Receiving the wrong item in the post usually calls for complaining but there is the odd occasion where it can be reason for celebration instead. Case in point, receiving a GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition in place of an RTX 5080. This appeared to be the case for one Redditor but instead they’ve received something altogether rarer, a misprint.
Opening their GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition box to find an RTX 5090 was understandably a surprise to Reddit user EssDee3D. Seeking answers and those in the same boat, they posted photos to the LinusTechTips subreddit. Naturally, some thought the user simply placed an RTX 5090 into 5080 packaging. A few hours later they shared a video effectively debunking such claims.
EssDee3D installed their card into a system only to find that their would-be GeForce RTX 5090 was in fact an RTX 5080 in disguise. Both Task Manager and GPU-Z confirm it’s the latter SKU, despite the branding on the Founders Edition cooler. In effect, they’re now the lucky owner of an ultra-rare graphics card, with RTX 50 Series cards proving rare in of themselves.
However, this could cause problems for EssDee3D should they ever need to RMA the card. It’s one thing explaining this misprint to a subreddit but another entirely to an Nvidia customer support agent. Hopefully they’ll be able to use their card without issue, but GeForce RTX 50 Series is exhibiting issues across RTX 5090 and 5080, Founders Edition or otherwise.
As for how this mishap came to pass, this likely comes down to simple human error. I am curious as to whether there are other Founders Edition cards out there with similar misprints though, few and far between as they are already. Having a GeForce RTX 5090 with 5080 branding would certainly be on way to push the term ‘sleeper’ PC a little bit further.
