Leaked video shows hundreds, possibly thousands of brand-new RTX 5090s being dismantled for AI server usage in Chinese factory

Consumer RTX 5090 stock in the US (and many other countries) seems to be virtually non-existent at the moment, despite Nvidia's claims that production is still ongoing. So, what's happening to all those brand new consumer cards?

A leaked video reportedly taken from inside a Chinese factory may have the answer. Posted by HKEPC on X, the footage shows what appears to be a huge number of consumer RTX 5090 cards being dismantled en masse for AI server conversion (via Tom's Hardware).

Workers are shown dismantling the GPUs, removing their three-fan coolers and heatsinks, and stacking the PCBs for conversion to dual-slot cooler configurations suitable for AI server racks. The scale of the operation looks truly vast, with what looks to be hundreds, possibly thousands, of GPUs getting the chop shop treatment.

According to HKEPC, the GPU and VRAM are desoldered and transplanted to a separate PCB ready for cooler transplant. Once converted into an AI server-suitable form factor, the GPUs are then tested on vast arrays of benchmarking rigs, ready to begin their new lives as AI workhorses rather than consumer graphics crunchers.

The horror, the horror, etc. These "grey market" facilities are said to be scattered throughout the country, despite the RTX 5090 not officially being available for sale in China. Nevertheless, this facility looks to be stuffed full of the highly prized GPUs, with skilled technicians pulling them apart for repurposing.

Reports of this sort of activity are nothing new, but this footage showing the scale of a single operation is still unsettling. If facilities like this are hoovering up GPUs and converting them at this sort of rate, it's perhaps no surprise that RTX 5090 consumer cards have become so difficult to find elsewhere.

We've stopped tracking the GPU in recent months on our GPU price watch page, as the only US listings we can find are from third-party sellers for vastly inflated prices. A gaming GPU for $8,000+ simply makes no sense at all, even if it happens to be Nvidia's top-level card for this generation.

And to see them being converted for, shock horror, AI crunching instead of good old gaming purposes? Well, chalk up another way AI server demand is making 2026 a year to forget for consumer PC hardware.