WTF?! A tech restore channel just lately bought its arms on what seemed to be an unboxed however model new Asus TUF GeForce RTX 4090 with that contemporary protecting movie on and every part. Nonetheless, upon cracking it open, they found one thing that left them floored – the GPU was really an RTX 3080 Ti disguised in unimaginable element.
The GPU inside wasn’t Nvidia’s newest AD102 “Ada Lovelace” chip powering the RTX 4090. As an alternative, it was an older GA102 die from the RTX 3080 Ti, repackaged and relabeled to appear to be the brand new flagship. The scammers used the GA102 as a result of it was pin-compatible with the AD102.
The channel, Northwestrepair, grew skeptical once they discovered that the core resistance was extremely excessive, “virtually as if the core wasn’t even there.” Inspecting it additional revealed that the cardboard was something however new. The channel discovered an enormous scrape on the board and a useless brief on one part. Moreover, the counterfeiters had swapped a few of the reminiscence modules on the board for decrease capability 256MB chips somewhat than the 2GB GDDR6X models the 4090 makes use of.
Fooling somebody by passing off an older or repurposed GPU is not new. Through the years, we have seen loads of instances of scammers making an attempt to offload used playing cards, put up faux listings, swap out parts, and customarily use no matter dirty ways they’ll to make a fast buck. Nonetheless, this RTX 4090 scheme stands out for the way a lot effort went into the rip-off.
For one, the counterfeiters polished off the die markings on the GA102 chip and laser-etched faux RTX 4090 AD102 labeling. Their alternative for the die swap was impeccable for the reason that GA102 and AD102 are almost similar in measurement – only a few millimeters distinction – making it simpler to swap one for the opposite undetected.
The scammers have been a tidy revenue from the faux playing cards. The RTX 4090 retails for $1,599, whereas the older 3080 Ti prices round $700. The scammers focused patrons, hoping they would not scrutinize the GPU too carefully.
In April, Northwestrepair uncovered an analogous rip-off by which a buyer who purchased a used GeForce RTX 4090 off Fb Market discovered it stripped of most of its very important parts. Graphics playing cards are in excessive demand, so these scams aren’t going away.
The ethical of the story is to be extraordinarily cautious when shopping for GPUs, particularly from resellers and fewer respected sources. Until you possibly can rigorously examine the cardboard in particular person, it is best to keep away from too-good-to-be-true offers.
