A 3D artist looking to purchase an RTX 5090 for their work claimed that they scored an unopened Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090 White OC from the secondhand market. According to Wccftech, the artist purchased the GPU expecting that it was signed by an Asus executive in celebration of the company’s 30th anniversary. But when they opened the package, they found the Nvidia chief’s signature on it instead.

Jensen Huang autographed the GPU and showed it off on camera last year, after which it was supposed to be given away by one lucky gamer. The artist did not mention how much they bought the “used” GPU for, but brand-new models of the RTX 5090 now hit $5,000 and can go up even higher, depending on the model. They also said that after opening the box, they did not use or test it, opting to sell it instead because of the immense value that such a limited-edition graphics card held for the right buyer.

This specific GPU is now in the hands of the Bonhams auction house, with bidding set for Oct. 4 to 14, 2026. It’s estimated that the graphics card will fetch somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000, especially as it bears the signature of Nvidia’s founder. However, it should be noted that an Asus ROG Matrix RTX 4090 sold for $16,000 back in 2023, while an Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090 Dhabab OC Edition was auctioned off last year for $24,200. Both GPUs were also autographed by Jensen, so there’s a good chance that this graphics card could fetch a much higher price.

Another Jensen Huang-related object was put on the auction block earlier this year and hit a record price. The leather Tom Ford jacket that the CEO wore at the Hon Hai (Foxconn) Tech Day in Taipei way back in October 2023 went up on Sotheby’s, where it was estimated that it would fetch somewhere between $40,000 and $60,000. However, the final price ended up at $960,000 — more than a hundred times higher than the jacket’s $9,000 price tag from the manufacturer.

Even though Jensen Huang isn’t a celebrity in the traditional sense, his approachable public persona and success story have made him quite popular among his fans. This “Jensanity” is prevalent in Taiwan, where he was originally from, and many see him as the bearer of Taiwanese pride and treat him like a pop star. It seems that this translates to his rich fans, too, with a few who are willing to spend thousands of dollars just to get their hands on autographed “artifacts” from the billionaire.

Nvidia Founders Edition GPUs are often harder to come by compared to cards from AIB partners, and they’re typically sold on specific retail channels only. However, it seems that CyberPowerPC got its hands on these graphics cards, and you can now get them inside pre-built gaming PCs sold by the company on Walmart. These PCs are also on sale as part of the Nvidia GeForce Week from September 21 through 27 on the retail platform. Aside from coming with these coveted GPUs from Nvidia, these pre-built gaming PCs are also on a huge discount, giving gamers savings of $580 to over $1,300. Unfortunately, these units are only available in limited quantities, so we’re unsure how long stock will last.

• Get the CyberPowerPC RTX 5070 FE + Intel Core i7-14700KF pre-built gaming PC on Walmart.
• Get the CyberPowerPC RTX 5070 FE + AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D pre-built gaming PC on Walmart.
• Get the CyberPowerPC RTX 5080 FE + AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D pre-built gaming PC on Walmart.
• Get the CyberPowerPC RTX 5080 FE + Intel Core Ultra 9 285K pre-built gaming PC on Walmart.
• Get the CyberPowerPC RTX 5090 FE + AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D pre-built gaming PC on Walmart.

Nvidia has recently sold Founders Edition GPUs in a pop-up retail store at QuakeCon 2026 while also having them available at the PAX West gaming convention in Seattle, Washington, earlier this month. The company calls these retail pop-up stores “Verified Priority Access IRL,” meaning only real people can buy the cards, which are sold at MSRP. The VPA program started with the launch of the RTX 4090 FE, but the company brought it back with the arrival of the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 to help prevent scalping.

The aggressive discounts on these pre-builts suggest that CyberPowerPC acquired these Founders Edition GPUs at MSRP. The RTX 5070 FE PC with an Intel i7-14700KF, which had an SRP of $2,139.99, now only costs $1,549.00, offering savings of $590.99, while the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D version is priced at $1,599.00 — a $580.99 discount from its $2,179.99 regular price.

The RTX 5080 FE pre-builts offer bigger savings: the AMD Ryzen 7 version is now only $2,299.00, saving you $680.99 from its $2,979.99 SRP, while the Intel Core Ultra 9 option has its prices to $2,399.00 from $3,149.99 through its $750.99 discount. Finally, the RTX 5090 FE pre-built gaming PC has a regular price of $5,649.99 but is on sale at just $4,299.00, giving you $1,350.99 in savings.

These prices will let you get your hands on some of the best gaming GPUs on the market right now without breaking your wallet. According to the Tom’s Hardware GPU Price Tracker, the cheapest RTX 5090 is the Asus TUF Gaming RTX 5090, and it’s already priced higher on Amazon at $6,699.00, making this entire pre-built cheaper than that standalone GPU. While the RTX 5080 and RTX 5070 GPUs in the list are cheaper than these CyberPowerPC units, you’re still getting a complete system with a modern processor and a PSU, plus RAM and an SSD, which are some of the most expensive components you can find today. You also don’t have to worry about other specifications — even though the listing does not mention the brands and models of the other components included in the gaming PCs, they’re still decently specced with 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD (2TB for the RTX 5090 version). You’ll have to act quickly, though, as they seem to be selling out fast.

Nvidia's fastest gaming graphics card, the RTX 5090, has been on a tear of price increases over the past several weeks. However, over the past week, the available inventory has dwindled. Now, you can only find the RTX 5090 from third-party sellers at online retailers like Newegg and Amazon, commanding anywhere from $6,500 to $9,500 (or even higher) for Team Green's best GPU.

At Newegg, the cheapest RTX 5090 is the MSI Ventus 3X that's available from Slava Computers (a relatively new seller with 239 ratings and a 2.8 out of 5 rating at the time of writing) for $6,449. On Amazon, you can get the Asus TUF Gaming OC for $6,395 from Joes Tech Shop, a seller with an 81% positive rating. However, among the most recent reviews are a string of one-star reviews about orders never being fulfilled. The cost goes much higher, as well. The first result for "RTX 5090" on Newegg, for example, surfaces the MSI Ventus 3X OC for $8,699.

In June, the median price for an RTX 5090 was $4,299. At the beginning of September, we logged the lowest online price at $5,199 in our GPU price tracker. Now, in less than two weeks, the available stock has completely disappeared online, and the options available from third-party sellers have ballooned in price once again.

Naturally, we don't recommend buying from one of these third-party sellers. The RTX 5090 is selling at a vastly inflated price, but more importantly, we've seen no shortage of scams around high-ticket items like the RTX 5090. In January, 42 Amazon customers were duped into a scam involving a $999 RTX 5090, instead receiving a fanny pack in place of the GPU. Earlier this month, an online seller scammed two buyers with the RTX 5090, selling phantom graphics cards with the core and memory removed on the secondhand market for prices near MSRP.

The one exception to RTX 5090 inventory is Micro Center, which still has cards available around the average selling price. At a local Micro Center we checked, the cheapest in-stock option was $4,299. Micro Center has exclusively sold graphics cards in-person for several years, insulating it from online buyouts like what appears to be going on right now.

As usual, the reason why there's so much demand for the RTX 5090 is fairly obvious: AI. The RTX 5090 holds the GB202 GPU and 32GB of GDDR7 memory. For context, Nvidia's RTX Pro 5000 48GB comes with the same GPU with a third fewer shader units enabled, and lower memory bandwidth compared to the RTX 5090, and sells for between $7,000 and $9,000. In that context, the RTX 5090 starts to look attractive for building an AI server, even at $5,000 (or more) apiece.

At the same time, the RTX 5090 remains the fastest gaming graphics card on the market according to the testing in our GPU benchmark hierarchy. That's even more true now with Nvidia's launch of DLSS 5 Neural Rendering, which the RTX 5090 can fully capitalize on (though, thankfully, we've found playable performance on lower-end cards in our extensive DLSS 5 testing).

We've reached out to Nvidia for comment on whether it has any plans to stabilize inventory. We'll update this story when we hear back.

Modders at the YouTube channel TecLab have created what is being called the world’s first RTX 5090 powered by traditional 8-pin PCIe connectors. Not only were the modders able to successfully power up the graphics card, but they also proved that the older connector is still quite capable of handling the extreme power demands of a modern high-end GPU.

The card chosen for the experiment was a Galax GeForce RTX 5090D HOF OC LAB XOC, which is a top-of-the-line model that features a beefy cooler as well as dual 16-pin power connectors. The modders essentially dismantled the entire graphics card along with the dual 16-pin power connectors, stripping it down to just the bare PCB. Next, three 8-pin power connectors were installed at the rear, with each connector soldered directly to the power regulators on the PCB using heavy-gauge cables. Additionally, the sense pins had to be rewired to ensure that the card could reach its maximum power load without any restrictions. To keep the temperatures in check, they used a liquid cooling system with a GPU block.

An 8-pin PCIe power connector is officially rated for 150W, although its actual maximum capacity is much higher. During the one-hour livestream, the modders tested the GPU by gradually increasing the power draw, starting at 400W and going all the way up to 900W using three 8-pin power cables. At its peak, the modified RTX 5090 pulled more than 120A, with clock speeds reaching as high as 3,400 MHz. Notably, the mod was limited to only the hardware level, with no software or BIOS tweaks performed.

To further test the capability of the 8-pin connectors, the modders tested the modified RTX 5090 with just two cables. The overall power draw dropped to 66A, while clock speeds remained at a respectable 3,200 MHz. Going a step further, the card was tested with just one cable, which surprisingly only dropped the figures down to 65A and 3,100 MHz.

Despite the PCI-SIG (PCI Special Interest Group) revising the 16-pin power connector (12V-2x6) to improve reliability, reports of melting GPU connectors continue to haunt gamers. The issue is particularly more common among high-performance models, though not limited to Nvidia RTX 50 and RTX 40 series, as certain AMD Radeon graphics with the 16-pin connector are also at risk. TecLab's experiment shows that GPU manufacturers may want to reconsider the tried-and-tested 8-pin connector and explore whether it could still be a viable option in high-end graphics cards.

Alibaba’s Qwen 3.8 27B open-weight AI model came out a couple of weeks ago, and it immediately created a wave of hype among local AI enthusiasts thanks to its impressive intelligence benchmark results for a model of its size and capabilities.

Totaling around 17GB for four-bit quantized weights and offering built-in multimodal capabilities on top of its general aptitude, Qwen 3.8 27B immediately grabbed the attention of everybody with an RTX 5090, RTX 4090, or RTX 3090 (as well as a Radeon RX 7900 XTX, Radeon AI Pro R9700, or Arc Pro B70).

Were we on the verge of frontier-level intelligence from a four-bit quant on a single graphics card? Could everybody with a capable enough local AI setup go and cancel their Claude or ChatGPT subscriptions?

The answer, of course, as with every open-weight AI model hype cycle, is more complicated than just eyeballing the size of the model weights and comparing it to your available VRAM pool. Does the card or system you're using to host the model have enough VRAM left over to provide useful amounts of space for the model's context once everything is running? Do your host system and LLM inference engine deliver acceptable time-to-first-token, as well as high throughput beyond just bench-racing from an empty context window?

It's one thing if you just want to chat with a model and see what happens; it's another entirely if you want to put it to work, especially as impatient agents take the limits of human perception out of the picture.

We wanted to see what hardware and software stack Qwen 3.8 27B really wants in order to deliver solid performance, so we ran it on systems ranging from a desktop PC with discrete GPUs to systems with unified memory architectures like the DGX Spark, Mac Studio, and Ryzen AI Halo.

Our discrete GPU AI testbed includes the following components:

Where it was possible to do so, we tested performance with Qwen 3.8 27B’s built-in multi-token prediction capabilities both enabled and disabled. Not all of the model runners we tested were able to support MTP within the amount of VRAM available to us on some of our platforms. We note where MTP was and wasn’t possible in our analysis of each platform, as well as in our charts.

RTX 5090 performance

We started with the RTX 5090, whose 32GB of GDDR7 and 1.8 TB/s of memory bandwidth would seem to make it an absolute no-brainer for getting the best local inference performance with this dense model. (Mixture-of-experts models tend to be friendlier to performance on lower-end hardware like the DGX Spark and AMD's Strix Halo, as their limited numbers of active parameters mean less data movement during inference).

As a baseline, we followed our usual local AI benchmarking approach: grab the latest build of llama.cpp from GitHub, build it, grab an Unsloth quantization of the model from Hugging Face, and run it. But our testing quickly ran into a speed bump.

Although llama.cpp will happily allocate the full 262K context length with this model on an RTX 5090, its processing speeds at long contexts on this card are dire.

Time-to-first-token with a single 5090 stretches to roughly 30 minutes, suggesting that something is just broken here. And tokens-per-second throughput drops far, far below what you would expect for having one of the world's fastest graphics cards at your disposal. No matter how you slice it, llama.cpp is not the right model runner for this hardware right now.

Next, we tried vLLM, a production-grade inference engine that's more at home in the data center than it is on the desktop, although it can comfortably serve in both roles—at least if your host system is up to its requirements. Even with 64GB of main memory in our test rig, we had to allocate another 64GB of swap just to let vLLM load Qwen 3.8 27B successfully for the first time. A lightweight stack this is not.

The vLLM maintainers provide an NVFP4 quantization of Qwen 3.8 27B and deployment recipes for both one and two RTX 5090s. We just so happen to have two RTX 5090s in the TH labs, so we were able to try out both configurations.

Serving Qwen 3.8 27B on one 5090 with vLLM certainly works in a pinch, but it's not ideal for long-context inference because the base recipe for it limits you to just a 32K context. To get the full 262K context, you really want a single card with more memory (like an RTX Pro Blackwell card with 48 or 72GB of RAM) or two 5090s, as we were able to test.

And a single card doesn't have enough memory to enable Qwen 3.8 27B’s built-in multi-token prediction (MTP), which is super helpful in getting faster decode performance from this setup. 20 tokens per second across the board without MTP is not an impressive baseline for a card of this caliber.

Get two 5090s into the picture, though, and decode speeds rocket upwards for vLLM (albeit at a high cost to prefill). 70-80 tokens per second across the context depth sweep is a fantastic result for a local setup, and TTFT remains fairly reasonable. But we can go faster.

Enabling MTP with vLLM gets us to 100-110 tokens per second on the decode side for only a small hit to prompt processing speed. This setup provides consistent performance at prompt processing speeds that don’t make you question whether something has gone seriously wrong. But it ought to be fast, because our dual RTX 5090 platform as tested here would currently ring in at over $13,000.

We also tried the SGLang inference engine on the RTX 5090 across similar configurations as we did with vLLM.

SGLang is much faster on a single 5090 for some reason – almost 3x faster than vLLM’s single-5090 recipe – and also ekes out a bit more context (37,740) versus vLLM. But if you want to get the full 262K that the model natively supports, you still need a second card or a different one with more VRAM.

Like vLLM, SGLang supports tensor parallelism across multiple GPUs, so enabling dual-GPU inference is as simple as adding another launch flag. And as with vLLM, there are a number of speculative decoding strategies you can add to the recipe to enhance output performance.

The takeaway from this first phase of testing: if you have a single RTX 5090 and don't need long-context inference from it, you can certainly get usable performance from one with this dense model. But you need to choose your model runner carefully.

And if you want the full context window, reasonable prompt processing times, and high throughput from Qwen 3.8 27B all at once, you really want a graphics card with more than 32GB of VRAM as a starting point (or multiples).

RTX 3090 and RTX 4090 performance

With the RTX 5090’s behavior settled, we turned to some older consumer cards to see how they handle Qwen 3.8 27B. The 24GB RTX 4090 and 3090 are evergreen favorites among local LLM fans thanks to their relatively large VRAM pools and relatively affordable prices on the used market, but as we've already emphasized, just being able to load the model weights is far from the whole picture.

These cards can fit the Q4_K_M GGUF of Qwen 3.8 27B with llama.cpp just fine, but they require using the Q8_0 quantization of the KV cache to fit the results in their smaller VRAM pools from the get-go, and they also require limiting the context depth to well under the model’s 262K native limit. We found that a context length of about 112K tokens was about the most we could get away with before running out of VRAM.

And unlike the 32GB RTX 5090, which can usually get away with having the Linux desktop window manager running next to the LLM and its infrastructure, these GPUs need every last byte of VRAM for the AI workload and nothing else. So you really want a separate graphics card at hand for these two cards if you're not running a headless server, which can introduce some setup headaches of its own as you discover how your particular motherboard handles PCIe slot bifurcation and enumeration of the primary graphics device.

