We've seen a lot of creative GPU mods as of late, but all of them involve the graphics card still running and pushing frames. In this instance, it's someone else who does the pushing and running, with the card acting as a mere vessel for its master's kineticism. Someone took an RTX 5080 — not just any 5080, but the ROG Astral variant, one of the most expensive models out there — and somehow transformed it into a skateboard.
She's a 5080 Astral but she looks like a 5090, and she handles like a TUF from r/pcmasterrace
You read that right; a GPU was turned into a skateboard by u/ashleysaidwhat on the r/pcmasterrace subreddit. The post is scarce of any details, and the modder shared no wisdom in the comments either, so we don't know how this contraption came about... or why. Though it appears that the card lacks a PCB, as you can see through the cooler, which could hint at a bunch of possibilities.
Firstly, we might simply be looking at a dead GPU, so Ashley stripped it down and repurposed the cooler/chassis as a deck. It would certainly be one of the most expensive decks, though, since the ROG Astral RTX 5080 retails for over $1,700 right now, which is far more than even complete skateboards from high-end brands.
Conversely, it could be one of those hollow cards that show up with no memory or core; not much you can do after being scammed, so why not turn an unfortunate situation into a fun experiment? Another possibility is that the cooler itself is cooked, like we saw in a recent GPU repair story, so it's being put to better use now while the PCB awaits a transplant.
Whatever the case may be, the comments on the original post echo our initial reaction, with one user saying, "What the TUF." Not just a hardware modder, the mind behind the madness is actually proficient at riding their modded RTX 5080, and the dog accompanying them seems to be having a good time as well, so who are we to judge?
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