Here's a new one - an RTX 5080 has been turned into a skateboard, and a fully functioning one as demonstrated in a video on Reddit.
The Redditor's post (highlighted by VideoCardz) caught a fair few gasps and 'if you've got money to burn' kind of reactions in the thread, but of course this person hasn't turned a grand and a half's worth of graphics card into what's effectively a short plank.
What's probably happened here is that the buyer of the ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5080 has applied their own high-end cooling solution to the GPU, and what you see is just the stock cooler from the graphics card - notably you don't see the innards or PCB.
- Read more: How much would you pay for an RTX 5090 GPU? ASUS wants $3,100 for its ROG Astral LC OC Edition
- Read more: ASUS plans 'special' RTX 5090 card launching on August 19, could be the ROG MATRIX RTX 5090
Alternatively, this could be the remnants of a harvested GPU (sent to China) that was sold off separately, or maybe even an unfortunate scam victim literally making something out of their loss.
Whatever the case, doubtless it isn't a fully-fledged RTX 5080 GPU that's being skated around on in the video clip (or I sincerely hope not, anyway).
If nothing else, it shows that the ASUS cooling solution for this ROG Astral is a sturdy piece of kit - and perhaps gives the folks in the stress testing departments at graphics card makers some fresh ideas about how to gauge the sturdiness of cooling components.
Anyway, some GPU-related light relief might be welcome today, given the latest disappointing rumor - namely that NVIDIA has canned its RTX 5000 Super refreshes. Why? Because the necessary GDDR7 VRAM is thin on the ground, and NVIDIA likely won't be able to spare any allocation beyond more important - and profitable - AI graphics cards, or that's the working theory. Add salt as ever.




