NVIDIA RTX 4090 graphics cards with 48 GB of memory appear on the market for about $3000

Previously ITC.ua reported about NVIDIA RTX 4090 graphics cards with 48 GB or more of memory, they are now available for sale.

Such cards are mainly targeted at the artificial intelligence market — larger memory configurations allow for the execution of larger artificial intelligence models. NVIDIA itself has never released RTX 4090 with a 48GB memory configuration, their release is a manufacturer initiative or a customization. According to messages on Reddit, the video cards appeared in China, they can be purchased relatively freely, and there are photos and system data.

In most cases, these graphics cards are offered by companies that have created production lines focused on custom RTX 3090/4090 cards. Some cards have dual-sided PCBs borrowed from the compatible RTX 3090 Ti. Manufacturers add memory on both sides, two chips per controller, which allows for up to 48 GB of storage.

This is probably the first time we’ve seen a water-cooled RTX 4090 with 48 GB of memory. Video cards are equipped with «all-in-one» cooling systems with three-fan radiators, like some expensive gaming models. In the above case single-slot design, the card can be used in GPU clusters.

If you look at Chinese retail platforms, you will see many offers of similar graphics cards, the vast majority of them are dual-slot designs with an air turbine. The average price of these cards is more than $3000, which means they are almost twice as expensive as the RTX 4090 at the recommended price in China. However, since NVIDIA has stopped production altogether RTX 4090, even the official 24GB models are now very much more expensive.

For comparison, the NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada professional graphics card, which also has 48 GB of memory, has a recommended price of $6800, which is twice as expensive as the custom RTX 4090 with the same amount. For gamers, this seems like a waste of money, but for working with language models and the like, it’s actually beneficial.

It’s probably only a matter of time before the RTX 5090 comes out with 64 GB or even 96 GB of memory. Unfortunately, this also means more GPU fraud and less offerings for gamers. It is unlikely that NVIDIA will do anything to prevent this, given the company’s rather limited response to past cases.

Source: VideoCardz