Everyone is eyeing the 4090 chip business, beware of these pitfalls

What are the 4090 chip scams on the market? How are they different from other scams? How should we view this hot chip business?

01 What are the scams related to the 4090 chip? 

Generally speaking, there are three types of scams related to 4090 chips.

1. Defrauding deposit

A chip distributor shared a case they heard about: A company wanted to purchase a batch of 4090 chips, and a supplier from another city claimed to have a small number of samples in stock, with the rest requiring a one-week lead time. The client tested several samples and found no issues. The supplier then traveled to the client’s city in person to negotiate and sign a contract, after which the client paid over a million yuan as an advance deposit.  

However, after waiting for more than a month with no delivery, the supplier eventually became unreachable. The client was scammed out of millions in advance payments.  

Earlier this year, a chip distributor mentioned that nearly 10 people they knew in the 4090 chip business had fallen victim to similar scams. The fraudsters typically operated under the guise of offering futures contracts—buyers paid hefty deposits (ranging from millions to tens of millions of yuan) but never received the goods. Some dealt directly with scammers, while others were defrauded by their upstream channels. "The lucky ones got their deposits back; the unlucky ones lost everything."  

2. Chip counterfeiting to defraud money

This type of scam mainly uses fake chips to take advantage of loopholes and sell second-hand products as refurbished products. Replacing the 4090 graphics card core with a new one is a basic scam, and the scammers can make huge profits without much cost.

For example, a fake 4090 graphics card is actually a 3080Ti. The fake 4090 graphics card chip is polished, the label is removed, and the fake information is laser etched, which looks very delicate. In addition, the video memory module may also be replaced. The video memory module in this case is not 2GB and is not GDDR6.

A netizen sent the graphics card to a blogger for repair. After disassembling it, it was found that although the core of the graphics card was laser engraved with the code AD102-301-A1 (the core code of Geforce RTX 4090), from the arrangement of capacitors, it was clearly Geforce RTX 3090. The surrounding video memory was also blurry and fake. The blogger pointed out that the cost of this card is about 336 yuan, of which the fake core is worth 100 yuan, the fake video memory is worth 36 yuan, and the PCB board and radiator are worth 200 yuan.

There is also a category of graphics cards that are also disassembled, but they are too lazy to make fakes, and the chips are directly hollowed out. Someone bought a second-hand 4090 graphics card, but did not test it on the spot at the transaction site. When they went back and powered it on for testing, they found that the RGB small screen was normally lit and the fan was running, but there was no video output signal at all. After disassembling it, they found that the graphics card core and video memory were missing, and the whole card was only a shell.

3. Large Transactions, Lightning-Fast Deals – Suspected Escrow Scams

According to the public account "Fuli Micro Technology", a sales friend received a billion-yuan order on QQ. The customer had to sign a contract in just 3 hours. The AD102-301-A1 NVIDIA graphics card chip was more than 10,000 yuan and required 2,000 and 5,000 pieces. The total contract amount was 102.2 million yuan. They could accept a 50% deposit first and a delivery date.

At present, AD102-301-A1 is not widely circulated in the market. The other party has a particularly large demand and purchases it from a third party. The customer's company name had to be kept confidential at first, and finally they were willing to issue the business license, hiding it. As a result, they said they would trade through bank custody, revealing their fox tail. I called them directly to confirm, and they said they were indeed looking for it, and then they didn't reply to the message.

The risk of this type of bank-managed transaction is that the transaction is not conducted through formal banking channels, but may be a "phishing platform" that requires you to pay a considerable amount of handling fees, verification fees, etc. The money may be transferred immediately after it is remitted, or the scammer may forge a bank receipt and ask you to ship the goods first. After the scammer gets the money or the goods, they will lose contact.

02

What is the difference from other chip scams?

The emergence of scams related to the RTX 4090 began in late 2023 and early 2024, with the sales ban serving as the catalyst. What started as hoarding and price speculation gradually evolved into a flood of counterfeit products and increasingly sophisticated fraudulent schemes.  

In October 2023, the RTX 4090 was added to the U.S. Commerce Department’s export control list. At the time, the RTX 40 series was NVIDIA’s highest-performance graphics card for gaming and entertainment. Once the ban took effect, the RTX 4090 quickly sold out, prices skyrocketed, and the market went into a frenzy.  

On November 17 of the same year, the RTX 4090 was officially banned from sale, and NVIDIA’s Chinese website removed all related content. According to media reports, NVIDIA had notified its AIC board partners to halt official sales of the RTX 4090, meaning the card could no longer be sold individually—only as part of pre-built systems.  

As early as January 2024, counterfeit RTX 4090s were already circulating in the market. YouTube creator Northwestrepair disassembled an ASUS ROG 24GB 4090 purchased from Amazon and found that the GPU die was actually a 4080 (AD103-300-A1).  

Compared to other chip-related scams, those involving the RTX 4090 are more deceptive, concealed, and high-risk.  

The number of genuine RTX 4090 chips available in the market is limited, with many being "salvaged," "defective," or outright counterfeits—posing significant risks. Some scammers exploit the hype around these high-demand chips and information asymmetry to deceive buyers.  

For RTX 4090 graphics cards, it’s nearly impossible to verify authenticity without physically installing and testing the chip’s performance. Even if you inspect the chip in person, specialized equipment is required to confirm its legitimacy. As seen in the teardown, scammers have gone to great lengths to disguise the core chips convincingly.  

Lastly, given the high unit price of RTX 4090 chips—with transactions often ranging from tens of thousands to millions—the potential losses from fraud are substantial. Some distributors have stated that to mitigate risks, they only engage in spot transactions for such products. When deposits are involved, they typically require bank-issued letters of credit to ensure security.  

Even if you set aside the risk of fraud, entering this business legitimately comes with high barriers.  

RTX 4090 chip prices are transparent, and customers have stringent requirements, meaning most deals are closed by system integrators. Genuine transactions are rare.  

On social media, some buyers have posted requests for RTX 4090 chips, with commenters noting that these inquiries have been circulating in the chip trading community for months—often with unrealistic pricing and unwillingness to pay upfront.  

Those looking to trade RTX 4090 chips are typically already in the server components industry, with established upstream and downstream connections. Even seasoned server hardware salespeople tread carefully, as a single misstep can lead to disaster. For outsiders with limited knowledge, the risks are even greater.  

Amid a generally sluggish chip market, many hope to capitalize on NVIDIA’s GPUs and other high-demand products but often overlook the hidden traps and risks.  

In summary, given the prevalence of counterfeits and scams, RTX 4090-related chip transactions carry extremely high risks and are difficult to navigate. Non-professionals should remain highly cautious and avoid entering this space without proper expertise.