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In context: Nvidia recently rolled out the GeForce RTX 4090D and RTX 4080 Super. The RTX 4090D hit the scene in December as a Chinese sanctions-compliant variant with reduced core counts and lower power consumption versus the original RTX 4090. The following month saw the launch of the RTX 4080 Super – a slightly faster RTX 4080 – that caught everyone's attention with its $999 price point – a $200 discount over its vanilla sibling.
The amount of VRAM on these GPUs may already seem like overkill, but some enterprising Chinese modders decided to take things to the next level. An AI enthusiast stumbled upon two fascinating modded GPUs with twice the memory over their originals. There's a GeForce RTX 4090D with an insane 48GB of VRAM and a 32GB RTX 4080 Super.
The mysterious SKUs are popping up for rent on AutoDL, a Chinese cloud computing service that rents out servers for AI workloads. The value proposition is nuts if you can even access the service – it requires a Chinese phone number to sign up. AutoDL prices are more than reasonable at just $0.03 per hour for the RTX 4080 Super 32GB. The outrageous VRAM capacities of these modded cards could give them a significant performance boost for specific AI and professional workloads that thrive on graphics memory.
It's true, and the speed is fine.
– �'é¾Â�-�... (@bdsqlsz) August 9, 2024
I checked it out.
It seems that are 32g4080 and 48g4090 in China at the end of June.
48g 4090 price is about 2500$.ðÂÂÂ
At least it's cheaper than the A6000. https://t.co/K4koNUUMTm
Doubling the memory likely involved some serious PCB re-engineering and not just a straight VRAM chip swap. The standard RTX 4090D has 24GB spread across 12 GDDR6X modules, while the RTX 4080 holds 16GB across eight modules. Increasing that twofold would require non-existent 4GB GDDR6X chips.
As the tipster points out, designing custom PCBs with VRAM modules mounted on both sides is a more plausible solution. This modification would allow using existing 2GB GDDR6X chips while still reaching those lofty capacities.
The modded GPUs have been circulating in China since at least late June. Pricing on the RTX 4090D 48GB is said to be around $2,500 – a premium over Nvidia's official 12,999 yuan ($1,815) MSRP for the standard 24GB model.
With AI becoming such a hot commodity, there's clearly demand for graphics cards with VRAM pushed to the extreme. Whether average consumers should care about stuff like this is another story.