Once you overcome those obstacles and get Qwen 3.8 27B up and running on these cards, llama.cpp exhibits the same performance cliff at long contexts on the RTX 4090 that we saw with the RTX 5090. But the RTX 3090 is oddly not affected. This suggests a bug somewhere.

We didn’t have time to dig into SGLang or vLLM behavior on these products, but given that you’re already tight for context on an RTX 5090, we’re doubtful that either of those inference engines would be an awesome way to run the model on these 24GB cards, unless you’re somehow ready to roll with multiple 3090s or 4090s from past acquisitions.

DGX Spark performance

Hardcore local LLM enthusiasts will scoff at the DGX Spark’s mere 27 GB/s of memory bandwidth for a dense model like Qwen 3.8 27B, and indeed, we've found that this platform isn't the fastest with dense models in our past testing.

But now that models like Qwen 3.8 27B support MTP with nothing more than a server launch flag, you can often get a major free boost to the decode speeds of platforms with limited memory bandwidth.

In our actual tests, the Spark's solid prefill processing performance means that it will often end up finishing inference turns at longer context lengths well before the RTX 5090 does with llama.cpp.

And beyond llama.cpp, the Spark is also well supported by SGLang and vLLM, so you can take advantage of those inference engines if they’re more to your taste. Consider also that a single Spark is still available for about $5000, and it’s a turnkey system that can be expanded into a handy cluster down the line if you want. So it shouldn’t be ruled out, even for serving this dense model.

Apple Mac Studio with M4 Max performance

The M4 Max-powered Mac Studio in our labs has the most memory bandwidth of any of the unified memory systems we have available, but as we've described in previous testing, that's only one metric that matters for local AI inference.

Prompt processing on this platform is slower than on Spark, so even if the Mac Studio can turn out more tokens than GB10 in the decode phase, it still ends up spending more time per inference turn than Nvidia's platform at longer contexts because that’s where it has to spend most of its processing time.

And at least in llama.cpp, using MTP on the Mac Studio actually causes a performance loss at shorter contexts for decode in exchange for a small boost at longer contexts, where it generally leads to improvements for other platforms. This demonstrates the value of actual benchmarking rather than spec-racing.

Ryzen AI Halo (Strix Halo) performance

AMD’s Ryzen AI Halo presents the worst-case performance scenario for this dense model: relatively low memory bandwidth and low prompt-processing performance.

Although MTP wakes up tokens-per-second throughput a bit on this system with llama.cpp, it can’t make up for the lengthy prompt processing times required for longer contexts. You can certainly run this model if a Strix Halo is the only box you have, but we’d seek out something more capable if you’re trying to do interactive long-context work.

Bottom line

When I first set out to explore Qwen 3.8 27B's performance, I figured this would be a relatively straightforward series of tests: plug in a single graphics card, load the model, get tokens, done. In practice, our experience required a lot more tinkering. And systems we might have initially written off as being not up to the task of running a dense model like this proved surprisingly useful.

In general, breathless claims of hundreds of tokens per second of throughput from an empty context window do not account for the full range of behavior one might see from an LLM on a given inference setup.

For just one example, whether it's down to a problem with (or just the expected behavior of) llama.cpp or something else about our software stack, the notion that you'd want to wait as much as 30 minutes or more for a response from Qwen 3.8 27B at long context lengths on an RTX 5090 is outrageous. But if you naively load Qwen 3.8 27B using llama.cpp right now, this is the experience you'll get.

Changing up inference engines is a natural next step, but there are trade-offs with that approach, too. You can load Qwen 3.8 27B on one 5090 using vLLM or SGLang, but those inference engines are much more conservative about the amount of usable context they’ll give you. The recipes we used only resulted in a context window of 32K tokens on a single 5090.

To enable the full 262K context length, we had to grab another RTX 5090 from the TH testing arsenal, at which point we got both great throughput and a TTFT sweep that could be considered interactive all the way out to the maximum context length from both model runners. But the price of replicating such a setup would exceed $13K right now.

You also might expect that a DGX Spark and its 273 GB/s of memory bandwidth wouldn't be useful for this dense model, but the prefill speed of the Spark ends up being fast enough that the TTFT remains relatively interactive even with a decode throughput of just 20 or so tokens per second with MTP, and that behavior holds out to the model's full native context length.

The M4 Max-powered Mac Studio has plenty of memory bandwidth on tap for decode, but its prompt processing speed means that the total time of an inference turn is dominated by that activity on this older Apple Silicon chip. The newer M5 Max and brand-new M5 Ultra would doubtless perform better, but we didn’t have those chips handy for this testing. And AMD’s Ryzen AI Halo gets the worst of it, with both low prompt processing speeds and relatively low TPS due to its memory bandwidth.

For all this, we really need to take a step back and consider the economics of local AI once again. $5K, $10K, or $15K or more for local AI hardware is a lot of tokens from leading-edge models at Anthropic or OpenAI (and even more from providers serving the recent slate of Chinese open-source models). A lot. And if time is money for you, barring compute constraints, those tokens will get back to you or your agent faster than anything you can run at home short of a DGX Station with its GB300 GPU.

So unless you’re working with sensitive data that requires on-premises processing, you’re an enthusiast who just wants to tinker, or you’re worried about the fate of open model distribution and inference more generally for some reason, you probably don’t need to rush out and build a box just for this model.

But if you do, be aware that delivered performance is more than just VRAM capacity or memory bandwidth, and that you might not get the best performance from your setup with the most common model runners like llama.cpp. Let experimentation and careful benchmarking lead you to the best results for your specific config.

The RTX 5090 is no stranger to controversy thanks to the incendiary nature of its 16-pin connector. When you add something as taxing as DLSS 5, which comes with a heavy increase in power draw, to an already dangerous mix, you're just cooking up a recipe for disaster. And it seems like this recipe has likely claimed its first victim. HardOCP forum member Erek claimed their RTX 5090 fell prey to the woes of the 16-pin connector yesterday, as it melted while testing DLSS 5 in NBA 2K27.

The irony is not lost on us that NBA 2K27 is the only game that officially supports DLSS 5 right now — everything else is modded — yet it still reportedly killed the user's MSI RTX 5090 Gaming Trio OC, which carries a 575W TDP. However, during testing, erek reported his GPU going past 600W, with GPU-Z showing it hovering above 610W consistently, not just as a spike. Before this, the card only consumed around 450W while gaming, implying that DLSS 5 added more than 150W to the power draw.

While the 16-pin connector is capable of carrying up to 600W of power, the PCIe x16 slot the card is plugged into also provides 75W on its own. So, the connector wasn't necessarily drawing over 600W alone. Tragedy struck right after as Erek's RTX 5090 started exhibiting signs of instability and eventually stopped working entirely. The owner smelled something burning and, sure enough, found the 16-pin connector pulling an age-old classic: melting.

The plastic on the connector had melted enough to bond with the cable, making it very difficult to separate the two. Once they did come undone, the damage was clearly visible, with at least five pins on the 16-pin cable scorched; one pin's housing had completely melted away. This was a yellow-tipped cable, too, meant to ensure it was plugged all the way in. Despite the fact that we only got a blurry picture of the connector on the GPU, the little yellow dot of melted plastic almost comically stands out amidst a sea of black and grey.

We can't confirm whether DLSS 5 was actually responsible for burning Erek's card. After all, an RTX 5090 meeting its maker is a monthly tradition at this point, and the cause is usually tied to a loose fit between the connector and the cable. However, our own testing does align with how the enthusiast came up with their DLSS 5 hypothesis. We saw the MSI Lightning Z variant of the 5090, which has 2x 16-pin connectors and a 1,000W XOC BIOS, pull 800W in Control with DLSS 5 enabled. Without DLSS 5, the same GPU pulled just 691W.

That wasn't even the most egregious difference; in Hogwarts Legacy, we went from 480W without DLSS 5 to a whopping 720W with it enabled. That's a 50% increase in power draw for just one feature. The same game made the Founder's Edition of the 5090 pull 417W without the neural rendering tech involved, and 547W with it toggled on. So even in the standard version of the GPU with a single 16-pin connector, there's a 31% jump in power consumption because of DLSS 5.

Considering Erek's 5090 model lands somewhere between those two, and given his own testing showing a severe power budget imbalance, it's not unreasonable to assume DLSS 5 was the culprit. Had the user's GPU been acting weird before they tried the new feature, we might be having a different conversation. But it's clear that Nvidia has a lot of work to do before DLSS 5 makes its way onto the RTX 40-series down the line. Performance improvements aside, the safety concerns stemming from poor efficiency also need to be addressed.

It's hard to believe Nvidia first announced the RTX 5090 at last year's CES for just $1,999. Even keeping in mind the fact that MSRP is often just a guideline, prices have still surged astronomically thanks to the AI rush. A brand-new RTX 5090 now costs $5,000 in North America, and more across other parts of the world. That's a 2.5x increase in less than two years, and the same fate follows the rest of the RTX 50-series family as well.

Currently, the cheapest RTX 5090 in the States is the Zotac Solid OC listed for $4,999 at Newegg. It does come with a $60 game and a $145 power supply, but you're still paying $5,000 for a card that cost less than half as much ($2,250) exactly one year ago. A more desirable variant such as the ROG Astral 4X OC is now going for $6,000 while it could be had for $3,360 from various retailers last year. An almost 2x jump in the span of twelve months, and a 3x jump compared to MSRP, though this is a novelty model.

Taking a look at European pricing, the most affordable RTX 5090 in Germany is the MSI Gaming Trio OC variant at 4,850 Euros, or ~$5,620. According to Geizhals, this card was listed for 2,249 Euros ($2,600) a year ago, so more than twice as expensive. Hell, it was 800 Euros ($927) cheaper just last month! The ROG Astral 4X OC model is selling for 5,300 Euros ($6,143) right now while it cost 2,870 Euros ($3,326) the same time last year — once again, almost twice as much.

Other desirable RTX 50-series GPUs such as the RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5060 Ti 16GB and the RTX 5060 have all seen price hikes, too. After the 5090, it's the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB that has suffered the most with a 77% increase in price ($761 currently) compared to MSRP ($429). The RTX 5080 is 55% more expensive ($1,549 currently) than its MSRP ($999), while both the RTX 5060 ($299 to $448 currently) and RTX 5070 Ti ($749 to $1,119 currently) are now listed for about 50% more than what they launched at.

The least affected card throughout this fiasco is Nvidia's base model: the RTX 5050. But even then, it has seen a 20% price hike, going from a $249 MSRP to $299 current availability. The RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, which people usually write off for its 16GB cousin, is still 32% more expensive now at $500; it launched at $380. Across the entire Blackwell family, the average price increase is about 60% or 1.6x higher compared to MSRP.

Like SSDs and RAM, GPU prices are being squeezed by dwindling supply of vital components that are being diverted to enterprise customers, fuelling massive AI buildouts. RAM prices have increased by 500% in the last 12 months, and SSDs aren't much better. The overall price crunch is making DIY PC building increasingly less viable.

Ever since the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 launched (and the RTX 4090 before it), reports of the card burning down have been commonplace in the community. The culprit behind the GPU's incendiary nature is the 16-pin power connector that's notorious for being unreliable... so what if we got rid of it in the first place? That's what Brazilian YouTuber TecLab did in their latest experiment — stripping an RTX 5090 down and powering it through wires directly soldered to the PCB.

The GPU used for this test was a very high-end Galax HOF OC LAB XOC variant of the RTX 5090D. Unlike standard RTX 5090s that come with a single 16-pin connector for their 575W TDPs, this bad boy is equipped with twice the firepower (literally) since you can use up to 2,000W OC BIOSes on it. That already sounds like a bad idea, but TecLab went further and removed the heatsink and fans entirely to liquid-cool the core.

The modders took two sets of wires and soldered them right above either power connector on the PCB, linking them to the connectors' traces. They used two adapters to intercept standard 16-pin power cables coming from a PSU and convert them into bare wires that could be soldered easily. From the looks of it, the poor soldering job was only going to put these guys in more danger, but it somehow worked.

The card booted and ran just fine, even benchmarking pretty well. Remember, there was no cooler on the GPU. Instead, it was being tamed by two 120mm fans loosely zip-tied to the PCB and an industrial liquid chiller running ice-cold water across the core. We didn't get any temps, but the card was running at around 600W based on the ~50A reading from the power meter clamped to the 12V rail.

TecLab explained that they'd grown tired of the constant complaints about 16-pin power connectors on RTX 5090s causing problems. They sarcastically presented this "solution" as an answer to people who whine too much about their expensive cards melting, taking matters into their own hands to show Nvidia "how it's done." Even though the experiment was a success, it's safe to say that this is not safe; do not try this at home, kids.

Regardless of the practicality here, the fact that hastily soldering wires to a 900W GPU is potentially more reliable than Nvidia's factory-developed solution is simply absurd. We've seen so many external monitoring tools purpose-built for saving these 16-pin cards that each new solution just begs the question as to why they haven't been recalled yet. Then again, if you're buying a $5,000 GPU, we suppose a WireView is chump change at that point.

The cheapest Nvidia RTX 5090 in stock and available to buy right now costs at least $4,799, and even then, you won't be buying one from a reputable vendor. That makes this Dell Alienware desktop discount all the more enticing. Right now you can save $1,550 off the potent Alienware Area-51 Gaming Desktop, and score one for $4,779, cheaper than the standalone cost of the GPU.

● Check out this deal at Dell

With graphics card prices continuing to rise, the bar for selling a 5090 PC for less than the cost of the card is admittedly a little lower than it used to be, but this is still a crazy deal. For less than the cost of a 5090, you get the card, plus a 20-core Intel Ultra 7 265K processor, 32GB of DDR5 7200 RAM, 1TB M.2 Gen 5 SSD, and a 1500W power supply, all housed inside a sleek Alienware case. Other bonuses include a copy of Windows 11 and a 240mm AIO CPU cooler.

The standout of this build, as you've probably guessed, is the absolutely monstrous RTX 5090. The best graphics card on the market by some distance, its massive 32GB GDDR7 VRAM pool and 21,760 CUDA cores mean it will chew through any title at 4K, or a local AI workload without breaking a sweat.

The rest of this PC, while not the most premium spec, is definitely not to be sniffed at either. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is arguably a little underpowered at this level, but the RTX 5090 will more than make up for any shortcomings. The Arrow Lake CPU has excellent single-threaded performance, and when paired with a 5090 in our CPU testing data, can pump out 150 frames per second at 1080p on average across our 17-game test suite. That being said, if you'd like a bit of a CPU boost, you could opt to configure a Core Ultra 9 285, with more cores, cache, and a higher boost clock speed.

While we'd have previously hoped for 64GB of RAM in a build of this magnitude, the AI-induced component crisis means that is no longer a reality. Fortunately, you can upgrade the DDR5 6400 to DDR5 7200 with Intel 200S boost — which our testing shows can boost gaming performance by 7% — for free in this particular deal. You also get a 1TB Gen 5 SSD and a 1500W power supply.

While it might not feature AMD's benchmark-busting X3D CPU range under the hood, buying any PC for less than the going rate of the 5090 is not to be sniffed at in the current PC market. Indeed, CPUs and motherboards remain some of the only PC components with healthy discounts in the current climate, so buying this rig and doing a bit of surgery to the processor isn't out of the question either.

The AI-driven memory apocalypse has made computer parts so expensive that the average buyer has stopped building PCs. Multiple research firms have already said that, but we’re now seeing it in action in the market. Uniko’s Hardware shared on X four crazy combos of RTX 5090 GPUs being sold on the Taiwanese e-commerce platform PChome24h.

Some of the GPUs that come with a lot of "freebies" include the Asus ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090, Gigabyte Aorus RTX 5090 Master, MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Gaming Trio OC, and a Gigabyte Aorus RTX 5090 AI Box external graphics card. These items are priced in NTD, but we’ll list them below, including their retail prices in dollars (NTD 32.25 = USD $1 exchange rate) and the included items.

As we can see, even though GPU prices are quite inflated, many of them come with enough freebies that you can start building one high-end system and three to five entry-level gaming rigs. They’re still priced relatively high compared to Amazon or Newegg in the U.S., though, but we have to keep in mind that Taiwan is a different market, so there will likely be variations in prices plus VAT.

While this might be an amusing piece of trivia for some people, it’s actually evidence of a disturbing trend in the PC building industry. Multiple research firms have been saying that the market will contract by double digits this year, with the entry-level PC market being hit the hardest, and that it’s not expected to bounce back until 2029. These combos are just evidence of that, at least in Taiwan.

That’s because sellers often put slow-moving products in a combo to help get their inventory moving. Given the number of motherboards, entry-to-mid-range GPUs, and other components included in these combos, it’s safe to say that these items aren’t selling and retailers are doing all these crazy deals just to free up capital.

