When it comes to Amazon, there's a lot of worries about whether you'll get a fake product or not, but no one expects their roughly £2,000 4090 to be fake. However, sometimes you can be unlucky, as proven by North West Repair's new YouTube video.
Despite the upcoming 4080 Super release date, as well as the fact that the 4070 Ti Super is a fairly impressive GPU, people are still saving up for the RTX 4090. Pricing issues aside, it's one of the best graphics cards right now, but we'd argue in avoiding purchasing one from Amazon.
A video shared by North West Repairs on YouTube (as spotted by Tom's Hardware) showcased an ASUS ROG Strix 4090 that has fried 4080 parts, with intentionally placed fake warranty stickers and other various issues that point to a scam return.
The customer who brought in the 4090 said it was due to "shipping damage", with a large PCB crack and a melted 4090 power connector, both of which are fairly common issues, although the latter suggests it was being used. 4090 power connectors melting has been a problem, mainly as an anxiety for PC builders that can be alleviated by using a 12VHPWR cable over the usually-included octopus cables, as well as ensuring it's fully inserted into the 4090.
However, that's obviously not the only issue here. North West Repair opened the 4090, removing a fake warranty sticker. Upon further inspection, the 4090 was missing coils, cooling pads were only covering half of the memory chips in the card, and the nail in the coffin is a fried core, alongside other fried components.
The worst part of it all? The fried core isn't a 4090, as many would believe it to be, but North West Repair suggests its a 4090 mobile when matching the serial numbers on the TechPowerup database. However, they did confirm in the comment it's actually a 4080 core instead.
It's worth nothing that the customer who came in with the 4090 didn't buy it directly from Amazon, but rather an Amazon return pallet. However, North West Repair's ends the video with "Hopefully, this is the only example we're going to be seeing here in the US market, but I doubt it", which is fairly worrying news.
If you're worried about picking up a dodgy 4090, it might be worth picking up one from a different marketplace or storefront, or maybe you should wait for the upcoming 4080 Super.