Russian repair specialist finds counterfeit RTX 4090 sold as a repair project

The card’s fake package and mismatched memory show how convincing high-end GPU counterfeits have become.

A Russian GPU repair specialist found that a used RTX 4090 bought for 30,000 rubles, or about $350, was a carefully built counterfeit rather than a repairable card. The board used dummy parts that mimicked the GPU package, chip markings, and surrounding material, and the fake die was even soldered on with BGA to look authentic. After disassembly, the repairer found the contact area under the fake package did not look like a working processor, and the memory side was also suspicious: one package appeared to be GDDR6 instead of the RTX 4090’s GDDR6X. The case adds to a pattern of increasingly elaborate fake high-end GPUs, including a separate June report of another counterfeit RTX 4090 bought for about $222 that used a plastic imitation of Nvidia’s AD102 die.