The US recently banned the sale of Nvidia’s most powerful graphics cards to China. This created a graphics card crisis in the country and led to an increase in prices. Retail companies, on the other hand, started selling graphics cards used in laptops, such as the RTX 4080M and RTX 4090M, by converting them into desktops.
Desktop version prepared for RTX 4080M and RTX 4090M
Chinese e-commerce companies have started redesigning the mobile versions of RTX 40 series cards for use in desktops. Thus, desktop variants of next-generation graphics cards are being offered at more affordable prices.
Postings on hardware forums have shown that mobile graphics cards like the GeForce RTX 4080M are being sold for desktop use. These models were originally designed for gaming laptops, but were made desktop with custom cooling solutions and simple PCB designs.
Dubbed “RTX 4080M desktop” and “RTX 4090M desktop”, the cards aim to be budget-friendly compared to the flagship RTX 4080 and RTX 4090. Combined with low-cost cooling solutions, the laptop models come with lower specs compared to the flagships.
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The “RTX 4080M desktop” variant reportedly offers 7424 CUDA cores and 12GB of GDDR6 memory. That’s a 24 percent drop in cores and 4GB less memory than the RTX 4080.
The “RTX 4090M desktop” suffers a significant loss with 9728 cores and 16GB VRAM. That’s a 40 percent drop from the standard RTX 4090’s core count and 8GB less VRAM.
Prices for the unofficial cards start at $420 for the RTX 4080M desktop and $560 for the RTX 4090M desktop. While their performance is not yet known, there is a possibility that Nvidia will ban the sale of these models.