As the AI-driven memory crisis has pushed up the prices of memory and graphics cards, many have already paused or delayed their purchases and upgrades. Only those with deep pockets who can afford to spend thousands of dollars on parts and combos like these are still buying PC parts.

If you're a content creator or a gamer that needs to have a whopping 32GB of VRAM to power either your software applications or run your favorite games on extreme fidelity settings, then you're looking to own an RTX 5090 graphics card. Unfortunately, these GPUs do not come cheap, with the current lowest price on an available-to-buy 5090 sitting at an eye-watering $4,399.99. However, with this amazing Dell deal on an Alienware Area-51 gaming rig for $4,779.99, you can bag a whole gaming PC that includes the RTX 5090 for just $380 more than purchasing the standalone graphics card.

● Check out this deal at Dell

The Alienware Area-51 gaming PC in question comes packed with the aforementioned Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card, but also includes the 20-core Intel Core Ultra 7 265K processor, 32GB of high-speed DDR5 7200 MT/s memory, and a 1TB SSD for the operating system and game storage.

All of the above components are packed into Dell's own Alienware case with a tempered glass side panel to show off the internals of the system. A 240mm liquid AIO cools the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K, and a beefy 1,500W 80 Plus Platinum-certified power supply has all the juice needed to run the RTX 5090. The Area-51 does away with Dell's old proprietary parts ecosystem and lets you add upgrades more easily, so you're able to add more memory or a bigger SSD down the line.

The RTX 5090 is the most powerful consumer GPU on the market right now. It comes with 21,760 CUDA cores, over double the RTX 5080's 10,752 count, along with a massive 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM, using a 512-bit memory bus with memory bandwidth up to 1,792 GB/s. In our benchmarking results from our review of the RTX 5090 we can see that this super powerful GPU dominates the competition in all performance metrics.

The Alienware Area-51 gaming PC in this deal has the ability to play any game at extreme frame rates and power high-refresh-rate gaming monitors, even at 4K resolutions. It's the best GPU to experience ray-traced graphics without severely compromising in-game graphics settings, and with the extreme pricing of the RTX 5090 at the moment, it's one of the best value ways to purchase an RTX 5090-powered gaming PC if you can afford one.

Yes, it should be $2000 cheaper, but thanks to the AI-boom ruining PC component prices for us enthusiasts, this is one of the best deals you will find on an RTX 5090 prebuilt gaming PC right now.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

If you were hoping GPU prices would settle down anytime soon, you are in for disappointment. Nvidia’s RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 models from various OEM partners are once again selling well above their launch prices. As per a recent listing noticed by users on Reddit, the Asus ROG Astral RTX 5080 is now priced at $2,099.99 at Best Buy. That's $600 above its official launch MSRP of $1,499.99 and even $100 more than the flagship RTX 5090's launch MSRP of $1,999.

Similarly, pricing for the RTX 5090 has also skyrocketed in recent months. According to a Reddit post, the Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090 is currently listed at $4,329.99 on Amazon, roughly $1,530 above its launch MSRP of $2,799.99. Even the MSI Gaming Trio RTX 5090 has gone up to $4,299.95, a whopping $1,900 more than what it was when it debuted in early 2025.

That said, these hefty prices are primarily limited to premium partner models. Certain mainstream RTX 5080 cards can still be purchased closer to Nvidia's MSRP. For instance, Zotac's RTX 5080 Solid OC is selling for $1,249.99 on Amazon while PNY's RTX 5080 OC is listed at 1,256.99 at Best Buy.

While one cannot ascertain the exact reason behind this price increase, it does take us back to when tech YouTuber der8auer claimed that Nvidia has discontinued its Observed Pricing Program (OPP). This was essentially an incentive scheme that helped board partners to sell certain Nvidia products at or near MSRP. The termination of this program meant that manufacturers such as Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte gained no incentive to keep prices close to Nvidia's suggested retail price. As a result, premium custom cards have become even more expensive, with manufacturers passing higher production costs on to the consumers.

In addition to that, rising DRAM prices thanks to AI-driven demand have led to a massive increase in the cost of GDDR7 memory used in RTX 50-series cards. Nvidia was also said to be prioritizing production of higher-margin products, including the RTX 5080 and AI hardware, which has further tightened supply of certain gaming GPUs.

For potential customers, the latest listings suggest that waiting for premium RTX 50-series cards to return to MSRP may take longer than expected. While Founders Edition models remain the closest option to Nvidia's suggested pricing, they're often low in stock, forcing customers to choose between paying a hefty premium for high-end partner cards or settling for more affordable custom models.

You can save $1,000 on a truly high-end gaming laptop that, for many, is way over the top for the average user in both hardware and price. But if you want the most powerful laptop gaming setup, or a portable desktop replacement, then this Lenovo Legion 9i gaming laptop from B&H Photo, priced at $5,799, is something you should check out. It's certainly not your average gaming laptop, as it comes with the top-tier halo components from Intel and Nvidia, and is absolutely massive at 18 inches.

● Check out this deal at B&H Photo

Gaming laptops have always been more expensive than desktop gaming PCs with comparable components, even with the comparable components not being as powerful as their desktop counterparts due to the size, power, and heat limitations of stuffing hardware components into a smaller laptop chassis.

This model of the Lenovo Legion 9i contains the most powerful laptop graphics card available, Nvidia's RTX 5090 with 24GB of GDDR7 VRAM, and Intel's Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus 24-core processor, plus a massive 64GB of DDR5 RAM (2 x 32) with four RAM slots available, able to support up to 192GB of total RAM. For storage, there is a 2TB SSD, with Windows 11 Home edition pre-installed.

The luxurious 18-inch display features a detailed 3840 x 2400 resolution with a 3ms gray-to-gray response time. The display can reach up to 240Hz at native resolution and up to 440Hz when set to an FHD resolution. The display uses an IPS panel with 520 nits of brightness and a color gamut of 100% DCI-P3

The Lenovo Legion 9i also uses the latest Thunderbolt 5, WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and 2.5GbE Ethernet. The keyboard is fully RGB backlit with chiclet-style keys. This is a very powerful gaming laptop that you can also use for some serious creative work and go hard on some smaller local LLM models if you want to dabble with some AI workloads.

It is a very expensive laptop, made more costly by the price of RAM and NAND in the current economy. Still, it's also $1,000 cheaper than the usual price, so if this kind of laptop is something you're interested in, then head to B&H Photo and check out the RTX 5090-powered Legion 9i available for $5,799.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

You can also join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

Asus has used its Computex press event to showcase a huge celebration of its ROG gaming sub-brand. It's been 20 years since the first ROG gear arrived, and Asus Chairman Jonney Shih commemorated the first footsteps of “The Journey of Dare” with the announcement of products that will form the ROG Edition 20 collection. You name it, there’s a cool black and gold ROG Edition 20 collection edition of it. From the headlining ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Edition 20 to motherboards, full PCs, PSUs, monitors, routers, peripherals, chairs, and even luggage, there’s an Edition 20 design being showcased in Taipei.

ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Edition 20

For many, the most alluring new limited edition product celebrating the first 20 years of the Asus Republic of Gamers will be the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Edition 20. The Astral is a well-established flagship for Asus and has even formed the basis of opulent extravaganzas dripping in gold.

Again, there’s gold in the Edition 20 design, but it is contrasted with plenty of matte black, red accents, and here plays second fiddle to the striking curved AMOLED display used by this commemorative design. Asus says this screen can be used to deliver “dynamic 3D visuals, custom animations, and real-time hardware data that extend ROG’s immersive design language beyond performance alone.”

Beyond the significant frills (i.e. the screen, the design), it looks like the Edition 20 raises itself above ‘ordinary’ Astrals by leveraging boosted power delivery opportunities. Standout claims for this new graphics card include the provision of a dual-input power subsystem, with a detachable GC‑HPWR adapter, for providing up to 800W to the graphics card. We ran a comparison vs the ‘regular’ Astral RTX 5090 on the official Asus site and saw that the Edition 20 version also had faster clocks (OC mode 2,750 MHz vs 2,467 MHz), and is a 4.7-slot (rather than 3.8 slot) design with a hidden BTF connector with a recommended 1,200W PSU companion.

Other specs of the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Edition 20, like the quad-fan design, vapor chamber, and liquid metal GPU compound, appear to be in line with previous ROG Astral RTX 5090 models.

ROG Crosshair X870E Edition 20

Asus also sought to emphasize the commemorative special edition ROG Crosshair X870E Edition 20. In summary, this flagship motherboard wears all the anniversary garb possible and is paired with a matching ROG Ryujin 360 Edition 20 AiO cooler.

Buyers of these coordinated ROG Black, ROG Red, and ROG Radiant Gold components will have an excellent foundation for a system build, with a slick unified commemorative design. Moreover, a system built upon this foundation will benefit from a robust 24+2+2 power-stage design with copper heatsinks, alongside support for up to nine M.2 slots to provide exceptional expandability. The AiO adds another in-system display option for builders with its Swivel Dual 6.67‑inch AMOLED LCD.

Lots more ROG Edition 20 gear

As indicated in the intro, the Edition 20 line doesn’t end there. Asus also launched the ROG Thor 3000W Titanium III Edition 20 PSU. Yes, it has a detachable magnetic OLED display and extender, too.

Asus has also lined up full pre-built gaming PCs for those who would like to honor its ROG Edition 20 anniversary. Go large with the ROG G1000 Edition 20, which features top-tier hardware support up to an RTX 5090 GPU and a Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 processor, housed in a tri-zone cooling architecture case with up to 420mm AiO. Alternatively, go compact with the Asus ROG NUC 16 Edition 20. This diminutive design also features up to GeForce RTX 5090 (laptop) graphics. However, it maxes out at a combined CPU + GPU TDP of 300W due to its size.

DIYers can also jump aboard the Edition 20 commemorative train with the ROG GR20 Edition 20 premium open-frame, modular PC case. It looks pretty handsome in the red, black, and gold color scheme and is primarily constructed from aluminum.

Outside the confines of the PC case, there is no shortage of new ROG Edition 20 products, with the same design language. You can get the ROG Swift OLED PG27AQWP-G Edition 20 gaming monitor, which runs at up to 720Hz. Anniversary input peripherals include the ROG Azoth Extreme Edition 20 keyboard and ROG Harpe II Extreme Edition 20 mouse. Those on a tight budget but who want to join the celebrations can buy a ROG Keycap Mystery Box Edition 20.

Other ROG Edition 20 products include the ROG XBOX Ally X20 Bundle, ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Pro Edition 20 router, the ROG Destrier Edition 20 gaming chair, ROG SLASH Hard-case Luggage Edition 20, ROG SLASH Backpack Edition 20, ROG Saga: In Search of Lapuntu Edition 20 board game, and ROG OMNI Edition 20 collectable figure.

Last and possibly least, Asus says there is a “limited edition software experience” ROG Armoury Crate Edition 20 to monitor and control your gear. It is pre-loaded on Edition 20 systems and will be available through 2026. We aren’t sure if this will be a theme for existing users of this software suite.

Not that they were ever a great deal, but an RTX 5090 today costs upwards of $3,500 thanks to the global component shortage, even though they fell below $3,000 at the end of last year. That said, perhaps there are less conventional ways to acquire one if you really want to score a deal. Case in point: French retailer LDLC is selling broken RTX 5090s for about half of their new price, with no return policy.

The store has put up two separate pages for these non-functioning RTX 5090s. The first listing is more generic; it just says "[DEFECTIVE] NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090" with a list price of 1,499.95 Euros, or about $1,760. You'll get different variants depending on the inventory. The second listing is specifically for an MSI Ventus 3X OC variant of the RTX 5090, and it's marked at 1,699.95 Euros, which is almost $2,000.

LDLC is the most popular PC hardware vendor in France, and it's selling these RTX 5090s as "out of service" parts, which means they have no warranty coverage or support. The cards were tested to confirm they don't work, as they were previously damaged in transit. Therefore, the fault lies within impact-related injuries such as PCB breakage or deformation.

Despite their defective nature, the store says these GPUs include all the components on the PCB, such as the core and memory, which you can't take for granted these days. The vendor also makes it clear that these cards are intended for professionals who can either repair them or extract components for recycling. After all, you're still paying $1,700+ for what is essentially a paperweight at this point.

Since the damage is random, some units are bound to be easier to repair than others. For instance, if a card just has broken traces, that's a relatively quick fix for a proper workshop, and it can earn thousands by flipping the GPU afterward. Even if the entire core needs to be replaced with a donor part, there's still some profit to be made, considering just how valuable RTX 5090s are in the current AI boom.

As you'd expect, a vendor like LDLC likely won't want to accept liability for any repairs, so it's a win-win for all parties involved — assuming the customer's getting a good deal, too. We've covered some pretty intense RTX 5090 repair jobs before, but it's also important to stay vigilant when buying aftermarket parts.

A newbie overclocker apparently learned how to solder on their expensive RTX 5090 GPU and ended up damaging it while practicing their newfound skill. According to NorthridgeFix, which received the broken graphics card for repair, the unit came with this note: “I wanted to learn how to solder tiny 0402 resistors and was practicing on my GPU. I ended up ripping one of the pads and now the GPU will not post. If possible, I’d like to repair the pad/trace and re-align the resistors.” One possible reason for this mod is that the owner of the graphics card was trying to install the custom 2500W XOC BIOS, which MSI has limited to a select few elite overclockers, and requires physically modifying the card.

MSI released the RTX 5090 Lightning Z GPU at CES 2026 to great fanfare, with the GPU beating several world records even before it launched. These graphics cards use a specialized BIOS that unlocks their capabilities. The firmware was leaked online and posted by TechPowerUp, but the company requested that it be taken down. MSI didn’t just stop at limiting its spread, though — it turns out that the company made it impossible to flash its 2500W XOC BIOS to retail MSI GPUs. VideoCardz says that one workaround to this restriction is to add an extra resistor to the $5,000 GPU.

However, it seems that this mod is easier said than done, with the customer stating that they ended up ripping up one of the pads and misaligning the resistor during their botched operation. Alex, the host of the NorthridgeFix video, was incredulous when they found the damaged part, which was right next to the GPU core and connected directly to it. “The customer was trying to practice on the tightest spot on the board,” Alex, the host of the NorthridgeFix video, said. “Why go up the ladder one step at a time? Why not go a hundred steps at a time? That’s lot faster.”

Even seasoned veterans in the overclocking industry can get carried away and destroy their expensive components in their quest to squeeze every drop of performance out of them. This means that beginners in the overclocking scene are much more likely to do damage to their parts. You also need a lot of cash to get into this passion, as manufacturers often reserve high-end overclocking for their most expensive components. Still, it seems that people who are passionate enough about this are willing to risk thousands of dollars, and even limited-edition models with only 1,300 units in the wild.

After an involved repair process, NorthridgeFix seems to have replaced the damaged parts, and everything seemed to be in order when it was run through the voltage tester. Unfortunately, we did not see the GPU turn on the video because they were only set up with a single 12VHPWR cable, whereas the GPU required two. They tried running it with their available cable, but the graphics card refused to power on, even though Alex is confident in his repair. As of now, we can only hold our breath and wait for an update from NorthridgeFix if it was successfully able to resurrect this limited-edition graphics card from the dead.

We have another classic case of a PC parts scam involving the RTX 5090. According to an eBay seller, a customer pulled a fast one by returning a Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 5090 Solid OC worth $4,000 with the GPU die and memory modules missing. The GPU was reportedly in working condition and was tested before the sale was made, but soon after delivery, the customer filed for a return.

Upon receiving the Zotac GPU back, the seller inspected the card and assumed everything was normal. However, the issue was only discovered after the cooler was removed to inspect the PCB.

Pulling components from flagship GPUs has become a common tactic among scammers. That said, it isn’t an easy job. Not only does it require specialized equipment, but it also needs precise temperature control, expert-level soldering skills, and carries a high risk of damaging the hardware.

Scammers basically earn by reselling the GPU core and memory modules or retrofitting another graphics card with the stolen components. This practice is reportedly being done in China, where RTX 5090 dies, and GDDR7 memory modules are being transplanted onto compact blower-style graphics cards for AI server purposes.

In a similar case from last year, a buyer who purchased a Zotac RTX 5090 for around $2,000 sent the card to the Northwestrepair shop after noticing some issues. Upon inspection, it was discovered that the GPU die and memory chips had been completely removed from the PCB. Since the card appeared mostly intact, aside from a stripped screw, it made the scam difficult to detect without performing a disassembly. However, the repair technician confirmed that the components had been professionally removed.

