News GPU scam resells RTX 3090 as a 4090 — complete with a fake 'AD102' label on a relapped GPU

[Admin]

A Chinese tech channel uncovered another fake RTX 4090 featuring a GA102 die inside. The card was allegedly bought for a mere $530, but it showed no visible damage or marks outside that would suggest the GPU was modified. Closer inspection reveals how far scammers will go to attempt to dupe people.

GPU scam resells RTX 3090 as a 4090 — complete with a fake 'AD102' label on a relapped GPU : Read more

 

[Eximo]

On the positive side, cheaper than the going rate for used 3090.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

On the positive side, cheaper than the going rate for used 3090.

Yeah, but I don't think the card even worked. I've edited the text a bit more to clarify things. It seems (and I don't speak Chinese so I'm not sure what's being said) that people will take a bad 4090 PCB and a bad GA102 die, and then solder the latter onto the former to make what appears to be a working graphics card.

I'm not sure who would buy a card like this from someone without testing it before paying. Or at least without a way to get a refund. But that's just me.

 

[Eximo]

Ah, that would indeed be bad to get a complete dud. I guess they are just trying to recoup losses from having spent the time trying to Frankenstein a working card.

 

[stonecarver]

There seems to be many listing on Ebay with RTX 4090's going cheap but missing the core and memory.

And there selling like crazy.

One has to wonder first why and will a back alley chop shop throw these out there as legit on some future sale.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2667485577...GhFIHBrTBtA3Q94+ocZ5cCuhM=|tkp:Bk9SR5SPub26ZQ

 

[punkncat]

Not by any means am I suggesting this is the right thing to be doing, you have to consider how HARD people got scalped on the 30xx series. I guess they are trying to recoup some of that regardless of method or ethics.

 

[DS426]

And? U.S. consumers alone were scammed out of about $12.5 B in 2024, yet another record year.

Set yourself up for a scam and the risk becomes real real. Buy from a retailer with fraud protection and things look a lot better. nVidia is the biggest scam in recent years anyways, am I right!?!? LOL.

 

[thisisaname]

Noting trying to sell them as 5090's /shocked

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Yeah scammers can get very creative. I purchased a pair of Airpods 2 on Ebay. They looked and worked just like official Airpods. They even went as far as to spoof a legit SN that had around 8 months of warranty and Apple accepted the Airpods 2 in my devices list. Even Siri and Find My Device worked. The font on the box and packaging even looked legit.

The only issue I was having was that they were stuck on old FW and because of that I suspected they were fake. The seller quickly gave me a refund, another red flag. So I called Apple support about trying to update the FW and they told me they were Legit even after I told them I got these on Ebay and I got a refund. They informed me over the phone to go to the nearest Apple store. It was at the Apple store that I was told they were fake.

 

[DingusDog]

Why even bother going through the trouble of swapping and lapping a 3090 die if it's going to be doa and the scammer disappears? Might as well just send a die-less PCB and shroud.

 

[Eximo]

Why even bother going through the trouble of swapping and lapping a 3090 die if it's going to be doa and the scammer disappears? Might as well just send a die-less PCB and shroud.

I think it is more they tried to make a working card from parts, it failed, and to recoup the time they spent on doing it, sell it as a scam.

No idea why the lapping though, not like anyone would normally go check. Maybe engineering samples or something that weren't meant to be sold?

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

I think it is more they tried to make a working card from parts, it failed, and to recoup the time they spent on doing it, sell it as a scam.

No idea why the lapping though, not like anyone would normally go check. Maybe engineering samples or something that weren't meant to be sold?

I don't think putting a 3090 chip on a 4090 board would ever work, though, would it? Like even if the pin-outs are the same, everything else is different. These particular Frankenstein cards seem intended purely to deceive and scam people. Putting new labels on a GPU is only useful for scam purposes — maybe someone else actually desoldered the 3090 and changed the label and then someone else hoping to fix a 4090 bought it? (Unlikely...)

It's not the same as soldering on extra VRAM with a GPU that can support it. That's a different sort of FrankenGPU that can actually function. Or if you took a potentially good GPU from a dead board and put it on a working board with a dead GPU (ie, swapping 4090 for 4090, or 3090 for 3090), that should work.

But with VBIOS, power, and other major differences I just don't see how putting Ampere on an Ada board could work unless it was actually intended to be possible, and I've never seen anything to suggest that's the case. (Also, I will admit that I haven't actually ever considered trying such a thing, as it seems destined to failure, so I could be wrong.)

 

[Eximo]

Well, same pinout, same memory, both bandwidth and potential speeds, vBIOS tinkering is nothing new. Sounds like it could be done.

We are talking about the same people that will sit down and design/modify a whole motherboard PCB to use harvested chipsets in. Converting mobile CPUs and GPUs into desktop compatible solutions.