WTF?! An account claiming to symbolize EVGA put a preproduction RTX 4090 prototype up for public sale on eBay yesterday, with the proceeds going to charity. It began a bidding warfare and shot as much as 5 figures earlier than the itemizing inexplicably disappeared after about 10 hours.
EVGA met with Avid gamers Nexus and JayzTwoCents fairly some time in the past to inform them that they had been terminating their partnership with Nvidia. When the YouTubers shared the information afterward there was an outpouring of appreciation and assist for the beleaguered AIB associate. A couple of month in the past, EVGA despatched two working preproduction samples of their FTW3 RTX 4090 to GN and JayzTwoCents for them to tear down and present us what we missed out on.
We thought that might be the final we would see of the GPU that wasn’t meant to be. However, yesterday, it appeared within the background of an EVGA and Intel livestream that was elevating cash for the St. Jude Youngsters’s Analysis Hospital. Shortly after, the GPU was listed for public sale on eBay with the proceeds additionally going to St. Jude. Earlier than the itemizing disappeared this morning, the value had risen to $13,200 over 35 bids. With greater than six days left to go, it was effectively on its solution to turning into the most costly GPU ever offered.
The eBay itemizing was pretty mild on particulars. It had 4 photographs of the GPU and 5 traces of textual content that described it as a “subsequent gen” prototype that got here and not using a guarantee, stated it may solely be shipped inside america, and affirmed that the public sale was for charity. The spec sheet stated the cardboard had 24 GB of GDDR6 and a PCIe 4.0 x16 connector.
There have been some customers on Twitter that had been instantly suspicious. EVGA hadn’t marketed the public sale anyplace, and it did not come from the eBay account that the corporate had used earlier than. However the timing and the charity angle made sense, and JayzTwoCents tweeted an endorsement of the public sale that if he meant to be sarcastic, did not come throughout that approach.
Sure, that is completely legit, EVGA is auctioning off considered one of their “Not 4090” Subsequent Gen Video Playing cards for charity, see it right here https://t.co/oRaoneLsdH
— JayzTwoCents (@JayzTwoCents) December 10, 2022
Most confusingly of all, if the itemizing was a rip-off, it wasn’t one geared toward earning profits. It was a part of eBay’s charity program, that means that the cash would go straight from the customer to the verified charity. Possibly the itemizing was authentic however EVGA took it down on the request of Nvidia, or possibly eBay discovered it suspicious and needed to research itself.
My hope is that the itemizing returns and that the GPU is traded for a hefty donation to trigger. If there was the choice of delivery it to Australia, I’d positively have put down $13,300 on it myself.