Another case involved an Amazon customer in France who claimed on Reddit that they ordered an MSI RTX 5090 but received a tampered unit with the GPU core and memory chips missing. According to u/Nice-Screen-4193 on the PCMasterRace subreddit, the package arrived after a long wait and appeared factory-sealed, with no visible signs of tampering. However, after unboxing the GPU, they noticed stripped screws around the GPU core, and a dull or used gold finger on the PCIe connector. Since the card failed to power on, the Redditor did a close inspection with a flashlight, which revealed missing components from the PCB.

With continued demand for AI hardware, sophisticated GPU scams are continuing to grow in number. While it may not be easy to spot them, we highly recommend that you purchase GPUs, especially those that cost thousands of dollars, from a reliable seller or retailer in person. Inspect the card thoroughly and be sure of certain red flags such as broken or missing warranty seals, scratches around the cooler or PCB, stripped or mismatched screws, and any signs of usage around the PCIe connector.

Asus’ special one-off ROG Astral RTX 5090 Real Gold Edition has been a great investment, and is currently worth an estimated $834,000 based on its GPU components and scrap gold value. VideoCardz noticed this outrageous inflation in both the price of gold and premium graphics cards, highlighting the unusual phenomenon of a ‘used’ PC part skyrocketing in value.

Let’s look at how we got to the $834,000 valuation for the Real Gold Edition which was auctioned off in August, after being pride-of-show at BiliBili World 2025 in China.

Starting with the relative small potatoes of the RTX 5090 GPU (review link) price. Nvidia and partners launched these halo graphics accelerator products at $1,999 and now, if they can be found in stock in the U.S., they are often listed at double that. There’s two models in stock at Best Buy, for example, and these MSI RTX 5090 and Gigabyte RTX 5090 samples are both being flogged at $3,999.

Moving on to the serious business of gold valuations, the chart embedded above shows that the price of Gold (Au) went up from about $108 per gram in August 2025 to $166 per gram today.

It was claimed that Asus’ 7.2kg Real Gold Edition graphics card included 5kg of actual gold. That means the scrap gold value of the card has risen from $540,000 to $830,000. In other words, the gold scrap value increased by $290,000, or approximately 54%.

The uplifts to both GPU and gold valuations indicate that the Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090 Real Gold Edition would raise a sum of around $834,000 today.

What about the ‘normal’ ROG Astral RTX 5090 Dhahab Edition?

The Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090 Real Gold Edition was an opulence taken to extremes re-spin of the Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090 Dhabab Edition. This Middle East-marketed card looks pretty similar to the one-off, but its gold quota is style over substance, purportedly weighing in at around just 6.5g.

If you could successfully scrape the 6.5g of gold off a Dhabab Edition, you could sell it for ~$1,080 today. However, it must be noted that these cards were known to sell for around $10,000 in the UAE. So, if you had one and removed the $1,080 of gold, you would definitely be devaluing it.

Billet Labs is back and has finalized its cast-iron Victorian radiator gaming PC build. Alex from the London-based PC cooling innovators shared a detailed hour-long video with insights into the build, which should answer all your what, why, and how queries. However, he thought that even for this impressive radiator-as-a-PC build, “cooling something like a 5090 is probably out of the question,” so an RTX 5080 and Ryzen 7 9800X3D combo were judged to be the sweet spot.

We covered a teaser for this incredibly stout Victorian-era cast-iron PC build just ahead of the New Year. Thankfully, we now have a lot more information about this fascinating build and the concept/process behind it.

The video begins with Alex explaining that this amazing-looking PC is destined - not for some showroom or exhibition - but for an “actual usable long-term gaming PC, for myself.” Previously, we saw estimates that the charming but portly radiator was 110 pounds (~50kg) in weight. Now we have a clearer set of figures. The radiator is actually about 178 pounds (81kg) empty, and 218 pounds (99kg) when filled with coolant.

Commenting on this hulking mass of metal, “the thermal mass is absolutely insane,” enthused Alex. “And, secondly, it looks %^&* awesome!”

The key approach to the design and build was to keep the Victorian artifact’s visual appeal intact, and mount PC parts “as invisibly as possible, on the bottom.” But an immediate challenge to this idea was the fact that “there’s not a single flat surface, and not a single hole that I can bolt anything to,” wryly commented the PC liquid cooling specialist.

The first practical step in the build process was the 3D scanning of the bottom of the radiator to create an accurate 3D model. Armed with this, Felix designed a highly accurate 3D printed mounting system for PSU, mobo, GPU, and so on. This 2-part plastic chassis was fixed to the central underlying spine of the radiator, with corresponding half-pipe fixings securing it in place.

Though we had the impression this was going to be a fanless radiator system, the below-decks chassis design included room for sliding in a trio of super-thin 120mm fans.

To mate the heat-generating components with the radiator and plumbing, Billet Labs chose an Alphacool water block for the RTX 5080, and its own prototype AM5 CPU cooling block.

On the topic of PC build components, the list was roughly as follows:

Another nice touch with this fantastic PC build project was the choice of the power button. Felix sourced a sprung antique brass gear lever to power up the PC stylishly. This was fitted into one of the side vents on the rad using a custom mount.

Before the end of the video, we see the antique cast-iron PC used for a bit of gaming and benchmarking. In a ‘torture test,’ drawing about 520W of power for over an hour, the water temperature appeared to stabilize at under 30C. Notably, the RTX 5080 peaked at 75 °C during the most extreme testing Alex could throw at it.

Finding an antique cast-iron radiator isn't that easy in 2026, but at least Amazon still sells some modern ones in various sizes.

MSI’s limited-edition RTX 5090 Lightning Z launched to great acclaim at CES 2026, with the ultra-powerful GPU breaking overclocking records even before it launched. The company only made 1,300 units of this high-performance graphics card, meaning it will only have limited availability. Its earth-shattering capabilities are only matched by its wallet-shattering $5,090 asking price — but scalpers are seemingly ready and willing to shell out that amount in the hopes of getting an even bigger payday when stock has run out.

We’ve seen one eBay listing the GPU at nearly GBP 20,000 — that’s nearly US$27,000 at current exchange rates. We’re unsure if this is a legitimate offer, though, as the seller’s profile mostly showed cheaper replacement Ikea parts and a few electronics, mostly priced under US$100. When we checked sold listings for sealed, brand new MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z GPUs, the price ranged from around $6,700 to a little over $8,800. This is a bit more reasonable, but still at least $1,500 over MSI’s price and more than three times the $2,000 MSRP Nvidia set for the RTX 5090 Founders Edition. As it stands, eBay listings for the card range from $6,000 all the way up to nearly $15,000.

Nevertheless, gamers and enthusiasts bent on breaking records will likely pull the trigger on this purchase just for the extra fps that it delivers. According to our review of the MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z, the GPU performs about 12% faster out of the box than a stock RTX 5090 FE. The gap widened to about 18% when the GPU was manually overclocked, likening its performance to that of a theoretical RTX 5090 Ti.

Those who do not want to do manual tuning but still desire to maximize the Lightning Z’s performance can switch to the Extreme vBIOS, allowing it to draw up to 1000 watts — some 200 watts over the stock OC vBIOS. Aside from that, MSI also released a 2,500-watt XOC BIOS exclusively to overclockers to get every bit of GPU performance from the expensive GPU. One overclocker tried to achieve a world record using this BIOS, but they apparently had an earlier version of it, resulting in a crack from the thermal shock delivered by the massive amounts of power. Thankfully, they still have four more samples of this extreme GPU, allowing them to continue working on it and achieve higher benchmark results in the future.

A charming video from a Turkish wedding reveals a delighted bride and groom being showered with opulent gifts, as per tradition. However, this happy couple isn’t seen being weighed down in gold and jewelry, as if typically the case, instead they are collecting the ultimate riches of the PC tech world – GPUs, RAM, and processors.

The video clip embedded below (expand the tweet to see it) begins with the groom being presented with an MSI Suprim GeForce RTX 5090 in white. The multi-thousand-dollar GPU is hung around the groom's neck using red ribbons. Next up, the same wedding guest presents the bride with a quad-channel DDR5 memory kit, again lashed together using red ribbons. If the guy who presented these tech delights wasn’t the ‘best man’, he is now.

Another wedding guest steps to the fore and adds an Intel Core Ultra Unlocked processor to the groom’s gifts. The subtitles read “right now it’s a full computer set” (machine translation). So, we guess bulky items like the case, motherboard, and PSU weren’t suitable for hanging upon the newlyweds.

Something old
Something GPU
Something borrowed
And something from team Blue

My step-sister married into a Turkish family. It was probably nearly 20 years ago, but I don’t remember her getting any computer tech gifts. The wedding did involve a lot of gold and AK47s, though.

We’ve recently reported on the value of both DRAM and NAND ICs rising above gold, by weight. Such reports may have inspired the Turkish wedding guests in their lovely video clip.

However, we note that while gold never tarnishes, diamonds are forever, cash is king, and happiness is a warm AK47 - an RTX 5090 is probably only going to be serviceable for about a decade, if it doesn’t self-combust in the interim. Meanwhile, a large number of economists and tech watchers expect there to be a sharp correction in the AI-stoked RAM and NAND markets, in due course.

We don’t want to be Debbie Downers about this wedding, though, and wish the bride and groom a long, blissful, and lag-free marriage.

A year after its launch, the GeForce RTX 5090 remains the ne plus ultra of gaming graphics performance. I’m still astounded every time I get to game on one thanks to its jaw-dropping performance at 4K and beyond.

Nvidia’s thermal engineers achieved an amazing feat with the RTX 5090 Founders Edition card, dissipating 575W in a dual-slot, air-cooled form factor that’s still reasonably quiet. But that eye-popping TGP has taken the current capacity of a single 12V-2x6 power connector to its limit, making heavy overclocking dicey in the face of frequent cable and connector meltdowns. And with only a couple of exceptions, even the biggest, baddest partner 5090s are limited to the same single-connector design.

At a CES without any new consumer graphics card launches, I was thrilled to see MSI take the wraps off its RTX 5090 Lightning Z, a wildly ambitious board design that removes most practical limits to achieving maximum performance from the RTX 5090’s GB202 GPU.

This card has not one, but two 12V-2x6 power connectors, one of the only RTX 5090s ever to be so equipped. MSI routes all that power through a 3oz copper PCB and a 40-phase VRM that’s likely total overkill for anybody not engaging in extreme overclocking. But for those who are, this card already has XOC pedigree, with a claimed 19 world records across various benchmarks and leaderboards.

MSI even goes so far as to emblazon “Built to be Perfect” on the RTX 5090 Lightning Z’s packaging. That sets an incredibly (one might even say impossibly) high bar for this card to clear, especially given the $5090.99 price tag through MSI's online store. When you’re asking more than 2.5x the MSRP of a standard RTX 5090, you’re walking on an extremely high wire.

On the outside, MSI has covered most of the face of this card with an 8” screen under a glass cover, plenty of real carbon fiber, subtle RGB LED lighting, and milled metal accents to hold it all together.

It’s a six-pound brick of solid precision, a true statement piece that will unmistakably mark your build as the best of the best. And only a select few PC builders and extreme overclockers will be able to enjoy that distinction, as only 1300 of these cards will be produced.

To make use of the extra current capacity of the dual 12V-2x6 connectors, MSI’s default “OC” vBIOS has a power limit of 800W. The second “Extreme” vBIOS ups that to 1000W. We’ll explore how each of these vBIOS modes affects gaming performance in our benchmarks.

To help dissipate all of those watts, MSI has milled out a full-coverage copper water block that directly cools the GB202 GPU, GDDR7 memory, and the 40-phase VRM on the Lightning Z’s PCB. Coolant travels between the card and a standard-thickness 360mm radiator.

This cooling design obviously requires a case with an appropriate radiator mount, but I’m a fan of it for such high-wattage graphics cards as this. The RTX 5090 Founders Edition cooler blows all its exhaust right onto your CPU socket and RAM, while this remote radiator lets you direct its exhaust directly out of the case with the right enclosure.

The 8” screen on the face of the card makes a statement, but it’s a little fiddly. To even power it on, you need to plug in an included USB Type-A-to-C cable and install a USB display driver. Without the cable plugged in, the screen remains black.

Once it’s up and running, you can do anything with the display that you would with a second monitor in Windows. MSI lets you put GPU stats on the screen through the MSI Center utility, or you could put your favorite looping video on there to set the mood. Yes, we even played Doom on it.

But as you launch games, you might see the second screen flicker or drop back to a tiny Windows desktop if the overlay has a hiccup, which isn’t a huge deal but also isn’t the most refined experience.

To help show off the screen in a system, MSI has also included a nicely made vertical mounting bracket with the Lightning Z that mounts on the existing expansion brackets of ATX mid-towers. It can be adjusted on both the X and Z axes to put the card right where you want it in your case.

It’s always tricky to call something the first or the best of its class, and the Lightning Z isn’t the first extreme RTX 5090 design out there.

Asus’s ROG Matrix Platinum RTX 5090 – also only made in an extremely limited edition of 1000 – also offers an 800W TGP, but you have to pair it with one of the company’s proprietary BTF motherboards to fully unlock its capabilities. And its air-cooled design might explain why it doesn’t offer an even higher power envelope as an option, as the Lightning Z does.

The RTX 5090 Lightning Z can be used with any motherboard and power supply that has the requisite dual 12V-2x6 connectors, and that more open approach appeals to my PC-building heart. Let’s see what it can do.

Our testing methods

We conducted our tests using our trusty GPU test platform, which includes the following components:

Until just recently, our test rig relied on a 1000W PSU, but that’s obviously not enough to handle both our host CPU and motherboard along with the RTX 5090 Lightning Z.

To give us sufficient power to energize the RTX 5090 Lightning Z, MSI also sent over its brand-new MPG Ai1600TS PSU. This 1600W unit features a rare fully digital topology, 80 Plus Titanium efficiency, and dual 12V-2x6 connectors. Our thanks to MSI for providing us with this top-tier PSU for our testing.

To judge what the RTX 5090 Lightning Z can do, we ran it through a subset of our larger game testing suite at 4K ultra settings.

Gaming performance

Gaming power draw

We started our performance testing with Stalker 2 and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, but as you can see from the accompanying PCAT power charts for each game, even those titles just weren’t working the Lightning Z hard enough to really exercise its expanded power limits.

To really push the card, we had to enable path tracing in several games that support it: Doom: The Dark Ages, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Black Myth Wukong, Alan Wake II, and Cyberpunk 2077.

You can see from those per-game power charts that enabling path tracing alongside DLAA and frame generation can drastically increase gaming power draw over raster or lighter RT settings, anywhere from about 50W to 100W on average.

Those results clearly demonstrate the advantages of the Lightning Z’s twin power connectors and greatly expanded power limits versus the Founders Edition. Nvidia’s GPU Boost algorithm will happily take advantage of the added headroom, and our manual overclock is able to extract even more performance.

All told, the RTX 5090 Lightning Z is 12% faster than the RTX 5090 Founders Edition out of the box, and our manual overclock expands that lead to an incredible 18%. In the recent past, a performance increase this large might have prompted Nvidia to release an entire new family of RTX 5090 Ti cards. Clearly, the GB202 chip still has headroom in it.

But the extreme power and cooling required to realize that performance increase has considerable knock-on effects for system design and component choices, and between the lack of high-end competition and the difficulties of taming such a high TDP likely make Nvidia reluctant to fire off an 800W RTX 5090 Ti as a product for general audiences.

To be sure, you can narrow the Lightning Z’s lead back to 10% by overclocking the Founders Edition in turn, but then you’re further stressing the single 12V-2x6 connector of that card. The RTX 5090 Lightning Z lets us push the GB202 GPU to the max, and it lets us do so with absolute confidence in its stability and operating limits.

Overclocking the RTX 5090 Lightning Z is no different in principle than on any other Blackwell card. Fire up MSI Afterburner, raise the power limit to the max, then start raising the clock slider until you start seeing graphical artifacts or game crashes. Once you hit that limit, dial back the slider step by step until it’s stable.

After several rounds of this process, we arrived at an Afterburner clock offset of +143 MHz, which results in a mean real-world clock of 3149 MHz across all the games and settings we tested. That’s just a 132 MHz increase over the 3017 MHz mean clock speed we observed from both the stock and OC BIOSes.

To be fair, this isn’t anything new for GPU overclocking these days. Nvidia’s GPU Boost algorithm already extracts most of the performance available from any extra power and thermal headroom that a given card might offer. But with a cooler and power-delivery subsystem this extreme, I think you can forgive me for expecting a bit more.

