A new chapter in GPU luxury has arrived with the ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 Dhahab Edition, a graphics card designed less for everyday gamers and more for collectors and status seekers. Originally released in the Middle East at an MSRP of $6,806, this extravagant model is now appearing on eBay with asking prices soaring as high as $22,900. Scalpers have wasted no time exploiting the card’s exclusivity, with listings often coming from resellers in China and other markets.
The Dhahab Edition is defined by its lavish design. It features 6.5 grams of pure 999 gold plating, along with intricate Arabic calligraphy and regional artistic motifs inspired by desert landscapes and modern skylines. In performance terms, the card is almost identical to the standard ROG Astral RTX 5090, though ASUS has managed to push the boost clock slightly higher, offering up to an eight percent edge in overclocking at 2,610 MHz.
Despite these modest technical improvements, the astronomical resale prices have far more to do with rarity than raw performance. Many listings even reuse the same stock photos, raising questions about whether some of the price inflation is artificial hype. Still, the buzz has been strong enough to attract plenty of attention across online communities.
On Reddit and other forums, reactions have been a mix of humor and disbelief. Some users argue that the Dhahab Edition is nothing more than a symbol of wealth, joking that it exists only to show how much money someone can afford to burn. For the vast majority of gamers, the value proposition makes little sense. At the prices being asked, you could build an entire high-end gaming system with an RTX 5090 and still have money left over—without the golden finish.
The Dhahab Edition may be one of the fastest GPUs on the market, but it is also one of the least practical. Its real purpose is to serve as a luxury showcase piece, a reminder that in the world of high-end hardware, exclusivity can sometimes outshine performance.
