A special Frost edition Gainward RTX 5090 D has been spotted ahead of launch, proving once again Chi

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The launch of the Nvidia RTX 50 series cards is just around the corner. To mark the occasion, Gainward has shown off an impressive-looking frosty D, and I really want it.

As spotted by , and verified by checking out , the all-white RTX 5090 D has snowflakes all over it, and sharp thorns circling the central fan. It also has Gainward written on both the back and wrapped around the side. Though I'm usually not a fan of a company plastering its name all over its tech, I'll forgive it here as I'd also take credit for something so pretty.

The D series of graphics cards was a workaround implemented first in the cards, due to export restriction laws in the US for products headed to China, specifically surrounding AI and performance. They have a lower peak compute performance, by measuring and limiting total processing performance (TPP) and performance density (TD). This means the 5090 D spotted in the image above won't be as powerful as the cards you will be able to buy soon.

While battling with these graphics card sanctions, late last year over its acquisition of Mellanox Technologies, an Israeli chip maker.

The Chinese government reportedly accepted the original seven-billion-dollar deal, as long as Mellanox Technologies [[link]] makes its technology available to the Chinese market within 90 days of Nvidia getting them. Sanctions prohibited tech from getting across to China, and lawmakers expressed displeasure with the RTX 4090 D workaround at the time too.

We don't yet know the specific performance of the RTX 5090 D card just yet. It has the same amount of RAM as the usual release (32 GB of GDDR7) and should also have the same amount of CUDA cores (21,760) but we don't yet have a retail price, or know when it will launch in China.

Despite the , the 5090D is just one in a long line of China-exclusive gaming tech that I'd love to get my grubby mitts on, just for the aesthetic. Razer, for instance, has an excellent collab with Pokémon in China, including (one of my favourites) the . Even the recent Evangelion-themed , adorned with a red theme and gold accents, can only be bought in China.

However, one can always hold out hope (though [[link]] if we do get that gorgeous Frost theme, it will hopefully be in a non-D model) as the rather great used to be exclusive to the Chinese market. The same is true of , which can now be purchased worldwide.

The RTX 5090 is a gorgeous bit of tech as is but Gainward has won me over with its icy aesthetic. It may not be as strong but that all-white build is calling my name.