This Bizarre But Apparently Usable Rtx 5080 Skateboard Mod Is Kinda...

If GPU coolers weren't so silly, this wouldn't even be possible.

OK, there's not a whole lot to go on here beyond a short video clip posted on Reddit. But it sure looks like what we have here must surely be the world's first GPU-to-skateboard conversion. And an implied commentary over the silliness of modern graphics cards.

A Redditor who goes by the handle ashleysaidwhat has apparently attached a pair of trucks to an Asus ROG Astral RTX 5080. The result is a seemingly workable skateboard, of sorts.

"She's a 5080 Astral but she looks like a 5090, and she handles like a TUF," is all the poster has to say. The rest is Reddit history and presumably a future podcast series.

Was the RTX 5080 already bricked? Hopefully. Is it now completely toast as an actual GPU? Almost certainly. Is it even a full graphics card, or just a CPU cooler attached to some kind of board beneath? We may never know.

Personally, I'm guessing the latter. While the cooler checks out as matching the Astral RTX 5080, there's no end bracket. Likewise, the PCIe connector with all the electrical contact points isn't visible and, as you can see from the official Asus image below, it sticks out quite a lot in reality. Well, provided it hasn't been machined off or something.

Ultimately, it's all speculation, perhaps even one of those mysteries that's better left unsolved. If it was a functional GPU before this whimsy, then ouch. If it's just the cooler, it's maybe less fun and you kind want it to be a full graphics card.

Of course, this does rather amount to a pointed implied commentary on the ludicrous size and scale of modern graphics cards. It really oughtn't be even an option to turn a GPU into a skateboard.

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Personally, I've often wondered about the sense of really aggressive cooling for computer chips. Yeah, I know, hear me out.

Source: PC Gamer