If you found the RTX 5090 Astral Dahab plated with 6.5g of gold, you’re in for a surprise. In fact, ASUS has taken inspiration from this little panty cracker to produce an even more extravagant card: a model whose fairing is produced with 5kg of gold! That makes for a card worth half a million dollars. In short, it’s a collector’s item, and ASUS China has just posted a video showing the manufacturing process.
RTX 5090D Astral Gold: how did they do it?
To produce this card, the internal components are taken from a real card, the original RTX 5090D Astral. The brand has reused the PCB, as well as the aluminum fin array and fans. However, the radiator has undergone a small change, and now benefits from gold plating to match the rest of the heatsink.
But what’s interesting here is the creation of the card’s fairing. Indeed, before casting the gold, molds had to be made on the basis of the actual board. The video clearly shows how the blacksmith proceeds. He dismantles the board and makes molds for the various parts of the ROG Astral. Then, once the mould has been made, the gold bars are melted and cast.
Once removed from the mould, the parts are reworked, sanded and sculpted. The card is then assembled.
But don’t be fooled into thinking that everything went like clockwork; on the contrary, there were a few glitches, not least in the making of the backplate, which was no mean feat. Indeed, it’s a thin part, and making a precise mold wasn’t easy. We see several failures in the video, with backplates punctured or even deformed, but in the end we have a complete board worth its weight in peanuts.
The board is functional, but clearly a museum piece first and foremost.
