Consumers of Nvidia’s RTX 4090 flagship GPU had been scammed up to now, and any other sufferer of a graphics card sting has simply been flagged up.
Hong Kong-based HKEPC stories (hat tip to VideoCardz) {that a} reader of the web page bought a second-hand RTX 4090 at a well-liked on-line market (Carousell). The consumer discovered that the graphics card didn’t paintings – no lovers spun up, and it gave the look to be useless when put in of their PC.
Upon investigation, it used to be found out that the graphics card used to be lacking a slightly a very powerful part – the GPU chip itself (oh, and a few VRAM modules too).
The consumer used to be therefore not able to touch the vendor, and reported the topic to the police, however the government couldn’t do the rest to track the scammer (a minimum of from what we will inform given the object translation, which is patchy).
The individual reportedly paid 13,000 Hong Kong Bucks for the RTX 4090 which equates to round $1,700 in america (or £1,300, AU$2,500).
At any charge, the purpose is obvious: If an RTX 4090 being presented second-hand turns out that it can be a little bit too just right to be true, it will certainly now not be true (or a real operating graphics card).
Research: A question of accept as true with
The ethical of the tale here’s truly the most obvious recommendation that you just will have to simplest purchase from a relied on vendor. If you happen to’re going to focus on a used GPU discount, ideally get it from a identified store, or a minimum of an public sale vendor who has numerous comments and a just right popularity.
Moreover, there are occasions when it’s best possible to keep away from the second-hand marketplace totally, for a length, corresponding to when the crypto-mining bubble burst again in 2022.
The difficulty with super-expensive graphics playing cards just like the Nvidia RTX 4090 is that they’re glaring juicy goals for scammers, seeing as their worth tags are so colossal, even second-hand.
Recall the incident from past due in 2022 the place an RTX 4090 purchaser picked up a used card – this time in america, from a third-party market vendor on Newegg – which became out to be only a 4090 field with lumps of steel in it (even worse than having a ghost of a graphics card).
On this case, the consumer did get their a reimbursement it appears, however nonetheless, the recommendation ‘caveat emptor’ (‘let the consumer beware’) maximum unquestionably applies in the case of high-end graphics playing cards. Specifically when as is the case now, the RTX 4090 has been in a lot call for (because of the placement with it being banned in , and the purported free up of a brand new variant to get spherical the ones restrictions).
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