News EVGA Auctions Unreleased RTX 4090 GPU For Charity, $6,200 And Rising

COLGeek

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I am having a hard time equating "history" with a GPU from a now defunct manufacturer (in terms of Nvidia GPUs). The altruistic nature of this eventual transaction is the only redeeming aspect of this affair.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
I am having a hard time equating "history" with a GPU from a now defunct manufacturer (in terms of Nvidia GPUs). The altruistic nature of this eventual transaction is the only redeeming aspect of this affair.

True, but most rare, items like this have someone who is interested in it as a collectible item and the reasons are rarely rationally objective to a larger audience.

I have a friend who collects "wrong" sports memorabilia like championship shirts and hats from losing teams and autographed jerseys, hats, etc. signed by the wrong person.

I'm not really the collecting type, but I've long been on a quest to listen to and possess every recording of Mahler's 1st in existence. And I have a chunk of the Volksgerichtshof, obtained by my grandfather (who was an American lawyer) in 1945. He later worked on war trials.

I can totally see someone being interested in EVGA's last GPU. There's a market -- a six-figure market -- for the NES cartridge of Nintendo World Championships, after all.
 

waltc3

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I would only suggest that there might be a reason why this card is "unreleased" and other reasons behind EVGA dropping nVidia specifically because of RTX-40xx. So why didn't EVGA take the $13k+ bid on EBay? I didn't get that.
 

spongiemaster

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Dec 12, 2019
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I am having a hard time equating "history" with a GPU from a now defunct manufacturer (in terms of Nvidia GPUs). The altruistic nature of this eventual transaction is the only redeeming aspect of this affair.
This is basically a tax deduction for rich people. No one is bidding $13k for a graphics card without the addendum that the money goes to charity. The same thing happens when the first car of a production run is auctioned off for charity. The bids go crazy because it is a charity donation, not because the car is actually worth that much. The first C8 Z06 fetched $3.6 million. If the winner only bid on it as an investment, he's going to be waiting a while before someone is going to give him more than $3.6 million for that car.
 

husker

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This is basically a tax deduction for rich people. No one is bidding $13k for a graphics card without the addendum that the money goes to charity. The same thing happens when the first car of a production run is auctioned off for charity. The bids go crazy because it is a charity donation, not because the car is actually worth that much. The first C8 Z06 fetched $3.6 million. If the winner only bid on it as an investment, he's going to be waiting a while before someone is going to give him more than $3.6 million for that car.
Wrong. The winning bidder gets a video card for their money so it is not a tax donation from them. It is a tax donation from EVGA who takes the money from the bidder and then donates it to St. Jude instead of pocketing the money.
 

neojack

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im sure this unique item will worth more than that after a few years.

Question though : why ebay did take down the previous auction ? they don't always give reasons but i'm curious...
 

spongiemaster

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Wrong. The winning bidder gets a video card for their money so it is not a tax donation from them. It is a tax donation from EVGA who takes the money from the bidder and then donates it to St. Jude instead of pocketing the money.
Nope. Charity auction winners can claim a tax deduction on any value above the value of the actual item they won.
 

neojack

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Nope. Charity auction winners can claim a tax deduction on any value above the value of the actual item they won.

that would mean that the same item can potentially be deducted twice (once by EVGA, once by the winner), seems strange to me.
I mean the tax services are not known to leave loopholes around.
 

sean8102

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I would only suggest that there might be a reason why this card is "unreleased" and other reasons behind EVGA dropping nVidia specifically because of RTX-40xx. So why didn't EVGA take the $13k+ bid on EBay? I didn't get that.

The original auction was removed by Ebay due to the new account status and large dollar amount.
 

sean8102

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This is basically a tax deduction for rich people. No one is bidding $13k for a graphics card without the addendum that the money goes to charity. The same thing happens when the first car of a production run is auctioned off for charity. The bids go crazy because it is a charity donation, not because the car is actually worth that much. The first C8 Z06 fetched $3.6 million. If the winner only bid on it as an investment, he's going to be waiting a while before someone is going to give him more than $3.6 million for that car.

There are plenty of people who are into gaming and PC's that would buy this just to have it. Those kinds of people have enough money where $13K (right now it's at $10,800) literally makes no difference to them. Even if what you're saying is possible (I'm not saying you're wrong IDK), I don't think whoever ends up with this would even bother.

It's bragging rights, and esp having something that basically no one else dose or ever will. People REALLY like that kind of thing. And EVGA was by far the most well known and beloved brand when it came to Nvidia graphics cards. Dosen't surprise me at all it's going for as much as it is.

And good on EVGA for donating the money (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital).
 
D

Deleted member 14196

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And who gives a 🐀 arse about bragging rights? Oh right! A child!
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
There's no double-counting here or loophole.

The buyer can take a charitable deduction for the amount above the fair market value of the item. Below that is considered a purchase. The buyer will need to, in order to ensure they get the deduction, document a good-faith basis for the fair market value of a 4090 and they knew that value before buying it.

Since the buyer is using the item for an unrelated purpose to the charity, EVGA's deduction would be limited to their cost basis for the item. To get a deduction for the fair market value rather than the cost basis, they are a number of requirements that EVGA would have had to meet. I've already noted it fails the related use rule, but there are other ones as well.
 
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