EVGA Auctions Unreleased RTX 4090 GPU For Charity, $6,200 And Rising

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By Zhiye Liu
published

A piece of history goes to the highest bidder.

Next Gen Graphics Card
Next Gen Graphics Card (Image credit: EVGA)

After failed attempts to auction off the brand’s GeForce RTX 4090 on eBay, EVGA has taken to its forums to carry out the auction. After the company’s abrupt exit from the GPU market, the GeForce RTX 4090 FTW3 prototype, or “Next Gen Graphics Card” as EVGA calls it due to licensing issues, will make a fine collector’s item.

EVGA previously took to eBay to auction off the graphics card. It had fetched up to $13,200 before eBay removed the listing. The company has restarted the auction on the EVGA forums, where the current bid, at the time of writing, is $6,200. However, it still has a long way to go before it matches the last bid on eBay.

All the proceeds from EVGA’s auction will go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The auction finalizes on December 16th at 11:59 AM PT, so interested parties have more than enough time to submit a bid. However, the brand is auctioning the graphics card as it is and will not provide a warranty or accept returns.

Although it’s a preproduction sample, EVGA’s GeForce RTX 4090 FTW3 is a working graphics card. YouTuber JayzTwoCents has already taken one of the samples for a spin. Since EVGA ended its partnership with Nvidia, the graphics card uses a qualification AD102 die and relies on EVGA’s home-brewed firmware. The prototype features a 2,520 MHz boost clock, the same as the Founders Edition. Therefore, its performance should be in the same alley as the GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition.

EVGA was one of the most popular Nvidia partners and was very good at making graphics cards. So it’s a shame that the company departed from the graphics card market. Many enthusiasts would love to see EVGA hook up with another significant chipmaker like AMD or Intel. However, the company has said it is concentrating on its other hardware products, which we suspect potentially offer higher profit margins.

If you’re an EVGA fan, it’s your chance to own what is likely the last graphics card that the company manufactured. It won’t come cheap, but it’s for a good cause.

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

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19 Comments Comment from the forums
  • COLGeek
    I am having a hard time equating "history" with a GPU from a now defunct manufacturer (in terms of Nvidia GPUs). The altruistic nature of this eventual transaction is the only redeeming aspect of this affair.
    Reply
  • DSzymborski
    COLGeek said:
    I am having a hard time equating "history" with a GPU from a now defunct manufacturer (in terms of Nvidia GPUs). The altruistic nature of this eventual transaction is the only redeeming aspect of this affair.

    True, but most rare, items like this have someone who is interested in it as a collectible item and the reasons are rarely rationally objective to a larger audience.

    I have a friend who collects "wrong" sports memorabilia like championship shirts and hats from losing teams and autographed jerseys, hats, etc. signed by the wrong person.

    I'm not really the collecting type, but I've long been on a quest to listen to and possess every recording of Mahler's 1st in existence. And I have a chunk of the Volksgerichtshof, obtained by my grandfather (who was an American lawyer) in 1945. He later worked on war trials.

    I can totally see someone being interested in EVGA's last GPU. There's a market -- a six-figure market -- for the NES cartridge of Nintendo World Championships, after all.
    Reply
  • daworstplaya
    I would really love to see Evga hook up with AMD. For me, Evga has always been on the top as far as GPU manufacturers go.
    Reply
  • waltc3
    I would only suggest that there might be a reason why this card is "unreleased" and other reasons behind EVGA dropping nVidia specifically because of RTX-40xx. So why didn't EVGA take the $13k+ bid on EBay? I didn't get that.
    Reply
  • Did they donate it to The Human Fund
    Reply
  • TechieTwo
    It's unclear what EVGA values this prototype card at but they probably should have taken the $13K and donated it to charity.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    COLGeek said:
    I am having a hard time equating "history" with a GPU from a now defunct manufacturer (in terms of Nvidia GPUs). The altruistic nature of this eventual transaction is the only redeeming aspect of this affair.
    This is basically a tax deduction for rich people. No one is bidding $13k for a graphics card without the addendum that the money goes to charity. The same thing happens when the first car of a production run is auctioned off for charity. The bids go crazy because it is a charity donation, not because the car is actually worth that much. The first C8 Z06 fetched $3.6 million. If the winner only bid on it as an investment, he's going to be waiting a while before someone is going to give him more than $3.6 million for that car.
    Reply
  • helper800
    spongiemaster said:
    No one is bidding $13k for a graphics card without the addendum that the money goes to charity.
    I don't know man, there are some goofy people out there.
    Reply
  • helper800
    TechieTwo said:
    It's unclear what EVGA values this prototype card at but they probably should have taken the $13K and donated it to charity.
    I dont know how accurate it is but in the article it said, and I am paraphrasing here, "it went up to 13k before Ebay took it down," or something to that effect.
    Reply
  • husker
    spongiemaster said:
    This is basically a tax deduction for rich people. No one is bidding $13k for a graphics card without the addendum that the money goes to charity. The same thing happens when the first car of a production run is auctioned off for charity. The bids go crazy because it is a charity donation, not because the car is actually worth that much. The first C8 Z06 fetched $3.6 million. If the winner only bid on it as an investment, he's going to be waiting a while before someone is going to give him more than $3.6 million for that car.
    Wrong. The winning bidder gets a video card for their money so it is not a tax donation from them. It is a tax donation from EVGA who takes the money from the bidder and then donates it to St. Jude instead of pocketing the money.
    Reply