China is seeing a renewed wave of restrictions on Nvidia products, as local customs authorities have declined to issue import permits for the GeForce RTX 5090D v2. This is a specially modified version engineered explicitly for the Chinese market.
The RTX 5090D v2 was conceived as a compromise, intended to comply with new US export regulations. It features reduced AI computational capabilities and lower memory bandwidth (24GB of GDDR7 on a 384-bit bus, compared to the standard version’s 32GB on a 512-bit bus). However, it now appears that even this “lightened” model is subject to a ban. Compounding Nvidia’s difficulties, the GeForce RTX 5090D v2 lacks alternative sales markets.
Amidst these challenges, the regular RTX 5090 is also becoming less accessible. Shipments are constrained, and prices are escalating globally. For instance, in South Korea, the cost of specific variants (such as the Asus TUF RTX 5090 OC and Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090 White) increased by approximately $300–$400 in a single day, now reaching around $5300.
China has already introduced its own gaming graphics card with 12GB of memory. However, it is priced similarly to the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti while falling short of the GeForce RTX 3060 in terms of performance.
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