Posted on 10/27/2026 8:07:35 PM PDT by SpaceBar
The rise of AI has caused the price of PC components to skyrocket, infuriating anybody looking to make a new purchase or upgrade their gear. Graphics cards have become such a hot commodity that they’ve become completely unaffordable — and higher-end one’s, like Nvidia’s sought-after RTX 5090, are hard to even find in stock.
One reason for the price and availability issues may be industrial facilities in China buying up the workhorse cards and repurposing them for AI, as Tom’s Hardware reports. A video making the rounds on social media shows the inside of one of these facilities, a major operation that involves swapping out of the circuit board and fitting on a turbine-style cooler... (article continues at link)
(Excerpt) Read more at futurism.com ...
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Ingenious.
The armybdud a similar thing in building a supercomputer. They took a bunch if playstation 2s and strung them together.
I have a 5060Ti in my Linux box I use for AI.
A recent post on Reddit describes a driver update that will increase the power of the RTX-3090, it was intentionally throttled to provide greater margin for overheating. Truly amazing hardware that Nvidia has created! But since you can buy a decent used car for what a replacement GPU costs nowadays, I’ll be babying my 3090 and waiting a bit longer.
Must be nice having the scratch to buy “thousands” of $5000 vid cards. I’d be happy with just one.... if’n I had the scratch to spare.
they probably are taking old GTX 960’s and rebranding them as RTX 5090’s to sell on Temu...
I recently bought 2 of these cards...
Got them included with 2 new gaming PCs...
They are the HP OMEN MAX 45L model. the HP 5090s run cool compared to most others.
The MOBO that came with these is sorta crap as they have no available PCIe slots after the 5090 is in... may swap for an ASRock B850 or similar Ryzen MOBO.
Ordered them 10 weeks ago, one came fast but the other lingered and was delivered Saturday... I expected them to cancel that order as the price of the 5090 zoomed way past the cost of the complete PC build... I see they no longer list the 5090 as an option...
I’m thinking of building up an open frame rig with 4 GPUs on risers... would have 32+32+24+12 of VRAM and 256gb of system ram and 16gb of SSD .... I’d hate to have to buy all that at today’s prices....
I suspect the 5090s may be getting pressed into some sort of military role... sure is enough raw compute to be useful. I see Micro Center is requiring a signed document attesting that u will not transfer to a third party... have to fill out along with picture ID... weird... plus they pulled them all from the shelves..
Newegg has 3rd party sellers listing the 5090 at over 10,000USD
The 16gb VRAM 5060 ti is good for local AI!
U can run 2 of them on some motherboards and get 32gb of VRAM much cheaper than a 5090, although the speed will be lower.
If u use the built in video on some motherboards that lets u have more VRAM as u don’t use it just to run your display.
How well does that work for open source LLM work? I assume that is what you’re doing.
You can get a “gaming rig” with that graphics board with 8G, 32G of main RAM, 2T SSD, and an Intel Core Ultra 7 265 proc for $1500 at Costco.
Is that enough to do useful things?
Tony Moon, one of the OG rooftop Koreans, who I follow on X, recently posted something like “This is the most Asian thing ever.” It was a young couple getting married, and the bride had just given her groom a wedding gift of a 5090. He was crying with joy!
LOL
To do AI you really need the 16gb ver of the 5060 ti not the 8gb.
Should run something like Qwen 3.8 27B just fine...
Please take a look at my question in #10. I’m thinking based on your post here that’s not enough oomph.
Any suggestions on using any of these?
https://www.costco.com/gaming-computers.html
And I do have a Micro Center close enough, if I should trot down there.
You’re already ahead of me.
So something like this
or maybe even this.
Seems crazy expensive, either way. Then I remember I paid ~$3500 for my first computer - an original IBM-PC in the Spring of ‘82! In ‘82 $dollars! I also remember Jerry Pournelle saying something like the machine you want always costs $3000, which held true for around a couple decades.
Thanks.
That machine u reference looks ok except it needs the 16gb VRAM instead of 8gb of VRAM as I said and also could really use 64gb of system ram...
They say you can run some good MOE models with such a rig.
I have not tried this but I have a 12gb VRAM 5070
and may try it on that card..
Look here
https://stratallm.org/
I used to correspond with Jerry! I remember the old Chaos Manor days in BYTE... I knew the publisher... Wayne Green.. a smart but odd man.. I once told him he was the world’s smartest crackpot... he loved it...lol
I will look at those links in the morning...
I do STRONGLY recommend 64gb of system ram to do more serious work but you may get by at first with 32... just be sure you can upgrade to 64gb... if the 32gb takes up all 4 slots u can’t.. you need 4x 16gb sticks of ram or 2x 32gb sticks.
Sometimes they use 4x 8gb sticks to get 32gb and you can’t add any more..
I’d look at a lot of youtubes before I bought anything if I were you.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=5060+ti+16gb+ai&sp=EgIIBA%253D%253D
Makes sense, thanks, and I’m not in a hurry.
I have a couple letters published at his Chaos Manor Musings blog. I miss Jerry, he was quite the Renaissance man.
Perhaps something like this
but I’d still add more ram to reach 64gb
i’d make certain that it does not have all 4 slots filled with 8gb ram sticks! so you can upgrade easily.
This ad says it has the 16gb version of the 5060 ti... that’s the one to buy IMO.
I miss Jerry and Wayne, it’s always fun to interact with guys much smarter than yourself... they were both well above 140 IQ
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