Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Scams Are Now Harder to Recognize

• At the beginning of 2024, scammers were found selling fake RTX 4090 graphics cards to PC gaming enthusiasts. Although this is nothing new, the frequency of such scams is concerning.
• Things have now gotten worse. The new dupes are much harder to detect, with even experts needing to take the whole thing apart to spot them.
• This was discovered by North West Repair (NWR). He also posted a video about the same on YouTube.

In January 2024, it came to light that scammers were selling fake Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards. Although selling counterfeits isn't anything new, what was surprising is that there were a bunch of similar cases in January alone.

When the news first gained attention, the fakes were made of a collection of broken bits and pieces, or a FrankenGPU'. It wasn't even based on an RTX 4090 but had the chip from a 4080. Hence, it was easier to recognize that it was fake.

Now, fast forward to July, and the Nvidia 4090 graphics card scam just got to a whole new level. The scam seems to be ongoing, and scammers have made it harder to recognize dupes. The fakes are now so realistic that even experts will need to take a closer look to correctly identify them.

This is what happened with North West Repair (NWR) when a customer sent him a faulty RTX 4090 for repair.

How Did North West Repair (NWR) Spot the Fake?

For starters, when the individual was soldering the core, he noticed that the memory chips had two types of solder underneath them: leaded and lead-free. This was the first giveaway.

He then took a closer look, which revealed that at least two of the chips looked like they were 256 MB and not 2 GB.

Also, the top of the chips looked flat. So, when he compared it to a real chip, it became very clear that the ones sent by the customer were fake.

The next sign was the core. He, in fact, noticed right at the beginning that the resistance on the core was extremely high-as if the core wasn't even there.

Then, after he found out that the memory chips were fake, he took a second look at the core. Soon (followed by a discussion by other techs), it was discovered that the core, too, was fake.

What Can Users Do to Avoid This Scam?

At the moment, it looks quite difficult to tell the fakes apart from the original. As mentioned above, even an expert had to take apart the whole thing to be able to tell the difference.

However, there are certain precautions you can surely take to avoid burning your hard-earned cash on a fake product. These include:

• Only buying from a trustworthy seller.
• Checking the seal on your product, especially the protective film on the heat sink.

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