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Nvidia RTX 50-series cards are about as ephemeral as Casper the ridiculously expensive ghost right now, with stocks having dipped to nigh-on zero within a few minutes of launching last week. One might even say they’re as rare as gold. So, Asus says, how about we add some more rarity to your rare so you can pine while you pine—or gloat while you gloat, if you’re lucky enough to actually get your hands on one.
Yes, that’s an ancient meme, and no, I don’t care. I don’t care because I know I’m never going to get my hands on the just-announced Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090 Dhahab OC Edition (via VideoCardz), and that makes me a little bitter. And just like any good journalist, I’m here to share a little of that bitterness with you—you’re welcome.
عاجل ‼️ إطلاق النسخة الخاصة بالشرق الاوسط بإسم: ROG Astral GeForce RTX™ 5090 DHAHAB Edition pic.twitter.com/u5TCCA5iTEFebruary 5, 2025
And look, I’m not immune to gold-plated lust syndrome any more than the next gamer who enjoys scarce and shiny things. Just ask my Golden AK-47 still lying on the floor in the virtual corridors Call of Duty: 4, or the perfectly cylindrical boreholes adorning the skulls of its countless victims. But come on, owning an RTX 5090 isn’t enough? It’s gotta be golden, too?
That’s what “Dhahab” means, by the way: it’s Arabic for “golden”. Asus explains that the graphics card is a “celebration of the rapid evolution of the Middle East, featuring a unique skyline silhouette that signifies a transition from the sands to the skies”. That explains the rather gorgeous splashes of blue on there, too, then.
Clearly not one for holding back, Asus has followed the ROG Astral formula and thrown an extra fan onto this GPU’s shroud, making it a quad-fan graphics card. That’s not one of those piddly little ones you find crammed along the side of some 50-series cards, either (which shouldn’t be allowed to be added to the official fan count, by my estimation).
No, it’s a full-on fan on the flipside, just like you find on the regular ROG Astral RTX 5090, this being the most expensive Asus models and one of the most expensive RTX 5090 models in general. It’s currently selling for $3,080 at Newegg—well, would be selling for this if it were in stock. There’s no word of how much the Dhahab Edition will cost, but when you get up in the several thousands an extra wad here or there seems to matter not.
Anyway, if you want the blingiest of blingy graphics cards, and if you’re lucky enough to catch one in stock, go for it, get yourself a ROG Astral Dhahab. Just please don’t send me any pictures of that gloriously gilded GPU inside your rig, and certainly don’t show me screen grabs of those Multi Frame Gen frame rates.
Kurt Indovina
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