the first custom design manufacturers have begun to introduce their variations of the RTX 4090D for the Chinese market. Like the portal Videocardz reported, these have so far primarily been Zotac and MSI.
It is extremely unlikely that the RTX 4090D will find its way to Europe, but AMD also had similar plans with a “Golden Rabbit Edition” of the RX 7900 – until it suddenly became available in European stores as a standalone offering.
Nvidia’s special edition of the RTX 4090 – is it a toothless dragon or would you also welcome the GPU here? Do you think the (converted) price of 1,600 dollars for such an RTX 4090D is appropriate or should it be even cheaper compared to the regular version? Let us know in the comments!
