It's not often we see a repair video that includes no repairing, but that's exactly what happened when an Asus TUF RTX 4090 landed on the legendary desks of Northridge Fix. We've covered their escapades before, how they revived a RX 7800 XT and brought a dead 4090 back to life, but this 4090 befell a fate worse than death — it was a hollow scam.
Alex went on to explain how this has become a common occurrence, saying that his repair shop receives dead RTX 4090s like these all the time with stripped internals. These cards are sold for cheap on used marketplaces, where uninformed buyers often fall for the unrealistic prices. Even then, some of these bad actors have started to price these hollow 4090s "properly" such that no one would expect a too-good-to-be-true scam, so the trap evidently still works.
GPUs like this largely come from underground modding operations in China, where many high-end GPUs are not easy to import. Skilled technicians take existing gaming-grade GPUs, like a 4090, and surgically remove their core and VRAM so put them on custom PCBs with upgraded components-most often higher VRAM capacity. Stripped donor cards subsequently make their way onto online marketplaces and trick buyers into buying useless graphics cards.
There's a whole history of such incidents, like last year when someone received an MSI RTX 4090 in Hong Kong without a cord and only two VRAM chips onboard. In China itself, a repair person received 4090s that were just modified 3090s and 3080s with engravings made to look like a 4090. Perhaps the most insane case was when someone bought a working 4090 from eBay, removed its core and VRAM, and returned it to the seller, essentially performing a reverse-scam of sorts.
Therefore, it's important to stay vigilant while buying used GPU, especially high-end ones. That's what Alex reiterated at the end of his video. If you're dealing with someone you don't know, exercise caution and try to go for extended warranties if you can for peace of mind. Make sure to stress-test the GPU to ensure there's no hidden weaknesses that might pop up later and spoil your purchase.
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