We were also slightly disappointed to see that, despite the RTX 5090 Lightning Z’s exotic feature set, it’s still subject to the same +375MHz GDDR7 overclocking cap that every other RTX 5090 has. Raw GDDR7 memory bandwidth doesn’t seem to limit Blackwell performance as GDDR6 and GDDR6X might have for past Nvidia GPUs, but given this card’s extreme DNA, I was once again expecting that we might have seen this cap lifted.

For reference, here are the mean power, clock, temperature, and noise results for the RTX 5090 Founders Edition and RTX 5090 Lightning Z.

We’ve broken our overall power charts out into three separate means so that you can see the effects of enabling path tracing on power draw compared to lighter RT and raster titles.

These summary results also demonstrate the superior performance of MSI’s liquid cooling system. Even with 25-30% more power to dissipate as heat, the Lightning Z heatsink keeps the GB202 chip as much as 16 °C cooler than the Founders Edition. That’s expected given that the FE card is using a much smaller air cooler, but it’s impressive nonetheless.

Next up is noise testing. We measure noise at a distance of one meter from the system under test using a calibrated Triplett SLM400 meter on a sturdy tripod. The noise floor of our testing environment, as measured by this meter, is 32.6 dBA.

For all its other advantages over the RTX 5090 Founders Edition, the Lightning Z’s cooling system isn’t quieter. But given that it’s dissipating anywhere from 25% to 30% more power as heat than the FE card, the fact that it’s just 1 dBA or so louder is an impressive result.

That said, the Lightning Z’s liquid cooler has more moving parts than the Founders Edition’s twin fans, and the liquid cooling pump within is especially noticeable on the bench. At full tilt, it has a highly tonal and even somewhat growly or rattly quality that suggests it’s hard at work. The three fans on the 360-mm radiator are pleasant under load, though.

Coil whine is another noise source of concern from graphics cards, and the Lightning Z’s 40-phase VRM does still exhibit some whine. Compared to the extremely prominent and complex whine of the Founders Edition card, however, the Lightning Z is far better controlled in this regard.

To show just how MSI’s twin 12V-2x6 connector design helps maintain stability and reliability under extreme loads, we examined the temperatures of the dual 12V-2x6 cables compared to the single connector of the RTX 5090 Founders Edition under load using our thermal camera. We chose Alan Wake II with path tracing enabled as our test load for this analysis, since that title had the highest power draw in our game tests.

Even on an open bench and with active cooling pointed at the power connector, the RTX 5090 Founders Edition’s 12V-2x6 cable reaches 58 °C.

Under the most extreme gaming workload we have, spreading power delivery across two 12V-2x6 connectors greatly reduces the temperature of each cable— to between 46 °C and 47 °C, or by more than 10 °C compared to a single-connector card.

Just for kicks, we also fired up FurMark with our manual overclock in play. Under this extreme synthetic load, the Lightning Z hits its full 1000W TGP with its Extreme vBIOS, and our test system is pulling over 1200W from the wall.

Even with this insane amount of current moving through its power cables, the dual-connector design of the Lightning Z means that neither cable gets worryingly hot. Both cables stabilized at about 52 °C.

Our test data demonstrates that the RTX 5090 Founders Edition usually operates at power levels far lower than its 575W TGP while gaming, but not always. If you enable path tracing in games that support it, power draw greatly increases, and overclocking increases it further still.

The fact that it’s even possible to produce such high temperatures on the cable and connector within stock operating parameters and with active cooling remains an indictment of the power delivery design of the Founders Edition 5090 – and, by extension, most partner card designs.

Including two 12V-2x6 connectors on every 5090 would certainly have increased costs and complexity for DIY builders, PSU makers, board partners, and system integrators alike, but a design that’s harder to push to its design limits could and likely would have avoided costly meltdowns, risk to property, and endless bad PR.

All this is wishful thinking in a market where Nvidia can clearly sell every RTX 5090 it makes regardless of the risk of a power connector failure, but it’s worth remembering that melting plugs were practically unheard of before the introduction of the 12VHPWR connector, and we think that as the market leader and ecosystem driver in graphics cards, Nvidia should cultivate a stronger safety culture for future designs. The benefits of an alternative approach are staring us right in the face.

Bottom line

The MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z unleashes Nvidia’s most powerful gaming GPU like no other card before it. Its dual 12V-2x6 connectors, extreme power delivery subsystem, and exotic cooling design let you explore the full potential of the GB202 chip with absolute confidence in its safety and stability.

All of that extra power delivery and cooling headroom translates to about 12% better performance than the RTX 5090 Founders Edition in our tests. Manual overclocking extends that lead to an incredible 18% (though overclocking the 5090 FE in turn narrows that back to 10%).

In the recent past, that kind of performance increase would have prompted Nvidia to release an RTX 5090 Ti. But unless or until it does, this Lightning Z card provides a durable performance advantage—and bragging rights—over lesser RTX 5090s with a single power connector.

And that particular, exclusive satisfaction is why this card is an eye-popping $5090. If you’re putting down this much money for a graphics card, you want it to be more than just a product. You want it to be a spectacle, an occasion, a conversation piece that can be enjoyed and then displayed long after new generations of graphics cards eclipse it. The RTX 5090 Lightning Z is certainly that special, from its packaging to its build quality and industrial design to its performance results and overclocking experience.

Beyond its unique technical distinctions, the Lightning Z is one of the coolest-looking and best-built graphics cards I’ve ever had the privilege of using. The huge LCD screen on the face of the card begs for a vertical mount in a build, and MSI’s included bracket and riser cable let you do that with ease.

It barely rises to the level of a complaint, but our power measurements suggest the Lightning Z’s Extreme vBIOS and its 1000W TGP are really meant for extreme overclockers for whom the stock cooler is just an obstacle to mounting an LN2 pot. Even the most demanding gaming workloads just don’t push the card hard enough to use all the extra power headroom afforded by the Extreme vBIOS, whether stock or overclocked.

Even with its extraordinarily high price and any retailer markups that might get stacked on top, MSI will certainly sell every last one of the 1300 Lightning Zs it plans to release, both to well-heeled enthusiasts and to extreme overclockers with dewars of cryo-coolant at the ready to chase the #1 spots on the HWBOT leaderboards. Our verdict, then, is largely ceremonial.

As a merely mortal PC gamer and enthusiast of modest means, I can tell you that the Lightning Z advances the state of the art for RTX 5090 board design by every measure at our disposal, and I’m glad MSI’s designers and engineers got the opportunity to go wild to make it happen.

If you evaluate purchases with the objectivity of Commander Data and just want a graphics card to plug in and game with, any other RTX 5090 will do. But if you demand the absolute best RTX 5090 yet made, I’m confident in saying that this is it.

Just a few days ago, we covered back-to-back GPU cases from Reddit, one positive and one negative, breaking the pessimistic cycle often associated with these stories. Today, we return to scheduled programming with yet another scam-swap incident: a customer failed to receive what they ordered. Specifically, a Redditor received a bunch of rocks and a towel in lieu of an MSI Suprim RTX 5090, one of the best graphics cards, which is worth at least $3,000 as per our GPU 2026 price tracker.

The victim wrote in r/pcmasterrace, detailing how they'd ordered an RTX 5090 from Amazon Resale, which means the GPU was repackaged and sold, but got sediment instead. Technically, you could use this to make silicon that eventually becomes a GPU die, but unless you're a multi-billion-dollar vertically integrated production line, you're stuck with just rocks.

Unlike most other stories where the card is brought brand-new from Amazon, the open-box nature of this unit complicates things. The post says the box's seal was barely intact, and we can see an LPN label, which means it was a previous return. So, this is a classic switcheroo: someone bought and actually received the real thing, swapped it for rocks to match the weight, and returned it to Amazon, which didn't bother checking what was inside.

The returned item was added to the resale inventory, and u/Dazzling_Course8755 was the unfortunate soul who bought it. What's interesting is that this seems to be the fourth time this has happened to OP, according to their own caption, which really raises questions about the motives here. It's strange that someone who's been wronged three times already would try their luck yet again.

Anyhow, our victim recorded the whole unboxing on their phone after missing a chance to unbox it in front of the driver. As long as the case is legit, this should be a pretty easy return and refund with Amazon. Funny enough, a very similar story unfolded last month when someone received a large brick instead of the RTX 5080 they ordered, which later led to an investigation.

We're keeping an eye out for the lowest-priced GPUs and keeping those listed here for you. The sad state of the memory industry, which is besieged by insanely large memory orders for AI data centers and AI GPUs, has led to increasing prices for gaming graphics cards. Nvidia is purportedly allocating memory based on the amount of money it can make per GB of VRAM, which has made the situation dire for some models. To help you navigate the pricing crisis, we have compiled this GPU index to monitor the availability and pricing of recent graphics card releases from the current and previous generations.

We update this guide constantly with the best prices in the U.S. for each SKU of GPU from the most recent two generations of Nvidia, AMD, and Intel cards. We're listing the lowest price for an available graphics card, regardless of the manufacturer, so it could be an Asus, Zotac, MSI, Sapphire, Gigabyte, Powercolor, or ASRock-branded card, but it will be the cheapest.

A word of warning: with this list, sometimes the retailers switch to third-party sellers automatically. You must be super vigilant and check sellers to ensure legitimacy. For older generation graphics cards, it can often be difficult to find these cards brand-new and on sale from first-party retailers like Amazon, Newegg, and Best Buy, and they are more often than not listed by third parties. Check prices against the current generation of GPUs to understand if you are getting a good deal, or if you're in fact better off paying a little extra for the very latest graphics cards.

Also, check out our list of the best graphics cards and our GPU benchmark hierarchy to see evergreen performance data to help you make an informed decision when choosing a new GPU for your system.

Nvidia RTX 50-Series: Lowest Graphics Cards Prices

The latest 50-series graphics cards from Nvidia include the current most powerful consumer GPU - Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5090. The RTX 5090 uses the new Blackwell architecture and comes with a massive 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM, and given the current prioritization for models with lower amounts of VRAM to boost profits, it's a problem getting your hands on one at anything even in the vicinity of a reasonable price.

The 50-series range doesn't have the most impressive gen-on-gen performance uplifts on pure rasterization power compared to the 40-series, but it does support new software and tech such as 5th Gen Tensor cores, 4th Gen Ray Tracing cores, DLSS 4.5 with Multi-Frame Generation tech, and Reflex 2. Some of those technologies, like DLSS and frame gen, can help wring the most performance out of those lower-tier cards with less VRAM.

There are 8GB variants of the RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti, available at near MSRP prices, with the higher-tier GPUs like the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 in poor supply at any reasonable price.

Nvidia RTX 40-Series: Lowest Graphics Cards Prices

Nvidia's 40-series Ada Lovelace architecture graphics cards include the powerful GeForce RTX 4090 and 4080 Super. The 4090 combines a massive 24GB of GDDR6X VRAM and Nvidia's 4th generation of Tensor cores for increased ray-tracing ability.

The RTX 40-series cards also feature support for Nvidia's DLSS 3 software for AI frame generation, which helps to increase frame rates on higher resolutions and settings. In general, Nvidia cards are the best choice for ray tracing, with more features than the competition. You'll also generally pay more for Nvidia GPUs relative to similarly performing AMD GPUs.

Unfortunately, RTX 40-series GPUs are no longer being produced, so stock levels have dried up on many card variants. Any available cards for sale have a high chance of being either second-hand or ex-mining hardware, yet still ask for exorbitant prices. Be extra vigilant when shopping for 40-series graphics cards, and buy from a reputable seller. Prices for 40-series cards are also much higher than they should be. They can be a good choice for a second-hand purchase if you can get one at the right price and accept all associated risks.

AMD Radeon RX 9000-Series: Lowest Graphics Cards Prices

AMD's competition to Nvidia includes the Radeon RX 9060, RX 9070, and RX 9070 XT graphics cards with MSRP prices of $269, $549, and $599, respectively. Finding one of these GPUs for that price, however, could prove to be a struggle as prices of Radeon graphics cards rise due to ever-expanding memory price hikes. These new cards go toe-to-toe with Nvidia's RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti and offer a great alternative to Team Green.

The RX 9070 XT comes with 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM for those texture-heavy games and provides a large generational increase compared to RDNA 3. Improvements to AI and ray tracing tech have made this generation of AMD cards perform much better in games with ray tracing, but they still fall behind Nvidia in overall performance for ray/path tracing.

There are also 8GB and 16GB versions of the RX 9060 XT available, and they are selling for a fair price at the moment. However, 8GB of VRAM means the card isn't terribly futureproofed, as game requirements continually grow regarding shader and texture memory requirements.

AMD Radeon RX 7000-Series: Lowest Graphics Cards Prices

AMD's 7000-series GPUs are still a great option for a graphics card in your gaming rig if you can find one at a good price. Not the best choice if you're looking for pure ray-tracing performance, but if you want raw computational performance, they are a winner. Combined with AMD's FSR software, these 7000-series GPUs can still crank out high frame rates in the latest games.

The RX 7900 XTX in particular represents a great blend of power and performance, with it being the halo-tier card from the 7000-series and AMD not replicating a super-high-end card for the 9000-series. The RX 7900 XTX still ranks highly in our GPU Benchmark Hierarchy charts.

Here are all the lowest prices for the 7000-series models currently available.

Intel Arc GPUs: Lowest Graphics Card Prices

Intel's entry into the GPU market has been a little hit-and-miss. In some titles, these cards perform relatively well, but in older DirectX games, the cards suffer from some poor performance issues.

Frequent driver updates have made many improvements to the performance of Intel's Arc lineup and turned them into a much more viable choice for a budget gaming PC build. The prices of these GPUs have hit a price sweet spot that has been abandoned by Nvidia and AMD, especially for 1080p gaming. The Arc series of GPUs should certainly not be discounted when considering any budget gaming system build.

Intel's most recent launches include the Arc B580 and Arc B570, with the cards having 12GB of VRAM for the B580 and 10GB for the B570. Pricing is very competitive with the Intel cards, but the manufacturer's variety is limited, as is stock.

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If you're on the hunt for a standalone RTX 5090 graphics card, I wish you good luck in finding one. Recently, the flagship Nvidia card has surged in price far beyond the mythical $2000 MSRP, and is now also harder to find than a clear picture of Sasquatch going for a forest walk. The only way to get your hands on a 5090 at the moment is to purchase one as part of a prebuilt gaming PC, and today, we have a deal on an HP Omen 45L gaming PC that you can configure with an RTX 5090 for just $3544.99 when you add the promo code NEWYEAR26 for a 26% discount off the total checkout price, getting you the whole rig for less than current 5090 standalone listings.

• Grab this deal at HP

You will need to configure the HP Omen 45L desktop to include the RTX 5090, and when selecting the 5090, you also have to default to selecting the 1200-watt power supply option. You could save a few cents by going with 16GB of RAM, but I wouldn't recommend dropping below 32GB on a high-end build like this. For the price I've listed, I selected 32GB of Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5-6000 MT/s memory. The rest of the configured parts include an Intel Core Ultra 7 265K with 20 cores and 20 threads, and a 1TB SSD for storage.

Searching through the most popular retailers, I have not found a 1st-party seller offering an RTX 5090. There are some 3rd-party listings on Amazon and Newegg for $4500 - $5500, but I wouldn't risk it for those prices. It's not just RAM that's disappearing off the shelves and asking astronomical prices; GPUs are also starting to climb in price again. If you want the most powerful graphics card available, you're not going to find one anywhere near the $2000 MSRP.

The Nvidia RTX 5090 is the most powerful consumer graphics card available (if you can find one in stock), and in our review of Nvidia's RTX 5090, we saw a 25% increase in performance at 4K ultra over the previous RTX 4090 flagship GPU. We benchmarked the card against our suite of 16 games and found it easily topped the charts in pure rasterization and dominated in ray tracing and MFG applications, where Nvidia holds the crown.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Last month, reports of Asus' hyper-expensive ROG Matrix RTX 5090s being recalled started popping up, with the company saying that "product optimizations and enhancements" were in order. At the time, the leading theory pointed toward subpar liquid metal application on the GPU core, as called out by Roman 'der8bauer' Hartung, which has now been confirmed in his latest video. He takes the card apart to find a different spread that should hold up much better over time.

The sample variant of this GPU had the liquid metal applied, rather poorly, in an uneven ring shape. It performed fine thermally but appeared as a manual hack job rather than something coming off a production line. These ROG Matrix cards are Asus' flagship offering for enthusiasts, so perhaps a handmade touch might actually seem more luxurious, but not in this case.

