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In late 2024, NVIDIA was reportedly developing a customized GeForce RTX 5090D for the Chinese market, as per Tom’s Hardware. But with U.S. export curbs tightening, Chinese media outlet mydrivers reports that NVIDIA has now suspended shipments of the card to AIC (Add-in-Card) partners.
According to mydrivers, while there’s no official sales ban, NVIDIA’s move has effectively frozen the market—AIC partners and distributors have stopped selling the RTX 5090D. The report adds that NVIDIA has already cut off supply, halted new orders in Q2, and canceled all unfulfilled ones.
Certain models from brands like Galax, MSI, and Gigabyte are still on shelves, but likely not for long, the report notes.
Though the exact reason behind the ban remains unclear, the report suggests that it is likely the RTX 5090D crossed a red line set by U.S. export controls—perhaps its compute power wasn’t cut back enough, or memory bandwidth was still too high.
Mydrivers points out that the scenario reportedly sets a hard ceiling for what NVIDIA and AMD can sell in China. Going forward, performance may be capped at RTX 4090 levels, it adds.
According to a report from Commercial Times, NVIDIA unveiled the RTX 50 series graphics cards at CES on January 7, including the RTX 5090 D. Compared to the RTX 5090, the RTX 5090 D shows no differences in gaming performance. The key distinction lies in its AI performance, which has been reduced from 3,352 TOPS to 2,375 TOPS—a reduction of approximately 29.15%, as highlighted in the report.
NVIDIA Struggles with China-tailored Variations amid Escalating Curbs
RTX 5090D is just among one of NVIDIA’s latest chip under U.S. curbs lately. In April, U.S. government imposed new restrictions on the company’s H20 AI chips—models specifically developed for the Chinese market.
Nevertheless, NVIDIA has been trying to find out a solution amid tightening U.S. controls. According to Reuters, citing the Information, the company has informed key Chinese customers—like Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent—that it’s redesigning its AI chips to meet U.S. export rules. Samples of the new chip could be ready by June, as noted by the reports.
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(Photo credit: NVIDIA)
