By When Asus unveiled their RTX 5090 ROG Astral Real Gold Edition graphics card, which is enhanced with five kilograms (eleven pounds) of pure gold, the company won the prize at Bilibili World 2025. It costs over $500,000, making it the priciest graphics card in the world, even if it’s a publicity gimmick, according to VideoCardz.
Although Nvidia’s RTX 5090 is already a powerful high-end device, Asus’ ROG Astral Real Gold Edition went a step further. The graphics card is composed of 11 pounds of 24-carat gold, which alone costs over $500,000, according to VideoCardz. It is also the most costly and heaviest graphics card ever produced, weighing a total of 15.96 pounds. The cooling fins, backplate, and radiator frame are all gleaming in gold, most likely with gold leaf applied to the finer details.
Technically speaking, the Real Gold Edition is built on top of the RTX 5090 ROG Astral, which has 32GB of GDDR7 RAM, PCIe 5.0, and a boost rate of up to 2.61GHz. It is intended for 4K gaming and AI applications. However, the Real Gold Edition is not meant for sale; it is only for display. After the convention, experts think Asus would melt down the gold or use the card for a charity auction. In contrast to the ordinary RTX 5090, which already has a market price of almost $3,000, the Real Gold Edition makes a very premium statement.
There has been debate around the presentation. Some view the Real Gold Edition as an over-the-top luxury that appears to be ridiculing or satirizing the outrageous increase in hardware costs, whereas the standard RTX 5090 ROG Astral with quad-fan cooling represents peak performance. The normal RTX 5090 is the more practical option for enthusiasts because motherboards would be severely strained by the weight alone.
