The GeForce RTX 4090 is an undeniably powerful graphics card for gaming and even some professional workloads, with the latter strength now attracting the interests of the AI market in China. So much so, in fact, that countless Nvidia GPUs are meeting grizzly AI server farm fates, with frustrating consequences for gamers.
Recently, the U.S. federal government implemented an export ban on AI chips to China, which in turn affected Nvidia graphics cards like the GeForce RTX 4090. This has had dramatic effects on both sides of the globe, with RTX 4090 prices skyrocketing in North America and countless Chinese AI cards using parts from the RTX 4090.
The consequences of the latter are becoming more apparent by the day, with images shared by I_Leak_VN, via X, painting a dire picture. Their post claims to show an “RTX 4090 AI Blower warehouse”, in which boxes of the graphics cards can be seen stacked on top of one another.
Worse still, these merchants are apparently charging around twice as much as you’d normally expect to pay for a GeForce RTX 4090 in China. For context, if this was using the US MSRP, you’d be coughing up over $3,000 for the graphics card. That’s somehow even more than the RTX Titan was, back in 2018.
While this is unfortunate for Chinese gamers, those in Western regions shouldn’t worry too much about this affecting GeForce RTX 4090 stock in the long term. Unlike the cryptocurrency boom a few years ago, this demand is ultimately region-specific, and we should see prices for the flagship graphics card normalize in the coming months, if not weeks.
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