Liquid metal is a competent thermal interface material, but if it leaks from the application area, it can short out the surrounding components, causing havoc in an instant. Therefore, cautionary measures need to be put in place to prevent that from happening. On these recalled cards, Asus did that by adding a new thermal paste pattern around the perimeter of the core.

As you can see above, the liquid metal now essentially hugs the thermal paste on the substrate, with two more lanes of it blocking the metal from ever coming out. There are cutouts in the application to ensure breathability and facilitate thermal expansion when the GPU is actually running. Apart from the thermal paste application, the liquid metal itself behaves a bit differently on this card, too.

Der8auer put the compound in an SEM for material analysis to find silicon oil mixed with the metal, likely to make mass application easier. The findings aren't conclusive, but Asus seems to have used some printing technique to form liquid metal droplets, which were then mixed with silicon, so factories could have an easier time consistently replicating the TIM spread.

Apart from these under-the-hood cooling changes, the rest of the card is identical to its sample version, which is to say: very over the top. The GPU pulled almost 800W in FurMark with the fans spinning slightly slower than before. The temps remained lower, too, but that could have to do with the card's orientation on the test bench.

The video includes a lot of other interesting tidbits, such as a tease for a wired version of the WireView Pro, allowing the tool to be usable with any graphics card. Asus also shipped a few BTF (back connect) to 12V-2x6 adapters to der8auer, which he used for testing this card. The modder also appreciated the fact that these GPUs were recalled to fix a complaint; a costly effort, but one that's probably expected when $4,000 is on the line.

With Asus grabbing plenty of attention with its limited-edition ROG Matrix RTX 5090 last year, Gigabyte has now entered the spotlight with its own flagship response — the Aorus GeForce RTX 5090 Infinity. Featuring a rounded look that resembles the light cycles from Tron, it adopts a double flow-through design with two cooling fans on either end, and a smaller third fan hidden at the center behind a mesh.

According to the company, the GPU features their Windforce Hyperburst cooling system that includes a separated PCB design. This is said to enable ‘penetrating airflow’ on both sides of the card’s backplate wherein all the hot air is exhausted towards the backside of the card. The smaller third ‘overdrive’ fan helps by providing an additional airflow that only fires up during demanding workloads.

Gigabyte has also used a range of advanced thermal materials to improve heat dissipation. These include superconducting heat pipes, composite metal grease for the GPU die — a hybrid compound that blends traditional thermal paste with liquid metal properties — and server-grade thermal conductive gel for other internal components. Together, these changes are said to keep temperatures in check while maintaining stable performance under sustained loads.

Thanks to the cooling system, Gigabyte has managed to make the card smaller compared to most RTX 5090 models in the market measuring 330mm in length, 145mm in width, and 65mm in height. While that should make it easy to install in most PC towers including a selection of mATX cases, it is still larger than the RTX 5090 Founders Edition. Speaking of which, the Aorus GeForce RTX 5090 Infinity comes with a 16-pin 12V-2x6 power connector in a vertical orientation similar to the Founders Edition.

The primary cooling fans also come with Gigabyte’s RGB Halo customizable LED lighting, which has been a staple on Aorus GPUs. Other features include a die-casted metal backplate, dual-BIOS functionality, and a four year warranty. Pricing and availability has not been disclosed yet, but expect the flagship GPU to launch with a premium price tag possibly upwards of $3000.

MSI's Lightning brand of GPUs have represented the company's highest-tier offerings, but they've been on a hiatus these past few generations. Fortunately, the iconic line-up is being revived with a new RTX 5090 Lightning, overtaking the Suprim X as MSI's flagship 5090 variant. While the card hasn't been officially shown off yet, a new CES Innovation Awards listing has unveiled much of the specifics.

Before that, the company posted a teaser video on social media, confining the return of the Lightning brand and promising a proper announcement for tomorrow. We'll be sure to bring you exclusive coverage of MSI's RTX 5090 Lightning right from the show floor. Till then, a CES Innovation Awards page has already crowned this GPU as an honoree in "Gaming & eSports," along with unabashed praise for its extreme performance.

On the CES awards page, it mostly talks about the cards cooling prowess, "A next-generation pump optimizes flow dynamics, feeding MSI’s patented hybrid-density radiator with zoned fin spacing for superior heat exchange. A silent, high-pressure axial fan with newly designed aerodynamic blades further boosts static pressure at low noise." The main takeaway is the mention of a "reinforced high-power PCB and premium VRM." This refers to an insane 40 power phases, higher than even Galax HOF 5090D's 36/38-phase VRM, capable of delivering up to 1600W of power via dual 12V-2x6 connectors.

Those will probably go well with MSI's new power supply promising to prevent your 5090's 16-pin connector from melting, a situation only exacerbated by having two of them. Evidently, we saw this GPU break world records just yesterday. There will also be a dedicated mobile app to take advantage of the card's unique design.

That transitions us nicely into aesthetics. Prior leaks have already shown us what the GPU looks like — it's a liquid-cooled card with the tubes protruding from the right side, connected to a 360mm radiator. There's a massive screen on one side of the card, and the CES page notes that it can display real-time system visualizations and a companion app enables users to monitor and tweaking overclock settings on the go. The teaser MSI shared also features quick glances at the fans on that aforementioned rad. As you'd expect, the design language leans heavily into a gaming aesthetic, with sharp lines and tasteful RGB accents all around.

At the core (no pun intended), it's still an RTX 5090 so expect all the same specs, just turned up a notch due to the extra overclocking headroom. Reports of a monstrous 2500W XOC BIOS are also floating around, suggesting a new enthusiast champ in the industry. Unfortunately, that same industry is currently navigating a memory crisis, so the 32 GB of GDDR7 VRAM onboard might hike up the card's price even more.

That's not to say it was ever going to be cheap without it. Make no mistake — we're looking at $4,000+ here since this card competes with (and surpasses, in most aspects) the ROG Matrix Platinum RTX 5090, which did retail for $4,000, and that came out before the DRAM shortage took effect. Therefore, availability might become another concern, but seeing how this GPU will only be targeted at extreme overclockers, inventory probably won't be an issue.

MSI is apparently getting ready to launch the RTX 5090 Lightning, its new top-of-the-line GPU that will slot above the MSI RTX 5090 Suprim, with new overclocking records that bear the GPU appearing on benchmark sites. A user who goes by Dr. Antoine is the new record holder on 3Dmark’s Time Spy Hall of Fame, scoring 53,207 on January 2, 2026. Their system used an Intel Core i9-14900KF CPU and, more importantly, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 GPU from MSI. The company makes other RTX 5090 models, though, so we cannot confirm if this is the new Lightning GPU just yet.

Fortunately, we get more clues from HWBot about the GPU being used in these new world records. The current 1st- and 2nd-placers in HWBot’s record-keeping for 3Dmark Time Spy are nv1diafan and oc_windforce, who scored 59,438 and 58,786 points, respectively. While the former did not mention what GPU they used for their run, the latter commented, “Comeback! MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Lightning” in their results. Another user named littleboy ranked 1st on the 3DMark Solar Bay Extreme record on HWBot with a score of 66,977, and, like oc_windforce, they also commented, “MSI RTX 5090 Lightning is Back!!!”

These users apparently already have their hands on MSI’s latest GPU, and it seems an embargo has been lifted, allowing them to share the results of their tests. While the company has not made any official announcement on its website or socials yet, it did post a weather forecast teaser, forecasting lightning and thunder on January 5, the first day of CES 2026. We don’t have any details about the new MSI GPU, though the pictures show that the card seems to require dual 12V-2x6 power connectors.

MSI likely wants to take the top-end of the GPU market by storm by announcing the RTX 5090 Lightning alongside several new world records. However, don’t expect to get the same numbers if you have the money to purchase this graphics card, unless you’re willing to use exotic cooling solutions to put that expensive component through its paces. MSI has used the Lightning branding for its highest-end GPUs in the past, with the GTX 1080 Ti Lightning Z coming out in 2017, followed by the RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z in 2019. The company also released the Radeon R9 290X Lightning in 2014.

Someone must've been on Santa's naughty list, as a user on Reddit has posted an ugly picture of a melted RTX 5090 power connector that occurred on Christmas. The connector is fried past recognition, to the point where its owner thinks it's safer not to even try to take it out right away.

This melting fate befell user u/nmp14fayl, who described their misfortune on the r/pcmasterrace subreddit.

"[I]ndeed it did not just melt, when I started smelling something weird, next thing I knew, it was fully on fire 🔥," they wrote.

The plastic insulation of the 12V-2x6 cable has given way and exposed the bare copper wires underneath and the connector housing has melted into itself.

We see a blob of solder piled up on the GPU-side connector, which has likely solidified and is even making contact with the heatsink fins, along with some burnt cable debris. The fire also scorched part of the AIO tubes passing over the GPU, but everything else looks untouched. The point of connection is completely destroyed.

The Redditor has already said they'll take the entire apparatus, cable dangling and all, to Micro Center after the holidays. In the meantime, they've troubleshooted other components, including the ATX 3.1 power supply and they all seem to be fine. The motherboard is displaying an image over integrated graphics, and a secondary RTX 2070 Super is also working on the affected PCIe slot.

Whether the RTX 5090 itself is salvageable remains a question, but the power connector is a goner for sure and, sadly, it's just an addition to the long list of stories like this. While user error is often attributed to 12V-2x6 woes, the connector itself is notorious for being allegedly under-designed, often carrying close to 600W of power at very high amperage that it seems to mishandle.

On paper, the 12V-2x6 connector is already an improvement over the previous-gen 12VHPWR connector that killed many RTX 4090s, but the same underlying logic applies across both generations. If one pin stops making a connection due to stress or mechanical failure, the rest receive too much load, which overheats them and leads to melting, burning, or igniting in worst-case scenarios.

We've done a deep dive into the specifics of why these connectors melt, but it's clearly a persistent issue. If it were an isolated problem, companies like Thermal Grizzly wouldn't sell temp monitoring adapters, and DIY solutions to combat overloads would never materialize.

The issue is exacerbated by older power supplies that only support 8-pin PCIe cables, for which GPU manufacturers supply 8-pin-to-16-pin adapters, adding another factor into the equation. Funnily enough, this Redditor was using a native 12V-2x6 cable that came with their PowerSpec 1050 GFM power supply, so even that excuse is out the window. We're sending our holiday wishes to the poster, hoping the GPU is somehow salvageable.

Welcome, my name's Splave, or Allen Golibersuch, and I am a professional overclocker. You may have read some of my previous articles on Tom's Hardware, or spotted me in a YouTube video or two. In this column, I will delve into extreme overclocking and muse about what it's like to run your own bespoke system integrator business. But first of all, if you're not acquainted with who I am or what I do, here's an introduction.

For me, overclocking started as just a hobby, but a fairly serious one. I would jet across the world to events like Computex and other live events, winning or placing across overclocking competitions. Unfortunately, not many places or people were willing to pay folks to overclock hardware. Shocking, I know. After some experimentation with launching my own bespoke PC, I knew that I didn't ever want to just sell normal PCs. I wanted to make performance computers that are better than what's out there for a similar price, where my overclocking talents could be used as an added benefit, not merely a pricing burden.

That's when a company I had a long-time relationship with approached me, and asked if they could take a percentage share of ownership and invest in launching my own brand of PCs. It all initially started as a very boutique operation, but eventually rolled over into a full-on system integrator, which is where I am today. Do you know how many Fractal Design cases you can fit into a garage? Asking for a friend.

Anyway, at this point, building and tinkering with PCs isn't just my hobby, or my work, it's my love. I hope you enjoy the forthcoming columns on Tom's Hardware Premium, where I get a chance to stretch my legs and wax lyrical about the things I love.

For the inaugural edition of Splave's Cave, I pick apart a very special graphics card, the Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090. Yes, the 5090 came out months ago, and yes, there is a gold version, which I sadly do not own. But while the GPU I'm using isn't made of real gold, it's capable of capturing world-record gold. Here's how I set a 3DMark Port Royal World Record. Don't catch your fingers on that silicon, because it's about to get cold.

While I hate to be late to the party, a lot of work goes into overclocking top-tier hardware. Luckily, Asus has crafted an incredibly performant graphics card, with excellent R&D and overclocking departments that work hard on providing workarounds for the protections that any GPU might have. Yeah, those protections, the ones that make sure that the cards don't go boom or catch fire. We're finally in a place where those protections have extended far enough that we can pull out some wild performance from these GPUs at sub-ambient temperatures.

But, there is one thing: You can't try this specific technique at home. I am using a special, non-public BIOS for the GPU that offers a much higher power limit than the standard one would allow. I want to be fully transparent about this, and I'm sorry, but if you want to acquire the BIOS, it's not mine to give out. With that in mind, I know what I am doing, and I am fully prepared to smoke an incredibly expensive graphics card.

There are still challenges without power limits

Equipped with the bespoke BIOS, another challenge awaits. Even if the GPU's standard power limits are removed, thermal limits remain a bottleneck. If you let your card get super hot, it's going to still lower its clock speed in an attempt to avoid outright failure. So, this bespoke BIOS with its extended power limits is practically useless without sub-ambient cooling. For the standard OC BIOS, there's plenty of headroom, which the ROG Astral RTX 5090's cooler is equipped to handle; many cards can run +2000 MHz memory speeds without additional cooling, which is a feat of engineering in itself.

Simply put, the card is incredible. I've been doing this for a long time, and Asus' latest effort is head-and-shoulders above the next-best card I have touched. I'm not trying to wax lyrical about Asus because I am "glazing," as the kids like to say; they've really earned it, and I have nothing negative to say about it at all. The GPU is heavy because the cooler is so well designed. It commands a pricing premium because the components used within it are premium. It runs quietly and looks elegant and discreet. The Asus ROG Astral 5090 just shows up and does work; it's a real powerhouse of a GPU.

The 5090 die doesn't like being cold

Despite all of that fantastic engineering and being equipped with a custom BIOS, the GPU hates being cold. When using liquid nitrogen (LN2) cooling, the ROG Astral RTX 5090 starts misbehaving at around -10°C to -20°C. By misbehaving, I mean that the screen goes black, the system hangs, and you have to wait until the card is above 0°C before you can boot it back into Windows — otherwise known as a 'cold bug.'

This is one of those situations where I just have to take a step back, take a deep breath, turn around toward my punching bag, and away from the expensive electronics, to let off some steam for a few minutes.

But, not liking the cold isn't an issue specific to Asus' ROG Astral 5090; it's an Nvidia issue. The RTX 5090 die itself doesn't like being cold, with users of other brands reporting similar experiences. Situations like this make me feel like we could really use a Kingpin right about now. He always had a way to finesse Nvidia into fixing cold bug issues, which isn't something a basement hobbyist can achieve.

Impressive results, despite limitations

But, with that being said, the ROG Astral RTX 5090 can still pull off some pretty impressive feats, without reaching extremely cold temperatures; this card could hit core clock speeds of 3600MHz+.

For comparison, the Asus ROG Matrix 4090, the first GPU to run at over 4 GHz, required cooling down to -190°C to accomplish that feat. Now, just imagine if the RTX 5090 could come close to running at those temperatures, it would simply be absurd. I know that Asus is exploring ways to overcome the cold limits of the RTX 5090 die, and I'll keep testing the new BIOSes they send my way. Hopefully, any amount of additional cold temperature tolerance will yield even greater results.

Meanwhile, with the card safely idling at -20°C, the ROG Astral RTX 5090 demands over 1,000 watts of power when you start a benchmark. This spikes the temperature from -20°C to +10°C instantly, and that's with a five-pound copper pot filled with LN2 attached to it. Whatever the case may be with the cold, the GPU has significant thermal demands, given the amount of power it's sucking up.

This can be tricky to maintain throughout the benchmarking process. If the benchmark ends before you taper down on pouring the LN2, it will drop from +20°C all the way to -50°C instantly when there is no load. That means more black screens, more time waiting to get it back to 0°C, and yes, you'll have to start over and attempt the benchmark again. Needless to say, that punching bag I mentioned earlier is getting a lot of use.

Regardless of all those headaches, once you manage to figure out the perfect cocktail of pouring the LN2 throughout the benchmark, and you see the score pop up, it makes the entire effort worthwhile. After a good amount of trial and error, I was able to set a 3DMark Port Royal record with a score over 48,000. A standard RTX 5090 usually achieves around 35,000.

Additionally, I achieved the GPUPI 32B world record and both Unigine Superposition records with the 1080p and 8K configs. These were achieved a little while ago, so it's likely that you'll spot me elsewhere on the leaderboards, too.

That about wraps it up for the first edition of Splave's Cave on Tom's Hardware Premium. Coming up next will be a guide on how to actually set yourself up for extreme overclocking, with a similar setup to the images posted in the article. Keep your eyes peeled, and thanks for reading.

