It’s not just hard-to-find graphics cards that are being smuggled across borders, as bootleggers have now turned their attention towards the best gaming CPUs, despite their apparent abundance right now. It hasn’t culminated in a speedboat getaway like the smugglers that shifted GPUs, SSDs, and RAM into the country, but HKEPC reports that Chinese border officials intercepted a “nervous” looking driver, before finding 256 CPUs hidden beneath their clothes.
In a separate event, border officials found 52 more Intel chips hidden down the side of a car seat. These two events included Intel’s i7 10700K and 10900K chips, with a total value of over ¥800,000 (approximately $123,450). This raises the question: why CPUs and not graphics cards?
While AMD may have struggled with Zen 3 processor stock until recently, you can find Intel’s 10th gen lineup in abundance – even heavily discounted in recent times. It could be that these CPUs are coming from a country where prices are cheaper, in order to make a profit, or perhaps these particular processors were gained by illicit means.
Six figures-worth of CPUs strapped to a single person could mean big bucks, if there are more successful attempts slipping through the net. And with China strengthening its restrictions on crypto mining applications, it’s unlikely we’ll see as many GPUs in contraband any more, meaning processors are the new gold dust.
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