Scalpers Are Selling GeForce RTX 4090 Cards For $4,300 But Don't Be A Sucker
Scalpers are up to their old ways by buying high and selling even higher. Their opportunities dwindled when the cryptocurrency market collapsed and GPU supplies picked up (there were other factors involved as well), but with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090 flying off store shelves, scalpers looking to make a quick buck are striking again with inflated prices on eBay and Amazon (via marketplace listings). Don't be a sucker, though.
Out of curiosity, I poked around eBay's recently ended auctions for GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards and filtered by listings that actually sold to a buyer (at least purportedly—more on that in a moment). I wasn't surprised to see that cards have sold for above their list price, but was mildly shocked to see them commanding up to 168 percent over NVIDIA's $1,599 MSRP.
That's not including the highest priced listing among the bunch—$9,999 plus a $33.54 standard shipping charge for a Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 Trinity, by a seller with a reputable feedback history. I have to think that whoever won the auction at that price has no intention of actually paying, because that's just insane.
So it goes when it comes to these things. Scalpers can (and do) charge whatever they like, and not every buyer ends up paying. There was even a campaign on Reddit in the form of a faux message speaking out against ruining scalper listings.
Scalpers are selling GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards are huge markups on eBay.
I'm sure that's happening to some extent with the GeForce RTX 4090, but I doubt it's across the board for every listing marked as 'sold'. Sorting by price reveals that the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 OC Edition is commanding the highest bids, with several cards having sold for over $4,000 (like the one shown above). In general, though, custom GeForce RTX 4090 cards are seemingly fetching between $2,300 and $3,500.
There are inflated prices over on Amazon, too. Marketplace sellers are targeting around $3,000, depending on the specific listing. My advice? Don't be a sucker for these hyper-inflated prices.
This isn't the wild west all over again, where anything goes. It's a different landscape now than it was a few short months ago, before the GeForce RTX 4090 launched and before Ethereum completed its merger to a proof-of-stake model, which in turn has put a massive dent in GPU mining.
On top of that, NVIDIA will be releasing more Ada Lovelace cards in the near future, AMD is expected to announce it next-generation Radeon RX 7000 series cards this month, and Intel is helping to satiate demand by having made its Arc A770 and Arc A750 cards available at retail.
Interestingly, I didn't spot any Arc A770 or Arc A750 listings on eBay. Newegg quickly sold out of its initial batch of cards, and there are reports that Micro Center stores did as well. However, there's not much room to push those cards at high markups, because GeForce RTX 30-Series and Radeon RX 6000 series cards are readily available these days.
So anyway, scalpers are always going to do their thing. But unlike the last couple of years, these inflated prices are not the norm.
