Subj : Its Cyber Monday, but prices of Nvidia RTX 4090 GPUs are skyrocke To : All From : TechnologyDaily Date : Mon Nov 27 2023 14:00:06 Its Cyber Monday, but prices of Nvidia RTX 4090 GPUs are skyrocketing what gives? Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2023 13:52:34 +0000 Description: Noticed how very expensive RTX 4090 graphics cards have got? Theres a reason for that. FULL STORY ====================================================================== The situation with RTX 4090 graphics cards is getting pretty dire, as prices for the Lovelace flagship have shot up, and the reason is seemingly tied into whats happened with this GPU over in China. As you may be aware, the RTX 4090 is now banned in China, and indeed so are other Nvidia AD102-based products and GPUs for heavyweight AI work. However, there are organizations in the country who have found a fudged way around the restrictions. If you recall, a whole heap of RTX 4090 graphics cards were reportedly shipped to China before the ban came into play, and this made sense as we saw the results in rising prices for the flagship GPU in the US and elsewhere a couple of months back. Having bought up these RTX 4090 models, what some firms are doing in China is taking them apart and using the AD102 chips and VRAM modules to make new AI accelerators with blower-style coolers. Those coolers are designed for data center usage in what are known as AI farms, where there are big racks of these GPUs for serious AI workloads. As VideoCardz has reported in the past, theres photographic evidence of the deconstruction of these GeForce gaming graphics cards to make these AI accelerators, and more pics just turned up on X (formerly Twitter) courtesy of I_Leak_VN. Another "RTX 4090 AI Blower" warehouse with x2 price Source: Xianyu app pic.twitter.com/ZChkPVreIA November 26, 2023 See more As noted, with the growing scarcity of AI boards in China, these blower-style cards can be sold for massive amounts of profit. Analysis: Blowing up prices Clearly, we must be cautious about anything from the rumor mill, but theres now quite a bit of photographic evidence of these repurposed RTX 4090 graphics cards. And we can certainly believe these blower-based franken-GPUs are big money spinners given the situation around the US import ban in China. Theres also another way we can clearly see something is afoot, and thats in the price rises for RTX 4090 GPUs in the US and elsewhere. The pricing for these Lovelace flagships has headed upwards at an alarming rate most notably in the US. Remember, the MSRP for the RTX 4090 in the US is $1,599, but just a couple of weeks ago, the cheapest model was $1,900 on Newegg and if you look now, the retailer itself has no stock left. There are third-party sellers offering RTX 4090s, but the cheapest is an eye-watering $2,249, a staggering 40% above the (already hefty) recommended retail price. Again, thats the cheapest model, they go up in cost from there. Over in the UK, the most affordable RTX 4090s we could find were pitched at 1,790 (Overclockers) and 1,800 (Scan, eBuyer the latter did have an ex-display model for 50 under that, mind, but that doesnt really count). Compare that to the MSRP of 1,579, and while its not nearly as bad as the situation in the US, prices are clearly up by a fair old chunk. In the short-term, it seems this situation wont abate and youve certainly got no chance of getting a Cyber Monday bargain on an RTX 4090. Still, there are seriously tempting discounts to be had on other graphics cards for Cyber Monday , fortunately. If youre really set on an RTX 4090, though, youre best off waiting for prices to settle this AI blower-style craze will only last so long in China (as 4090 stock is no longer headed to the country, or shouldnt be). Besides, you may want to wait until the new year rolls in to see if Nvidia launches an RTX 4080 Super (at CES 2024 as rumored) which could prove to be a much better value proposition for gamers anyway. Were expecting that card to have a good chance of ranking on our list of best GPUs , especially because Nvidia will presumably be looking to this supercharged variant to wash away the poor reputation of the RTX 4080 . You might also like Bad news, Nvidia RTX 4090 owners: cable melting issues are back The best cheap graphics cards of 2023: top GPUs on a budget Top gaming PCs: great rigs for serious PC gaming ====================================================================== Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/gpu/its-cyber-monday-but-prices-of-nvidia- rtx-4090-gpus-are-skyrocketing-what-gives --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 (Linux/64) * Origin: tqwNet Technology News (1337:1/100) .