
Nvidia's RTX 5090 is the latest GPU involved in a new scam, in which criminals are removing the GPU core and VRAM memory from RTX 5090s for their own purposes. Northwestrepair on YouTube received a Zotac RTX 5090 from a customer with no GPU core or GDDR7 memory chips attached to the PCB.
The card's original owner was apparently trying to find one of Nvidia's best graphics cards for a steep discount, paying just $2,000 for their RTX 5090. Technically, $2,000 is the RTX 5090's MSRP, but in today's market, RTX 5090s regularly go for almost $3,000 with some models priced as high as $4,000 thanks to high demand. Any RTX 5090 priced at MSRP (or lower) is well below the card's real value in today's market, which explains how the owner got scammed.