Why AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX And XT GPUs Are Suddenly A Hot Commodity In China

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Buckle in gamers, we have more consumer GPUs that are potentially going to help the ever-growing AI machine. Initially, NVIDIA's powerhouse GeForce RTX 4090 was the first target of acquisition for enterprising outfits in China. When those became sparse, even the last generation GeForce RTX 3090 became appealing due to its 24GB of VRAM. 

Team red is no longer safe, with reports that AMD's flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX is rapidly climbing the ranks of desirability in this rampant demand for GPUs in China. Its second in command, the Radeon RX 7900 XT, is also a prime target. 

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Gamers are familiar with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX for its ability to knock on the door of the GeForce RTX 4090 in terms of rasterized performance. While packing slower 24GB of GDDR6 VRAM, it still sports a 384-bit bus with 960GB/s bandwidth. This is making it an attractive option for VRAM-hungry data center style use cases. 

While data center specific GPUs are preferred, due to the recent U.S Government ban on certain AI products that meet a hardware threshold, supply has been sparse. Even the Radeon RX 7900 XT with 20GB of VRAM is in danger of being scooped up en masse. 

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The Radeon RX 7900 XTX carries with it an MSRP of $999, far cheaper than the $1,599 GeForce RTX 4090. The latter GPU has recently seen some retail pressure in the U.S market as availability quickly dwindles. But as it applies to China, it's on the banned list, hence the increased demand for AMD's high-end GPUs.

AMD seems to be having some trouble resupplying its Chinese board partners with Navi 31 GPUs, although the situation is still developing and not yet at a critical juncture. There also appears to be no risk of these powerful AMD GPUs being banned like the GeForce RTX 4090 has been, so that's good news. 

Gamers are looking forward to the supposed GeForce RTX Super refresh slated for 2024. Pricing and availability pressure of existing GPUS due to the Chinese market fluctuations may dampen some enthusiasm if they spill over to the new lineup. 

To make matters worse, the GeForce RTX 4090 has experienced a noticeable increase in price for gamers. If the demand continues at this pace, there is a good chance that gamers will also witness the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX get the same treatment with higher pricing.