The RTX 5090D is reportedly undergoing significant changes due to new US government export regulations. While the high-end RTX 50 series GPUs are anticipated later this year, NVIDIA’s RTX 5090D has faced a downgrade to meet these rules. Initially, the China-exclusive RTX 5090D was nearly on par with the full-capability RTX 5090 in gaming performance. However, the new regulations have led to a prohibition of the RTX 5090D in China.
According to these guidelines, the RTX 5090D cannot exceed 1.4 TB/s in memory bandwidth or a combined bandwidth (memory and I/O) over 1.7 TB/s. As a result, NVIDIA is introducing a downgraded version of the RTX 5090D. Although specifics aren’t officially out, reports suggest it will be significantly slower than the original.
Forum discussions indicate that the RTX 5090D will launch soon, but pricing remains undecided. If the rumors hold true, the price could reflect its reduced capabilities, possibly likening it to the RTX PRO 5000. This would mean a decrease from 21,760 CUDA cores to just 14,080, along with a hit to the memory interface and capacity. With a 384-bit memory bus width, the new RTX 5090D is expected to have 24 GB of GDDR7 VRAM, which is 8 GB less than its predecessor, resulting in a memory bandwidth of 1344 GB/s, aligning with US regulations.
These changes suggest the RTX 5090D will see a noticeable dip in gaming and productivity performance, losing its flagship status. Additionally, new updates from forum moderators hint at a May 20 release for the RTX 5060, coinciding with the launch of AMD’s RX 9060 XT. Previously, the RTX 5060 was expected a day earlier.
There’s also speculation about an upcoming powerhouse 80-class GPU, possibly the RTX 5080 Super or RTX 5080 Ti, anticipated before year’s end. This model might feature 24 GB of memory and, if resembling the RTX PRO 5000, could see a rebrand to RTX 5090D in China. However, these details remain unconfirmed.