When it comes to graphics card RMAs, even if you're the owner of one of the best graphics cards, it doesn't always go smoothly. Reddit user kromz shared his ongoing experience with RMAing an ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card, revealing that Asus declined to honor the warranty due to a small crack near the PCIe locking tab.

According to the owner of the GeForce RTX 5090, intermittent blank screens and system reboots had been persisting in the system where the Blackwell flagship was installed. After diagnosing the issue as stemming from their ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090, the Reddit user sent the graphics card to Asus for RMA. However, the company reportedly declined the warranty, citing a "surface irregularity." It appears that Asus identified a small crack near the PCB edge tab area, which is not visible to the naked eye and was only detectable through microscopic examination. The company attributes it to customer damage.

The ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090, measuring 14.1 x 5.9 x 3 inches (357.6 x 149.3 x 76 mm), is a heavyweight, weighing 6.6 pounds (3.01 kg) on a scale. Needless to say, it's a monstrous graphics card, so it's vulnerable to damage if not handled or transported with appropriate caution. However, Kromz asserts that they installed the graphics card with meticulous care, consistently utilized the included support bracket, and refrained from relocating the system post-installation. "... all of that weight is supported by a single stress point on the PCB," they said. "Honestly, that’s a design flaw waiting to happen."

Asus reportedly quoted the user $4,661 CAD for a replacement graphics card, which translates to around $3,357 by today's exchange rate. That's more expensive than buying one. When in stock, the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 sells for $3,299.99. Even in Canada, where computer hardware is often more expensive, the overclocked model retails for $4,059 CAD.

After several months of communication with Asus, the Redditor finally had the case escalated to Customer Service Supervisor Peggy Lee, who offered a 50% discount. While they are still seeking a more favorable resolution, a 50% discount could serve as an acceptable compromise if Asus remains firm in its stance. It's unlikely to find a GeForce RTX 5090 for $1,679 in the current market, as even Nvidia's Founders Edition retails for $1,999. However, the Redditor hasn't given up and has started exploring alternative solutions to achieve a better outcome.

There is a precedent concerning PCBs cracking on graphics cards. The issue arises because high-end graphics cards are becoming increasingly power-hungry, requiring more robust solutions with each generation. The additional weight places greater strain on the PCIe connector, particularly on the PCB edge tab, which has been a weak point in some Gigabyte graphics cards from a few years ago.

Gigabyte later updated the design of the PCIe locking tab by increasing its surface area. The manufacturer also reinforced PCIe slots on its motherboards to support graphics cards weighing up to 128 pounds. However, despite these improvements, there were still one or two instances of cracking on the graphics card's PCB.

Dealing with RMA cases can be pretty challenging. One party often claims that the issue was due to user error, while the other side disagrees. Nobody wants to lose money. This particular case is isolated, meaning it's not a frequent occurrence. However, to prevent incidents like this from happening, chipmakers should focus on optimizing their flagship products. This way, partners will not need to release heavy graphics cards that weigh as much as a clay brick.

Asus' ROG Matrix RTX 5090 card has been in the news quite often recently, almost universally due to its gigantic size, specs, and corresponding price tag at a clean $4,000. It's not a good day for Asus' halo graphics card, though, as a report has come in that the company is temporarily halting all sales of the Matrix 5090 due to a manufacturing quality issue.

The information comes from Swedish e-tailer Inet.se, who sent out an email to customers who preordered the card. The information provided by Asus offers no details on what the issue is, but it's worth keeping in mind that it might be serious enough to block the sale of a $4,000 card. Additionally, Asus is apparently outright replacing the cards, so it's unlikely that the problem is something cosmetic like mistakenly-stamped PCBs.

There's also no estimated date for delivery of the fixed cards, at least as far as Inet.se knows, though all of them remain sold out. It's not likely that buyers will have to wait a long time, considering how much of an egg-in-face moment this is for Asus. Nevertheless, standing by one's product is a good thing, and a buyer shelling out $4,000 for one of these will rightfully demand absolute perfection. The statement provided by Inet.se to its customers reads as follows:

"I am contacting you regarding your order for the ASUS GeForce RTX 5090 32GB ROG Matrix Platinum 30th Anniversary Edition. Unfortunately, we have been informed by ASUS that they have identified a quality issue with this particular model. Due to this, we are unable to deliver the card as planned. ASUS is currently working on a replacement version without these issues, but at this time there is no estimated date for when a new copy will be available. We fully understand that this is an unfortunate situation, but unfortunately it is completely beyond our control." — Inet.se via Videocardz

It's hard to imagine what the actual problem might be. German overclocker der8auer remarked during his teardown that the liquid TIM application was sub-par for such an expensive card, as Asus didn't place an actual solid barrier holding the liquid metal in place, and instead opted for a ring made of thermal paste. Having said that, he tested the card without issues, and there have not been any reports of problems from other reviewers.

If the Matrix's design is based off the ROG Astral 5090 cards, however, then some distant hypothesis comes up. Back in February, a user had a blown capacitor on his Astral 5090 take out both the card and his motherboard. A little while later, another person reported fan vibration interfering with the anti-sag sensor on the card. And as recently as a few days ago, a third user claims to have pinned down a power delivery issue via the card's BTF connector, a feature that the Matrix 5090 also shares and is required to hit its full potential.

Regardless of what the problem might be, Asus is bound to follow up quickly, as to not let all the brand awareness garnered by this card go to waste.

We've reached out to Asus for comment.

Top-shelf graphics cards have always commanded a substantial price premium, but some folks simply crave the best no matter the cost. Asus' shiny ROG Matrix Platinum RTX 5090 is the company's new halo card, and it's coming in at a hefty $4,000. There's just one small problem: You can't get one anymore.

Asus really made the Matrix an exclusive product, as it only produced 1,000 of these cards, and they're reportedly sold out already. That's a fairly impressive feat for a card that carries about a 42% price premium over the $2,800 that standard-issue RTX 5090s are currently going for. Given the regular cards are still available from several vendors, it's safe to say the Matrix has quite the halo-product allure.

It's worth mentioning that even if you do have four grand burning a hole in your pocket, taking in and feeding the Matrix is quite the project. To make the most of its 800 W power limit, you'll need a motherboard with a BTF graphics card power slot, which effectively means a higher-end Asus model. The card's power delivery system can use either the BTF connector or a summery 12V-2x6 connector, but you'll need both to unlock its full potential.

German Youtuber der8auer has put the Matrix 5090 through its paces and pretty much confirmed Asus' claims of a roughly 10% performance boost, provided you enable the 800 W power limit. Although 10% seems low, keep in mind we're talking 10% over what is already a massive performance figure.

In this age of diminishing returns on top-shelf hardware, it's still mildly impressive, cost and practicality concerns aside. Der8auer did remark that he was not a fan of the card's liquid metal application, pointing out that it would benefit from an area barrier to prevent it from potentially oozing out further than intended.

The card's cooling system is equally impressive, comprised of a massive heatsink and four fans in a 3+1 setup, in addition to the liquid metal TIM. The whole assembly reportedly weighs in at around 3.2 kg, or 7.1 lb. It's also simply gigantic, at 370 x 150 x 77 mm, or 14.58 x 5.92 x 3.04 inches.

A card this large is almost guaranteed to sag in time without support, and Asus fitted it with an angle sensor for an added layer of safety. Because no one wants broken hardware, especially after you just shelled out thousands for a GPU.

Nvidia's RTX 5090 GPUs, while unparalleled in performance, are also at the top of the leaderboard when it comes to burning down involuntarily. Asus — arguably the most prominent AIB partner for Nvidia — has dared to step into the ring and present something even more adventurous: The ROG Matrix RTX 5090, powered by a custom PCB capable of consuming up to 800W through its special firmware. Now that 800W VBIOS has escaped into the wild, users with otherwise standard, 600W RTX 5090s are experimenting with the unlocked overhead.

Peeking at the Overclock.net forums (page 1202 onwards) will show you various folk flashing the 800W XOC BIOS on their cards as soon as Benni231990 first posted the link for it a couple of days ago. It's relatively straightforward to install with NV Flash, but not every model is compatible right away. Variants like Gigabyte's Aorus Xtreme Waterforce can easily accept this firmware, likely because they match the ROG Matrix's three-channel fan header setup.

Variants with no fan headers, like liquid-cooled models, are also in the green, but some other models, like Asus TUF, have only two fan headers and simply don't work at the moment. This includes Asus' other high-end RTX 5090, the Astral, which many users complained about on the forums. Some models from PNY, Palit, and Zotac were also ruled out as compatible, as more and more people began testing it.

Regardless, the performance boost is visible: these BIOS-modded 5090s are running at 100-200 MHz higher boost clocks than Nvidia's stock numbers and Asus' own claim of up to +323 MHz on the actual ROG Matrix card. This is extreme overclocking territory, so gains are marginal, but it's all about topping the charts, and any bit helps, including custom BIOSes.

This leads to higher sustained clock speeds across the board in games and productivity applications, bolstered by increased power consumption, as shown in the screenshots below. Cyberpunk 2077 gets a few more FPS at 4K resolution as well, and users have been reporting slightly better numbers at the same core clock and memory offsets across a number of games.

As far as the 800W BIOS is concerned, Asus achieved this feat by combining two interfaces: the 16-pin power connector rated for 600W, working alongside a GC-HPWR adapter designed for back-connect motherboards. Forcing this firmware on cards without the custom PCB and cooling of the ROG Matrix cards is, therefore, quite risky, and you might just be accelerating a headline appearance.

The BIOS is available on TPU, but exercise extreme caution; it will most certainly void your warranty. Previously, shunt mods that trick the GPU's resistors into accepting much more power than they think they can handle were used to unlock this sort of headroom. Now, a simple BIOS flash is promising to unlock up to 200W of extra leeway to experiment with and, with the proper cooling, break world records.

Asus just released the price for its limited-edition ROG Matrix RTX 5090, based on the GeForce RTX 5090, one of the best graphics cards. According to its product page, the GPU, made in celebration of its 30th year of making graphics cards, is priced at $3,999. This makes it twice the cost of the Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition card, which has an SRP of $1,999 (though you’ll be hard-pressed to find one at that price).

ROG Matrix is often Asus’ top-of-the-line graphics card offering. They’re usually equipped with the latest features and have the highest possible overclocks, allowing gamers and enthusiasts to get the most out of Nvidia’s GPUs. For example, the ROG Matrix RTX 5090 will come with sag detection to warn you if the GPU has moved on its mount, even with a 0.10-degree shift. This is a crucial feature as the massive GPU comes with four fans, a copper vapor chamber, and three-ounce copper layers, so you can expect it to be one chunky card.

All that weight isn’t just for decoration, too. The ROG Matrix RTX 5090 can draw up to 800 watts through its dual power input ports — a standard 12V-2x6 call that connects directly to your power supply and a GC-HPWR adapter for attachment to your Asus BTF motherboard. This gives it 10% more overclocking headroom, allowing you to squeeze every possible drop of performance out of it.

You’d better be prepared with more than just $4,000 if you want to get your hands on this GPU. Asus said it will release only 1,000 examples of the ROG Matrix RTX 5090 worldwide. So, if you're going to get this collector’s GPU inside your high-end gaming system, you’d better be ready to grab it as soon as it drops. German online retailer Proshop has already opened pre-orders for the Matrix GPU, limiting the sales to just one unit per buyer, but it has since run out of stock. In case you don’t get the chance to buy this limited-edition graphics card (or can’t afford to drop $4k on one), you can check out our list of the best gaming GPUs — that way, you can find one that fits your budget and use case just right.

Asus will introduce a new feature in its GPU Tweak software that detects any changes in the angle of the installed graphics card. According to VideoCardz, this feature will arrive with the upcoming ROG Matrix RTX 5090, the new flagship gaming GPU that will supersede the ROG Astral that launched earlier this year as its most premium GPU.

Graphics card sag has been a problem ever since manufacturers started making humongous three-fan designs that took up two, three, or even four slots. This resulted in a healthy market for creative aftermarket anti-sag brackets, but some users would likely hesitate to install one, as it would mess with the aesthetics of their gaming PC.

Because of this, Asus added the Level Sense feature to its latest top-of-the-line offering. We still don’t know exactly how the graphics card will detect changes in its placement, but this will likely be through tiny accelerometers and gyroscopes built directly onto its board.

This won’t be the first Asus GPU to have this feature, as the ROG Astral is already equipped with the same sag detection capability. However, the main difference between the two GPUs is that the Matrix will have it at launch, whereas Asus only activated sag detection on the Astral some months after it dropped.

Asus hasn’t released the complete specifications of the ROG Matrix RTX 5090 just yet, so we’re unsure how much it will weigh. Nevertheless, we can safely assume that it will be around the neighborhood of the ROG Astral RTX 5090, which is around 3 kg, or more than 6.5 pounds.

Motherboard manufacturers began releasing reinforced PCIe slots last year to accommodate the heft of these beefy GPUs, but it can only do so much to prevent sagging. After all, even if the motherboard can handle the weight, the forces applied to it will be redistributed to the GPU’s PCIe connector, which can then rip due to long-term stress.

GPU Tweak will also come with other new features, including Power Detector+, which monitors the melt-prone 12V-2x6 power cable and will inform you of any anomalies, Thermal Map, which collates temperature data from various points on the GPU, and Mileage, which collects the graphics card’s usage data. All these features position the ROG Matrix RTX 5090 as an enthusiast-grade graphics card designed for those who are into extreme overclocking and with heavy workloads.

We still don’t know how much the ROG Matrix RTX 5090 will go for, but you can expect it to be pricey. While we don’t think it will reach the half-million-dollar price point of the ROG Astral Gold edition, it will still likely be much higher than the $2,000 SRP that Nvidia announced for the RTX 5090.

An extremely fortunate RTX 5090 owner who contacted Nvidia after breaking their GPU while trying to install a custom liquid cooling block has received a brand new card free of charge, despite voiding their warranty as a result of the daring modification.

The GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition is arguably among the best graphics cards available currently. However, the Blackwell flagship features a notably delicate design, which could pose risks if you damage one of the fragile internal components. It is somewhat refreshing to see a damaged GeForce RTX 5090 that is not caused by the melting of the 16-pin power connector from time to time. Although this individual was fortunate enough to have his graphics card with a broken connector replaced by Nvidia, this may be an exceptional case; nonetheless, it sets a notable precedent.

It is understandable if you have not observed the insides of a GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition. This graphics card, priced at $1,999, indeed represents a significant investment, and even for those with the financial capability, obtaining it can be challenging because it is hardly in stock. Nevertheless, an online search for the internal structure of the GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition reveals that it employs a modular design comprising three circuit boards. The primary board, which houses essential elements such as the GPU die and memory modules, is connected to a separate board containing the PCIe connector and to another board that accommodates the display connectors.

The main board communicates with the PCIe board via a delicate internal connector comprising approximately 128 pins. This design resembles connectors typically found within smartphones or tablets. The issue is that this connector is unavailable for purchase separately, making it irreplaceable. An owner of a GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition, along with NorthridgeFix, a specialized graphics card repair shop, encountered this problem firsthand. The shop's limited experience with Founders Edition models is understandable, given the rarity of such repairs, as few individuals would venture to open the elusive $1,999 graphics card.

The courageous user disassembled his GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition in order to install a custom water block aimed at liquid cooling the graphics card. The individual asserts that he handled the disconnection and reconnection of the PCIe board with care, refraining from exerting unnecessary force on the 128-pin connector. Nevertheless, NorthridgeFix subsequently identified that the user had bent one pin and damaged another, which was sufficient to render the GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition non-functional. The challenge associated with a modular design is that all exerted pressure from the PCIe board is transmitted to the 128-pin connector.

Having exhausted all options, the distressed owner contacted Nvidia to inquire whether the chip manufacturer would supply or sell a replacement board for the damaged graphics card. Although Nvidia confirmed that it did not sell replacement parts, the company agreed to replace the graphics card at no cost after the issue was escalated to a senior representative. Clearly, the owner was exceptionally fortunate, as the GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition's warranty was voided immediately upon disassembly. The position for liquid-cooling a graphics card varies depending on the partner. Certain brands permit it, provided that the graphics card remains undamaged during the procedure, whereas others explicitly prohibit it under the warranty terms.

