ASUS RTX 4090D Outperforming RTX 4090

30.03.2024 - 15:13 / gamerant.com / Priye Rai

ASUS has reportedly pushed the potential performance of Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090D, a graphics card exclusively built for China. To achieve this boosted raw power, ASUS released its own version of the RTX 4090D, under the ROG Strix brand, with a higher overclocking limit.

The US has certain export restrictions for its companies that sell high-end GPUs in China. In view of that, Nvidia engineered the RTX 4090D, a China-exclusive version of its RTX 4090 GPU, with fewer cores and lower TDP. Precisely, the 4090D offers only 14,592 CUDA cores and 425W TDP, compared to 16,384 CUDA cores and 450W TDP of the RTX 4090. However, this reduced potential seems to have been overcome by ASUS's custom RTX 4090D model.

After taking ASUS' RTX 4090D variant for a spin in overclock mode, HKEPC reported seeing a significantly improved performance in various GPU tests, even better than that of the original RTX 4090 available in the US. Apparently, ASUS managed to pull this off by introducing a 600W overclock limit, which can be configured using apps such as GPU Tweak for its ROG Strix RTX 4090D, a top-tier GPU in ASUS' range of custom GPU variants. However, for the most part, the RTX 4090 and RTX 4090D are identical, except that the latter packs the AD102-250 GPU which has comparatively fewer cores.

Thanks to the increased overclocking potential offered in ASUS' RTX 4090D, users can dial up its TDP from 425W to 600W (~41% increase) and its memory from 1313MHz to 1500MHz (~14% increase). As per the source, this unhinged performance allows ROG Strix RTX 4090D to outperform the original RTX 4090 by a margin. In the 3DMark Speed Way test, ASUS' variant scored 10,818 points when overclocked, whereas the RTX 4090 had a score of 10,175 in factory configuration. Moreover, in the 3DMark Port Royal test, ASUS' variant got 26,666 points compared to 26,227 for the original RTX 4090. While this performance boost exists on paper, it can't be said for sure if the overclocked RTX 4090D from ASUS will fare better than the RTX 4090 for games that support Nvidia's ray-tracing technology.

By pushing the overclock limit further with its RTX 4090D variant, ASUS has allowed its China-based customers to potentially meet, if not surpass, the performance of the original RTX 4090. The tech giant would hope this move brings some relief to the Chinese buyers after the recent withdrawal of the RTX 4090 from the Chinese market, following the imposition of the US' new export rules.

The ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 OC Edition may be one of its largest GPUs ever, but the patented design supports the most potent overclocking potential out of its peers.

With a vapor chamber in tow, the ROG Strix comes in both black and white and does not disappoint in either