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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Footage has appeared online from Chinese factories where new Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards are being dismantled en masse to build artificial intelligence servers. Because of this, graphics adapters have fallen into severe shortage and their market prices have soared several times over.
Flagship graphics cards are being converted into server units
According to Futurism, a video from closed Chinese factories spread on social media. The footage shows large-scale industrial production where standard cooling systems are removed from new graphics accelerators, printed circuit boards are modified, and compact turbine-style coolers are installed.
The main purpose of these manipulations is to adapt the graphics cards to the high-density rack requirements of AI servers. Thanks to this modification, each card takes up significantly less space than a standard PC version.
Graphics cards are being dismantled at a Chinese factory: watch the video
Tom's Hardware notes that the facility shown in the video does not use these graphics cards itself. Instead it tests them, modifies them, repackages them, and then employees send them to clients, likely data centers or AI laboratories. Such clients could include DeepSeek or Alibaba.
Many of these Chinese factories are scattered across the country. The conversion process is vast in scale, and likely thousands of GeForce RTX 5090 cards are being repurposed every day. Intermediaries in these gray-market supply chains constantly hunt for GeForce RTX 5090 deals to supply these operations
– writes Tom's Hardware.
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Average prices at Amic Energy gas stations as of
Astronomical prices and shortages for ordinary users
Because intermediaries actively buy up and rework cards, ordinary buyers have practically lost the ability to purchase graphics cards in stores. The retail price of the RTX 5090 on the secondary market has already exceeded 9 000 – 10 000 dollars, even though the official recommended price is only 1 999 dollars.
Despite rumors of a complete halt in RTX 5090 production, Nvidia says output is still ongoing. However, that model is currently completely absent even on the manufacturer's official online storefront.
The situation in the electronics market clearly shows how tech giants are competing for available resources during the AI boom. In this race ordinary gamers suffer the most, forced to search for outdated components.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Злите відео показує, хто винен у захмарних цінах на відеокарти". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Channel 24.