If liquid cooling is included in your plans, it would be advisable to consider purchasing a custom GeForce RTX 5090, as aftermarket designs are generally more convenient. Nevertheless, there remains some risk, as with everything in life. Alternatively, you may opt for one of the GeForce RTX 5090 variants equipped with an AIO liquid cooler or a pre-installed water block, if you're willing to pay a premium. However, if you are among the fortunate owners of a GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition, it is highly recommended that you refrain from disassembling it. We suspect Nvidia may handle these situations on a case-by-case basis, so you may not have the same luck as the owner in this story.

The GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition is Nvidia’s own-brand flagship GPU for consumers, but one repair technician says it comes with a hidden flaw that makes it “one of the worst designs in the history of… GPUs,” he’s seen. In a teardown uploaded to the Northridge Fix YouTube channel, the card was declared unrepairable after damage to an internal connector — one that, the technician claims, cannot be replaced or sourced.

The card in question was sent in after it stopped outputting video following the installation of a third-party water block. While one of the customer’s two cards was successfully repaired, the Founders Edition model wasn’t so lucky. “I checked all contacts,” Alex explains in the teardown. “I inspected the voltage rails; everything is within range, but we do not have an image on the screen.” Eventually, the fault was traced to a board-to-board connector inside the FE’s modular two-part construction.

The GPU repair expert goes on to explain that the Founders Edition is built in two sections — the main card and the PCIe connector assembly — joined by what he calls “a very fragile FPC connector.” Comparing it to plumbing, he argues that every extra joint adds a new potential failure point: “The more connections you have, the more likely you’re going to have a failing point… the same goes with the 5090.”

After inspecting “every single pin”, Alex points to what he calls a damaged connector. “He installed a water block, the card stopped working, and that’s because of the damage that we see here,” he says. “No other damage was found on the board, and that’s the only physical damage I see.”

Northridge Fix's expert host, who has previously covered melting RTX 4090s, adds that the connector, which carries signals between the GPU and the PCIe interface, cannot be sourced as a replacement. “I went online to look for this connector, and I was not able to get my hands on this connector,” he says. “You cannot even get your hands on this if it broke for whatever reason… So what’s the use of having this made in two pieces if you cannot buy a replacement?”

He concludes by warning owners against attempting to open the Founders Edition at all. “If it’s not broken, do not fix it,” he says. “I would stay as far away from the Founders Edition 5090 as I possibly can.”

Edit 10/27/2025 5am PT: Corrected title.

MSI has issued a statement clarifying that it does not sell Nvidia's RTX 5090 GPU, following a spate of rumors and a photograph circulating online depicting hundreds of MSI-branded cards at an unspecified location in the country.

Three days ago, a user on Reddit posted an image showing unattended pallets of RTX 5090 GPUs lying in a street in China. This prompted online chatter pertaining to a lack of enforcement for export controls, as the RTX 5090 is one of many high-end cards that are banned from export to China. Aware of the PR connotations of getting caught, or even accused, of dealing the GPUs in the region, MSI was quick to issue a rebuttal.

In a new statement posted on its site, the company has clarified that it had nothing to do with the RTX 5090 shipments spotted in China, and claims the global serial number tracking has confirmed they are parallel imports — when a genuine product is imported through questionable means, without the explicit permission of the parent company.

Dealers skirting export controls on high-demand GPUs remains a headache for Washington. Just recently, a Singaporean company was accused of helping smuggle $2 billion worth of Nvidia GPUs into the country. We've known for a while now that underground markets exist in the region, where cards are regularly modded with increased VRAM to make them better for AI applications.

All of this leads to a precedent where, even though Beijing shouldn't be the recipient of high-end AI cards on paper, reality begs to differ. Nvidia has made region-specific RTX 5090D and 5090D V2 models for China, but they carry neutered specs, which leads to shady, black-market shipments thriving. Nvidia has always held the position that China is an important market for the chipmaker, but that it, too, has nothing to do with how the region keeps getting its hands on banned GPUs.

MSI reiterated that it only sells its RTX 5090 in the U.S., Europe, and some Asia-Pacific markets, and that any unauthorized units obtained via grey channels are not covered under warranty. These illicit GPUs allegedly arrived in China through third-party resellers and retailers in overseas markets who bypassed regulations and illegally imported the cards.

While there was no word on any active investigations or whether the hardware manufacturer plans to take action, MSI did note that any products bought through non-official channels may have been resold or tampered with, and aren't eligible for warranty, repair services, or technical support. MSI is a Taiwanese company, a country that remains imperative in the ongoing U.S.–China trade war, and is an extremely sensitive region geopolitically. A significant portion of MSI's production facilities is located in Mainland China.

Perhaps we don’t have enough romance on these pages. But today we have a story that will melt your heart, or at least make you a little envious. Redditor Zestyclose-Salad-290 shared a wedding video on social media on Friday, which focuses on a young couple’s exchange of gifts on their special day. As you can see, the wife surprised the husband with a GeForce RTX 5090, one of the best graphics cards available in 2025. The husband presented his new wife with a delicately pretty bouquet.

From the husband’s point of view, starting his new married life, beginning with the gift of an Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090 from his beloved, has definitely begun well. Many commenters on the Reddit post chip in with how lucky they think the groom is.

An interesting aspect of this RTX 5090 gift, which elevates it above a story about an extravagant tech gift, lies in the way that the bride revealed it. She used a quite elaborate form of ‘Chinese number slang’ which required a bit of work from the groom, to understand the true nature of his gift.

Zestyclose-Salad-290 sought to help those unfamiliar with number slang understand the meaning of the complex-looking equation. These random-looking numbers, to the uninitiated, have Chinese homophone meanings. The key point here is that 520 is a slang term for ‘I love you’ as both the spoken number and phrase sound very similar to native speakers.

Sometimes, speakers extend the phrase to '1314,' which translates to 'for a lifetime.' Therefore, 5201314 ultimately signifies 'I love you for a lifetime.'

“First, the girl kept her husband in suspense and asked him to solve a fairly complex calculation: 520×10 + 1,314 - 514 - 619 + 666 – 957,” explains Zesty. “The result of this calculation is exactly 5090. When her husband worked out the answer, the girls beside her took the 5090 out.”

So, the message started emphatically with 520x10. Or ‘I love you’ x 10. 1314 is significant as it is a homophone for ‘forever and always.’ Elsewhere in the tricky sum, we see 514 (til death), 619 (escaping forever), 666 (awesome), and 957 (I’m teasing).

The answer to this numerical riddle is, of course, 5090, a number which all regular readers will understand as representing awesome graphics, with the chance of a surprise burning smell. Hopefully, sparks will fly in this marriage, rather than inside the groom's PC chassis.

The best graphics cards don't always have to be expensive. Unfortunately, in today's market, even buying them at MSRP feels like a good deal. It was already a rare sight to see someone purchase a GeForce RTX 5090 below MSRP at Walmart, but there have been two instances in a short period of time. The stars must have aligned for the two fortunate Redditors.

Two days prior, Redditor NestyHowk showcased the acquisition of a GeForce RTX 5090, priced at $1,399.99, which is $600 or 30% below the MSRP, sparking envy within the PCMR Reddit community. Nonetheless, today, DCole1847 has surpassed this achievement. Evidently, the hardware deities appear to favor the former, as the user recently acquired a GeForce RTX 5090 for $1,119.99, representing a reduction of $880, or 44% below the MSRP.

MSRP, particularly for Nvidia's current GeForce RTX 50 (codenamed Blackwell) series, is almost irrelevant. Even during special promotional occasions, such as Amazon Prime Day, it is nearly impossible to acquire Blackwell products at a price below the MSRP. However, based on the photographs of the two Reddit users, we may have a slight idea of where you could find a GeForce RTX 5090 at a reasonable price.

Gamers and those in need of a new and more powerful graphics card rejoice, for finally, we are seeing some real drops in GPU prices that are actually taking the discounts below that mythical MSRP price. The 50-series RTX GPUs from Nvidia started popping on the market at the start of this year, but it's taken nine months for the cards to have more stock availability and hit the originally announced MSRP prices that were only available for a select few GPUs.

The dip in price of Nvidia's RTX 50-series GPUs is thanks to Walmart's GeForce Week sales event, which has knocked the ball out of the park with its swathe of graphics card deals. From the entry-level RTX 5060, all the way up to the fastest gaming GPU on the planet, the RTX 5090, the prices have either been significantly discounted to MSRP or slashed in price well below that threshold.

The best Walmart GPU deals at a glance

• PNY RTX 5060 Ti OC 16 GB: was $429.99 now $379.99 at Walmart
• MSI Ventus 2X OC GeForce RTX 5070: was $599.99 now $499.99 at Walmart
• PNY GeForce RTX 5070 OC 12GB: was $549.99 now $499.99 at Walmart
• MSI Shadow 3X OC RTX 5070 12GB: was $639.99 now $549.99 at Walmart
• PNY GeForce RTX 5080 OC: was $999.99 now $929.99 at Walmart

You will want to hurry and snap up one of these deals, though, as the sale started on the 22nd of September and will conclude at midnight on September 28, 2025. The PNY Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 OC, which was selling at MSRP ($1999), has already sold out, but there are still plenty of great options left on the table. See below for the best picks of available GPU deals at or under MSRP in the Walmart GeForce Week sales.

No matter the reason for the discounts, whether it's just shifting stock or making way for the rumored "Super" variants on the horizon, these are the best price reductions we've seen so far on Nvidia's latest Blackwell graphics cards this year. With prices constantly going up in this cost-of-living crisis, I'm thankful for any and all discounts and a chance to save a few bucks.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.

The GeForce RTX 50 series (codenamed Blackwell) offers some of the best graphics cards you can find on the market today. It's great news that the prices for some of these Blackwell-based graphics cards have finally leveled out, making it easier for everyone to purchase them at or even below Nvidia's MSRP. (Although the RTX 5090? Fuhgeddaboudit.)

The GeForce RTX 5070 launched several months ago at an MSRP of $549; however, it has proven challenging for consumers to acquire it at that specified price point. Nonetheless, a selection of customized GeForce RTX 5070 models from some of Nvidia's leading partners is presently available for purchase at prices below $549.

The Asus Prime RTX 5070 12GB GDDR7, in particular, is among the notable highlights of the day. This 2.5-slot graphics card, which conforms to the Nvidia SFF-ready standard, is presently available for purchase at $523, representing a 14% discount from its usual retail price. However, for enthusiasts preferring Nvidia's design, the GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition has been restocked at Best Buy for $549.

If you are seeking a more economical option, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB and 8GB, which have MSRPs of $429 and $379, respectively, may present a compelling choice. The MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8G Ventus 2X OC Plus is now available at a price of $339 after applicable discounts and a $20 rebate card. This graphics card is currently being offered at an 11% reduction relative to the official MSRP.

The 16GB model has maintained its value, resisting a decline below the MSRP. However, if you are considering that SKU, the Asus Prime GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GDDR7 is available for $429 on Amazon, representing a 10% discount from the usual price.

We've seen our fair share of modified GPUs from China — a region restricted from receiving most high-end cards. These export controls imposed by the The White House have created an underground market where gaming-grade graphics cards are stripped of their internals and put onto custom PCBs designed for AI workloads. AI requires a lot of memory, and despite former flagship GPUs like the RTX 4090 already coming with large memory buffers, it's still not enough for tasks such as running LLMs locally.

The latest to join the line of modded GPUs is the RTX 5090 with a whopping 128 GB of VRAM. Yes, this graphics card most likely has more memory than your entire PC. It's described as a prototype because the modder is using GDDR7X memory that is not yet available on a larger scale, but there's still a "super limited" quantity associated with this, which suggests that more units could be made.

By default, the RTX 5090 comes with 32GB of GDDR7 memory, which might seem plenty, but clearly there's room for improvement. What's interesting is this mod is a tier above anything we've seen before, or thought was possible. Previously, an RTX 4090 was upgraded with 96 GB of VRAM by using the best GDDR7 modules available in a dual-sided config. That was an anomaly, too, as the usual modded 4090s top out at about 48GB VRAM. The reason behind which is the complexity of the custom PCBs that are needed to support such tampering.

Currently, the highest-density GDDR7 chips are 24Gb (or 3 GB) per module, which can allow for up to 48 GB of VRAM. To reach higher capacities like 96 GB, dual-sided PCBs are used with memory modules on top and bottom, as seen on Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000. Therefore, for an RTX 5090 to feature 128 GB of VRAM, the factory would either need access to unreleased 32 Gbit GDDR7 chips — which no vendor has announced yet — or design a Frankenstein custom PCB with far more memory chips than usual; 64 GB on either side, totaling 128 GB in a dual-sided config.

Not only that, but custom firmware and BIOS are also required for said VRAM to be properly recognized and utilized by your system. The screenshot in the source tweet is from Nvidia-SMI which clearly shows the full 128GB memory being detected, meaning the mod works and is not just proof-of-concept. Moreover, the fact that there's pricing for this card is even more evidence that it's a potentially commercially-viable product ready to be sold.

Nvidia’s new RTX 5090 and RTX PRO 6000 GPUs are reportedly plagued by a reproducible virtualization reset bug that can leave the cards completely unresponsive until the host system is physically rebooted.

CloudRift, a GPU cloud provider, published a detailed breakdown of the issue after encountering it on multiple Blackwell-equipped systems in production. The company has even issued a $1,000 public bug bounty for anyone able to identify a fix or root cause.

Reset bug freezes Blackwell

According to CloudRift’s logs, the bug occurs after a GPU has been passed through to a VM using KVM and VFIO. On guest shutdown or GPU reassignment, the host issues a PCIe function-level reset (FLR), which is a standard part of cleaning up a passthrough device. But instead of returning to a known-good state, the GPU fails to respond: “not ready 65535ms after FLR; giving up,” the kernel reports.

At this point, the card also becomes unreadable to lspci, which throws “unknown header type 7f,” errors. CloudRift notes that the only way to restore normal operation is to power-cycle the entire machine. Tiny Corp, the AI start-up behind tinygrad, brought attention to the issue by reposting CloudRift’s findings on X.com with a blunt question: “Do 5090s and RTX PRO 6000s have a hardware defect? We’ve looked into this and can’t find a fix.”

Other users confirm similar failures

The RTX 5080 Noctua Edition is one of the most overbuilt RTX 50 series graphics cards on the market, featuring three NF-A12x25 G2 fans installed above a massive heatsink boasting 11 heatpipes. Such a design would logically have been perfect for an RTX 5090 model, and Noctua thinks so as well — too bad Nvidia is standing in the way.

Kitguru talked with Noctua's Jakob Dellinger, who divulged that Nvidia does not have enough GB202 chip production "at the moment" to build an RTX 5090 Noctua Edition graphics card. This problem is likely why Noctua has never built an xx90-series RTX graphics card so far. The only graphics cards it has built with Asus are cards based on the RTX 5080, RTX 4080 Super, RTX 4080, RTX 3080, and RTX 3070.

The GeForce RTX 5090, one of the best graphics cards for gamers, is also a desirable option for AI applications. Graphics card manufacturer AFOX (via VideoCardz) has launched the GeForce RTX 5090 32GB Professional, which is currently selling for $5,999 at a U.S. retailer.

AFOX is well-versed in producing blower-style graphics cards. The vendor has been manufacturing them since the era of the GTX 10-series (codenamed Pascal) and continued through the hard-knock times of the GeForce RTX 30-series (Ampere), during which Nvidia reportedly discouraged partners from releasing RTX 3090 blower-type graphics cards. AFOX has been around since 2008; however, it doesn't appear to be an official Nvidia AIB partner, so perhaps that's why the vendor is exempt from Team Green's rules.

We are currently uncertain regarding Nvidia's position on GeForce RTX 5090 blower-type graphics cards. Since no official models have been announced from Nvidia's partners, we suspect that the chipmaker has not reconsidered its stance on this matter. Nonetheless, overseas Chinese factories have been transplanting GeForce RTX 5090 silicon and memory chips into blower-style enclosures ready for AI servers.

Nvidia has dropped the prices for some of its RTX 50-series GPUs in Europe — with the RTX 5090, 5080, and 5070 seeing a reduction of almost 10%.

These lower prices are likely tied to a weakening dollar, Videocardz notes, making the import of American goods into Europe relatively cheaper than before. The USD was at its peak when Nvidia’s latest gaming GPUs launched, with the exchange rate hovering around $1.04 for every Euro. Today, it now sits at around $1.16 — a more than 10% drop in value since January.

This currency shift likely influenced the AI tech giant’s decision to drop the MSRP of its Founders Edition GPUs. When you visit Nvidia Germany’s marketplace, you will see lower prices on the aforementioned cards versus their launch prices. This also holds true for other European Nvidia sites, like France, Belgium, and Spain. Hopefully, other manufacturers will soon follow suit, as they haven’t reduced prices at the time of writing.