Modified RTX 5090 Cards Allegedly Shipped to China by the Batch for AI Use
If the footage reflects an ongoing flow, then the standard RTX 5090's export restriction has not stopped Chinese buyers from putting its silicon into AI servers, which makes the card's retail price and availability harder to read as a pure gaming demand story.
Reporting from 1 source: Automaton.
Reporting picked up by VideoCardz describes footage, shared by HKEPC, of a Chinese workshop stripping standard RTX 5090 cards down to their GB202 chip and GDDR memory and transplanting them onto blower-cooled custom boards for AI server use. The cards shown are the standard model, which the US restricts for export to China, not the China-market RTX 5090 D v2. How the parts are procured is not clear.
The Hong Kong outlet HKEPC posted video on October 23 from what it says is a card modification workshop in China. Cards are taken apart on the line, the triple-fan cooler removed, and the memory and GB202 chip placed on a custom carrier with a blower-type cooler. That board is shaped for servers, not desktops.
ASUS ROG Astral cards, GIGABYTE and PNY models, and NVIDIA's own Founders Edition all appear in the footage. None of those are the RTX 5090 D v2 built for the Chinese market. Chinese suppliers have claimed 64GB and 96GB variants of the card circulate, but no working units have been confirmed. Questions about where the supply comes from remain open.
Written with AI by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited. See our editorial policy.
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