Fake Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU renders have caused quite the drama

Nvidia’s RTX 4090 graphics card appeared in some leaked renders a couple of days back, but it turns out these are fakes – and indeed the Twitter account which shared them is a complete work of fiction.

So, what’s the story here? The account in question, @QbitLeaks, posted the renders which were then flagged up by various tech sites (we found them via KitGuru); check out one of them below.

Obviously any leak can be fabricated, and that’s something we must always bear firmly in mind – hence our ever-present cautions on being suitably skeptical – with one of the commenters on the above Twitter thread making accusations of it being a tell-tale Photoshop job. And they were right.

Turns out that all of this was a ‘social experiment’ by @QbitLeaks, in basically seeing how easy it’d be to invent leaks, keep a stream of them coming, and have them picked up on by the media at large (which certainly happened in some cases).

The fake leaker – flaker? – clarified in another tweet that those supposed RTX 4090 renders were “actually based on info not publicly disclosed from kitty”, and “that’s the realest thing from this whole account,” adding that: “Everything else was made in a group chat.”

Analysis: Rumbled by a well-known YouTuber

The Kitty referred to in that last tweet is Twitter-based hardware leaker @KittyYYuko (formerly KittyCorgi), who recently posted leaked photos purporting to be Nvidia’s RTX 4080 (not 4090, note).

The fabricated RTX 4090 renders copy an obvious major detail from @KittyYYuko’s pic, namely the larger fan which overlaps with the metal edge of the card. That doesn’t mean that the RTX 4080 photo from @KittyYYuko is fake, but we were already skeptical about it as we pointed out when we first reported on that leak – and this makes us a bit more wary, it has to be said.

Still, @QbitLeaks calls the apparent info from Kitty the “realest thing” they posted, but can we even trust that comment? Who knows, but what we can say is that this is why extreme care needs to be taken around info shared by leakers who don’t have a well-established track record. Indeed, plenty of caution must still be exercised even with leakers like @KittyYYuko, who have been around and spilling rumors for a long time, and have a reputation as such.

The @QbitLeaks account on Twitter has only been around since July 2022, so just for a couple of months, which is a red flag right off the bat. Apparently another well-known leaker, YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead, rumbled the fake account, and @QbitLeaks will shut its doors after Nvidia’s GTC developer conference later this month.

That’s where Nvidia is expected to launch the RTX 4090, if the rumor mill is right, and in that case, we can be pretty sure given the volume of leakage around that particular prediction – from multiple sources – that it’s a fairly strong possibility. Nothing is ever certain when it comes to the grapevine, mind you, and even existing plans which are genuine when leaked can subsequently be changed by a company at short notice. Indeed, the more cynical may observe that some of the spillage that emerges is purposefully leaked to gauge reactions and then perhaps make changes based on that.