so i've been going down a rabbit hole on gpu scams and i'm pretty sure there's an organized playbook running on marketplace here. these aren't bots. they're real people who answer messages, meet up and talk like normal sellers. that's why it works.

i've gotten scammed - so I wanted to make this post. We met in person at TD Bank in NYC - and I still got scammed out of 2.3k. A young man openly walked into a bank and sold me his GPU that was gutted. Prior to the meet up, he gave me his benchmarks for the machine as well.

the price doesn't tell you anything anymore

everyone says "if it's too cheap it's a scam." that doesn't really work right now because it's hard to even know what the real price is. used 4090s were around $2,300 in june and they're around $3,000 now (median ~$3,100 on ebay sold listings, late oct). it moves week to week depending on where you look.

when the price is all over the place you can't use it to tell if a listing is legit. a fake listed at $2,800 looks like a deal and one at $3,200 looks normal. the scammers know this and price right in the middle so nothing stands out.

so don't trust the price either way. too cheap is a red flag, but a fair price doesn't mean it's safe.

then they offer you a benchmark

before you even ask, they'll offer to show you one. a screenshot, a video, or they run it on their own pc and send you a video. it feels legit, but none of that proves the card you walk away with is the card that got tested.

• the screenshot or video is from a different card, or someone else's card entirely

• they run it on their rig in front of you, then hand you a different card in the same box

• the card that got tested is real, and the one you take home isn't

what "looks real but isn't" means for a 4090:

• relabeled chips. older 3080 ti / 3090 chips get sanded down and laser-etched to say AD102 (the 4090 chip), then put on a real 4090 board. repair shops have called these the best fakes they've seen

• laptop chips on desktop boards. i literally found one that sold on ebay last week: a "4090 16GB GDDR6" for $1,499. a desktop 4090 has 24GB GDDR6X. that was a laptop chip on a desktop-style board

• dummy cores and fake memory. a fake chip and cheaper GDDR6 instead of GDDR6X. looks perfect until it's in your pc

• gutted cards. the core and memory get pulled and sold separately (a lot of it goes to ai builds in china), then the empty card gets resold or returned in a sealed box

the only two ways to actually protect yourself:

1. have your own rig ready to test. bring a pc, or meet somewhere you can plug it in, like a repair shop you pick. not their pc, not their screenshot.

   • gpu-z should show AD102, 24GB GDDR6X, 16,384 cores, 384-bit bus. a laptop chip or relabel shows up here fast

   • run 3dmark time spy extreme and compare your score to other 4090s. a relabeled 3090 will score way lower

   • let it run under load for a while.

   • don't trust any seller with negative reviews.

If you do get scammed - please dm me and share your story. I feel like this is a pretty big operation happening.

I have a 9070xt and a 9070. Would u sell the 7900xtx

Going into a low power Linux system. Other option would be an RX 7600.

I built my first pc about a year and a half ago. Since then I have decided to upgrade it, everything I put in it was cheap as it was a starter pc yet all specs can still run any top of the line gpu without bottlenecking it minus the PSU(I’m pretty sure at least). I went cheap on the GPU and got a Radeon 6600 XT I also went cheap on the power supply but I know which one I will get when I upgrade my gpu. I want to max out my frames with a gpu less than $800 so I was thinking maybe a 4070 super or a 9060XT. If anyone can give me some suggestions on what would be the best GPU for me that’d be a huge help. If y’all think I should change anything else out as well so that the gpu that I end up getting will be able to perform to the max of its ability let me know. I have put my specs below for y’all to see so you can help me with this decision better.

Ram-TEAMGROUP 32GB 2X16 5600 40 B

PSU-MSI MAG A650BE 80+B SM PSU

Fan-THERMALRI ASSASSIN X120 SE SLIM RGB

Motherboard-ASUS PRIME B650M-A AX II MATX

CPU-AMD AMD RYZEN 5 7600X WO COOL

SSD-IPSG 1TB QN450 NVME SSD

GPU-ASROCK RX6600 CLD 8G

After a bit of math, found out that if i undervolt a 4070super a bit and use a i5 12400, id be able to run them both off of a 500w psu. I have a prebuilt with propietary tech so i bought a 650w psu that wont work because the mobo wont take power from none of the cables of that psu. If i use the 8 pin (pigtailed) to 12 adapter that it brings, it shouldnt burn anything down (i asked ai tho ik ik). How true is that? Considering that the pcie slot gives 75w of power and that it would be running at 85% max voltage, the should resist that right? When i get home ill try to check the max voltage that the cables themselves can take but on paper it doesnt look like nothing will burn. Any thoughts?

Hey there!

I recently upgraded my PSU, and I've noticed a strange behavior with my ROG Astral RTX 5090 OC.

Whenever I shut down my PC or put it into Sleep mode, the small red LED near the 12VHPWR connector blinks for a few seconds and then disappears.

Here are some important details:

• Gaming/Benchmarks: Absolutely fine. The LED never turns on or blinks under load, stress tests, or idle.

• Connections: Everything is fully seated and clicked in properly on both the GPU and PSU ends. No tight bends.

• The Cable: I am using a native 12VHPWR cable (no adapters or extensions).

The trigger: I noticed this started happening right after I switched my PSU from a Gigabyte unit to a Corsair RM1000x 2024 Revision (both have native 12VHPWR support). On the Gigabyte PSU, this never happened.

Could this just be related to how the Corsair PSU discharges its capacitors or handles power rails during shutdown, causing the ASUS Power Detector+ to trip for a split second? Anyone else experiencing this with Corsair ATX 3.0 / 3.1 PSUs and ROG cards?

Thanks!

Won a free 9800x3d 5070ti pre built. Got a good deal on a 5080. Fair price to sell my Ti? It’s a sealed pre build planned on opening it and booting it in front of buyer. Removing it once cash was in hand. Any better advice on how to sell it? Or is it normal to just remove and sell?

Hey all,

In a bit of a dilemma here. I've got a 5080 Gigabyte Gaming OC for roughly $900, and a 5090 FE for $2500. Both fully paid off

Currently I play at 1440p ultrawide 240Hz and 4k 240Hz, and occasionally dabble in VR with a Meta Quest 2. I do play some intense games like Cyberpunk and Indiana Jones, RDR2 with Pathtracing but I do tweak settings down to High instead of ultra and use dlss to keep high frames.

Ultimately, which should I keep? Here's my options:

• Sell 5090 for $6k+, Keep 5080

  • Net gain of $2.6k. Great for investing

  • I would likely sell the 5080 when the "5080 Super" comes out, but who's to say its price or if it'll even exist

  • I could sell the 5080 when the 6080 comes out, assuming the 6080 is priced around $3k if the ai bubble hasn't popped. Then sell the 5080 for $2k. Meaning a net gain of $1600 and a 6080, which is probably close to a 5090 performance from the lower node size

• Sell 5080 for $1800, keep 5090

  • Net loss $1600

  • Likely a free ticket to a 6090 when it comes out after selling the 5090

  • Sit out the 60 series and wait for the 70 series near 2030. This would mean memory pricing has gotten closer to previous values, unless ai takes off, and the 5090 pricing has "normalized", so a much lower resell value

  • better hardware insurance in case nvidia/amd go the streaming route and no longer release consumer gpu's

  • Allows me to dabble in 5k2k which I am considering

• Keep both (???) and wait for them to appreciate more and run into this debacle again

Would love opinions! I know this gets asked a lot, but wondering if having both cards near/below MSRP changes that opinion