Just when you think the prices of consumer graphics cards (GPUs) are now stable after the crypto crash, tighter restrictions on exporting advanced GPUs to China appeared to have sparked a demand for Nvidia’s flagship GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs. Apparently, new Chinese factories have sprung up to acquire these high-end consumer GPUs, strip them of their graphics chips and memory modules, and repurpose them into AI accelerators for AI workloads.
If you’re wondering why repurpose the RTX 4090 when the card itself is already capable of AI workloads, it seems that these converted AI accelerators sport a compact blower-style cooler. The placement of the power connector is also different on these custom boards. Presumably, these tweaks will optimise these cards for use in data centres. And it’s not just the RTX 4090 cards. With limited stock of such high-end GPUs, the factories are also turning to older RTX 3090 cards.
The recent export controls are the latest effort b…
