Ahead of Nvidia's RTX 40 launch, EVGA announced that it is ending its long-running partnership with Nvidia and will no longer make graphics cards. Still, the company did make a few prototype RTX 4090 graphics cards – one of which is now being auctioned off on the EVGA forums.
Initially, EVGA was trying to hold the auction via eBay. Still, due to being listed by a new account without any positive feedback and the values the auction achieved, eBay took the listing down. According to a tweet from @Miles_AR, the auction maxed out on eBay at $14,400.
After the incident, EVGA moved the auction to its forums, where the top bid currently offers $8,000 for the prototype. The graphics card works, but EVGA won't provide any warranty nor accept returns. The shipping must be made to a US or Canadian address and require an adult signature. Only EVGA Forum members can participate in this auction.
Bidding works in $100 increments, with EVGA holding power to remove any suspicious bids. EVGA will email the winning bid author to discuss how the payment will be processed. If the transaction is unsuccessful or the bidder doesn't reply, the next highest bidder will be contacted. The auction will run up until December 16th at 11:59 AM PT. All the proceeds go directly to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, a children's hospital treating the toughest childhood cancers and pediatric diseases.
KitGuru says: We don't often see prototype hardware being auctioned off like this, but it is for a good cause and is likely to be the last graphics card EVGA produces, making it something of a collector's item too.