Insanely lucky gamer shells out $4.99 for AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT gaming GPU - gets it working with some thermal pads

What counts as a good deal is definitely a moving target. However, snagging an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT for just $5 is an exceptionally good deal by any metric. This is exactly what a gamer has managed to accomplish, courtesy of a lucky find in a thrift store.

$399 RX 5700 XT for just $4.99: Gamer scores solid discount on 6-year old GPU

While there is no way for us to verify whether u/12kdaysinthefire's claims are true or not, they did post a few images of their purchase. Finding hidden value in thrift stores is not a particularly rare occurrence, and in this case, the Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU's last owner tinkered with the card, making it unusable without some repairs.

With some minor repairs, the RX 5700 XT sprung back to life

As the user reported, the GPU has copper blocks jammed inside, with thermal pads or any kind of thermal interface material nowhere to be found. Once this relatively easy-to-solve issue was fixed and its cooler reinstalled, the card booted up just fine. In fact, the user initially believed that the card wouldn't work at all, but fate clearly had other plans.

Now, a 6-year old Radeon RX 5700 XT with 8 GB GDDR6 memory is hardly a powerhouse by any standards. Even back in 2019 when the GPU first arrived, it was positioned as a mid-range GPU for moderately intensive gaming. To put things into perspective, the RX 5700 XT is around 20% slower than a modern GeForce RTX 5050, which goes to show that the GPU won't be of much use in modern high-end gaming. Older titles and even newer ones at modest settings, however, should be decently playable.

Of course, when taking into account the hilarious price tag, there is no doubt that card is worth the dollars - all five of them, to be precise. For folks not as lucky, the Asus Dual GeForce RTX 5050 is currently available for around $250 on Amazon.