A user got scammed with fake RTX 4090s, finding them to be RTX 30 cards, as investigated by a YouTuber technician.
Technician Discovers the Real Reason Why the Customer's RTX 4090s Weren't Working. Apparently, Three of Them Were Fake
It's not uncommon to see modded older generation cards being sold as newer ones, particularly when it comes to the flagship NVIDIA GPUs. There have been plenty of cases where we saw fake GPUs being sold previously, but one user reportedly got scammed with not one but three faulty (or fake) RTX 4090s.
A Chinese YouTuber uploaded a video where he showcases the differences between the fake RTX 4090s and the original ones. His customer sent all those GPUs to the technician since none of them were working. The technician found out that three of them were modded RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 GPUs, which were apparent from the substrate changes.
For a common user, it is almost impossible to find out the difference between a real RTX 4090 and a fake one, but one can find it out if they know what the substrate on the original RTX 4090 looks like. For instance, one of the fake RTX 4090s had a protruding capacitor on the top right, which you will usually find on an RTX 30 series GPU. Moreover, the small QR code present on the bottom left was placed a little above the usual location.
This was the case even on the second fake RTX 4090, but the first sample even had fake VRAM. Shockingly, the third sample's substrate made it easier to identify the GPU as the substrate looked quite different from the RTX 4090 one, and the frame wasn't even secured properly. Now, even though all of those GPU dies had the "AD102" engraved on them, they are easier to do by just erasing the original one and engraving it again with a laser machine.
The fourth sample was fortunately a real one, but it didn't run due to some faulty memory chips and capacitors. The technician was able to fix those, and the card started working properly. However, the first three samples couldn't get a fix like this, which, of course, were also quite expensive. The user bought them for 10,000 Yen each, which translates to roughly $1,400. He bought them from overseas and told the technician to leave them aside, as he would send them back to the seller.
News Sources: YouTube, @unikoshardware
About the author: Sarfraz Khan is a hardware reporter with a focus on PC components and the builder community. With years of experience writing about PC hardware and laptops, his work has been featured on several reputable technology publications. Sarfraz's hands-on experience is demonstrated through his first-person accounts of using and comparing different hardware configurations, providing practical and relatable insights for everyday users. His technical analysis is respected by peers in the enthusiast community and has been cited by specialized hardware sites such as Germany's Igor's Lab.
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