The RTX 4090 is currently the fastest gaming graphics card, but it is not allowed to be sold in China. Dealers therefore use a trick to still sell this graphics card for a lot of money.
The RTX 4090 is one of the most popular graphics cards in China, but US authorities have banned the export of the graphics cards to China. Now retailers and players are looking for other ways to get their hands on the coveted graphics card.
One option now is to buy complete PCs and resell the graphics card. This sounds crazy, but traders continue to make a profit from it. The RTX 4090 is so in demand that it is even worth selling gaming PCs for a lot of money. This is unintentionally reminiscent of times when scalpers sold graphics cards for thousands of euros on eBay.
RTX 4090 is in high demand, prices and demand have exploded in the last few months
Why is the graphics card so popular? There are various reasons for this. On the one hand, it is currently considered the fastest graphics card you can buy in 2024. On the other hand, the RTX 4090 is a popular alternative to Nvidia’s official AI graphics cards: On the one hand, the H100 and A100 GPUs are also limited and cost a small fortune due to the high demand. In the AI sector there is currently “only” one graphics card from AMD as an alternative, but AMD and Nvidia have been arguing for a long time about who has the fastest graphics card on offer.
For many people, a gaming graphics card with appropriate AI performance is just right.
Is this type of resale worth it? Yes, and how. The colleagues at WCCFTech report that in one case a buyer bought 20 finished gaming PCs with RTX 4090. He had to pay 32,000 Chinese yuan for each system, which is the equivalent of around 4,190 euros per system. But the dealers make a huge profit just from reselling them.
This is mainly because the customers of these retailers often come from the professional sector and are interested in the AI performance of the GPUs. And many of these customers almost don’t care about the price they have to pay for an RTX 4090.
Just for comparison: you pay around 1,800 euros for an RTX 4090 in Germany. The price in China is more than double.
What are developments in China? In China, unsurprisingly, people are trying to become more independent of exports from the United States. In the largest country in Asia, a lot of money has been invested in the development of processors, graphics cards and other components for months. The aim is to free oneself from dependence on Western technologies and sanctions.
One such proprietary development is the KX-7000 series. This is a processor that the Chinese company Zhaoxin introduced for consumers and gamers. And this processor looks really promising. The new processor can’t get past AMD and Intel yet, but it could still become an insider tip:
A new processor could become an insider tip for gamers – it doesn’t come from AMD or Intel