AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs Witness Price Surge In China As NVIDIA RTX 4090 Gets Banned

Retailers in China have bumped up the prices of AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs as the ban on NVIDIA's RTX 4090 is now officially implemented.

With the US ban on the GeForce RTX 4090, an "artificial" shortage has been created in Chinese markets, as prices have soared to new levels. This has resulted in gamers and professionals seeking other solutions and AMD GPUs are the first that come to mind. But since the demand for RTX 4090 was already high, retailers are now taking advantage of the situation and increasing the prices of the next best graphics card on the market, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT.

For a quick background recap, the US has officially implemented steps to hinder the growth of AI in China, by cutting off the supply of one of the necessary components, GPUs. Despite all the political fiasco, NVIDIA's flagship Ada GPU has somehow been dragged into the field as the GPU exceeds 600 GB/s memory bandwidth barrier, or 4800 TOPS.

Since the GPU comes under the T&C of the restriction, it has been banned by the US as an export product, which has prompted a shortage in the Chinese industry. While board partners drastically increased their shipments of the GPU as soon as the news surfaced, it still had no effect as sources reveal that the pricing of the GeForce RTX 4090 has reached an all-time high. But while these GPUs are eligible from NAC (a process that approves eligibility for imports of restricted GPUs in China), the retail market is fully taking advantage of raising prices of high-end GPUs.

Based on a report from MyDrivers, the GeForce RTX 4090 is now being retailed between around 20,000 yuan, as retail channels are able to acquire it around the 15000 yuan to 17000 yuan price bracket. This is a tremendous increase since the initial MSRP of the flagship Ada GPU was around 12,999 yuan. Despite the huge price, the GPU is still out of retail across major Chinese marketplaces, which suggests that the shortage has had a widespread effect on the retailing channels.

Now with the shortage of a highly demanding product, competitors have stepped in to fill the gap in mainstream markets. It is disclosed that AMD's flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX is now being seen as an alternative as it also packs 24 GB of VRAM which is great for professionals & content creators. The export restriction could prove to be a "blessing in disguise" for Team Red since it now gives them the opportunity to make their market offerings more compelling to potential buyers.

But as good as that may sound, it looks like the RX 7900 XTX itself is facing price hikes across the board as retailers use the RTX 4090 ban as a tactic to bump up the rates. The recent 11.11 deals saw the RX 7900 XTX hit prices of around 7000 RMB or around $1000 US but those are expected to be inflated by 200-500 RMB or around $1050 US.

The ban on the GeForce RTX 4090 has also created a "domino" effect amongst the other SKUs within the Ada Lovelace lineup since the GeForce RTX 4080 and the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti have also witnessed an increase in pricing.