Technology

Did NVIDIA stop selling videocards in Russia?

kagis

https://www.pcmag.com/news/nvidia-to-stop-all-product-sales-to-russia

Nvidia Stops All Product Sales to Russia

March 5, 2022

So, yes, though I don't think that it matters a huge amount, since companies are just gonna re-export them out of China or Kazakhstan or wherever. I mean, it's not like the hardware has some kind of region-locking. It's a piece of consumer hardware, sold and resold anonymously all over the place. It's not some kind of specialized military hardware with four end customers and tight control over the movement of the product.

kagis

https://hardwaretimes.com/nvidia-loses-just-2-of-its-revenue-as-offices-are-shut-down-in-russia/

In October [2022], NVIDIA officially shut down all its operations in Russia as sales of both data center and consumer graphics cards were wrapped up. At the time, around 240 employees worked for the Santa Clara-based company. These folks were given the option to either relocate abroad or look for other jobs.

Furthermore, NVIDIA hardware has been banned from sale via official channels.

Fortunately for Team Green, the Russian Federation represented a minor market for its wide portfolio. Disclosures from the Q3 2022 earnings report indicate that the Federation accounted for just 2% of its revenue and 4% for the gaming business.

Although channel partners are forbidden to sell the latest GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards, Russian gamers can still procure them from the grey market.

It'll probably add cost and some risk of getting ripped off and no manufacturer's warranty, but I would be surprised if someone who wanted a new GPU couldn't continue to get ahold of one in Russia, given enough funds.

EDIT: Does make me wonder about Windows-side driver updates. Like, people here are talking about Linux. Windows requires driver signing, and I don't know if those signatures are region-specific.