What you need to know
- Chinese customs officials recently seized over $3 million worth of AMD graphics cards.
- The cards had inaccurate labels placed over their genuine labels.
- The 5,840 graphics cards are believed to be XFX Speedster SWFT 309 Radeon RTX 6700 XT Core Gaming models.
High-end AMD GPUs are difficult to find, but Chinese customs officials managed to get their hands on $3 million worth of graphics cards. 5,840 graphics cards were stopped at the Huanggang Port in China. It's believed that the cards are the XFX Speedster SWFT 309 Radeon RTX 6700 XT Core Gaming model of the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT. Website MyDrivers identified the cards. The iconography on the GPUs appears to line up with the suspected model from XFX.
"Recently, when Meilin customs and Huanggang customs conducted a joint inspection of the goods declared for import from Huanggang port by a certain company, it was found that 3 of the graphics card labels had traces of being covered by other labels," said a social media post by Chinese customs. "After identification, the actual specifications and models of 5840 graphics cards do not match the declaration, and the value of the goods exceeds 20 million [Yuan]" (text translated by Microsoft Translator).
20 million Yuan is worth roughly $3.14 million. The best AMD Radeon RTX 6700 XT GPUs currently retail for between $480 and $830, though they're difficult to find in stock.
It's unclear at this time why people mislabeled the graphics cards. Chinese customs has not confirmed which group or organization tried to import the seized GPUs.
It's common to auction off pieces of hardware like confiscated graphics cards rather than destroying them. The fate of these specific cards is unknown for now.
