For any gaming PC, having a beefy GPU inside that can push the pixels in games is a requirement. But a small number of GPUs have another task to fulfill: to become a collector's item until the end of time.

While GPUs as a whole were a commodity during the pandemic, it was the previous decade that produced some of the rarest graphics cards ever to exist. Back then, there wasn't a high demand for GPUs due to crypto mining or a global chip crisis that would slow down GPU production. The only reason these graphic cards were rare was their experimental features, which failed to gain widespread acceptance, leading to the companies only producing a few of these GPUs. Here are five rarest GPUs that have become a collector's item.

5 GT 1010

The one nobody knew existed

GT 1010 is one of the newer GPUs on this list. It's nowhere near as powerful as these other cards, nor does it have any weird gimmick, yet it's one of the rarest cards out there. At one point, nobody was sure that this card even existed, with only rumors and a screenshot of a "GT 1010" in the driver's menu of Nvidia's website floating around.

The launch event of this card consisted of a small YouTuber known as "Dapz" talking to an Nvidia customer care representative who confirmed its existence. The card was released exclusively in China for OEM PCs, with no real way for people to purchase it separately. Nobody knows why Nvidia released this $70 GPU in 2021, with the GPU shortage at its peak. It made sense as a GPU for people who just needed a budget graphics card to get a display, but with it being exclusive to the Chinese market without any way to purchase it, that wasn't possible. This led to this GPU gaining somewhat of a cult following, with only a few people ever getting their hands on it.

4 GTX Titan Z

The one with the worst possible value for money

There used to be a time when multi-GPU setups were all the craze. Gigantic PC cases with two or even four chunky GPUs hooked up to an absolute unit of a PSU; those were the good days of PC building. But looks were all that these multi-GPU setups were good for since driver support in video games was shoddy at best, and their electricity bills were sky-high, making these builds really bad value for money.

The GTX Titan Z is a relic of that past. Released in 2014 alongside the GTX 700 series of cards, the Titan Z claimed the throne of being the most powerful Nvidia card ever produced at a price tag of a whopping $3000. Since everybody was into dual-GPU setups at that time, the Titan Z was Nvidia's way of cashing in on this niche of enthusiast PC builders by including 2x Titan Black chips inside it.

That was until people realized that hooking up 2x Titan Black GPUs cost roughly half of the price of Titan Z and performed better as well. The Titan Z was a really bad move on Nvidia's part and soon led to widespread price slashes, which meant more people got their hands on this card. Despite that, it's a very rare card that warrants the collector's item label because it has two GPUs on the same PCB alone. Sadly, this was the last dual-GPU that Nvidia released.

3 R9 390x2

The power-hungry behemoth

While Nvidia was busy recovering from the Titan Z disaster, AMD was focusing on its next dual-GPU product, the R9 390x2. The previous generation, the R9 295x2, was Team Red's direct competitor to the Titan Z, but in terms of price, there was no competition since the R9 295x2 was priced at only $1500. While the R9 295x2 was rare, it was nowhere near as hard to get as the R9 390x2, making this the only AMD GPU to make it to this list.

Like the GTX Titan Z, the R9 390x2 also features two chips on a single PCB. This GPU required a whopping four 8-pin connectors for a TDP of 580W. To put this into perspective, my current gaming PC takes in 400-450W of power when under load. However, since the dual-GPU formula was a dying breed, AMD never produced a lot of these cards, and mostly only workstation PCs used these behemoths. Some enthusiast gamers did get these, but it's extremely difficult to find one nowadays.

2 GIGABYTE GTX 680 WindForce 5X SOC

The one that can bend wind

Back in the day, Gigabyte used to be very experimental with its shroud and fan design. This specific graphics card is a product of one of those experiments. The "5X" in its name stands for the number of fans it has; yes, there are five fans on it. Granted, they are small, but when cranked up to max speed, they can produce enough sound to wake up everyone in your neighborhood.

To this day, nobody is sure how this peculiar design could improve the airflow or help bring down the temperature of this super-overclocked card. My wager is that since the fans are facing upwards or towards the side panel of the case, this design might be ideal for cases that don't have very good airflow, and with the side panel removed, the cooling potential could be quite good. Regardless, this was a massive card, and not a lot of these "Big Berthas" were produced.

1 MSI GTX 780ti Lightning

The one that should never have existed

Don't let the normal-looking design and name of this GPU fool you. While it's not officially confirmed, only 12 MSI GTX 780ti Lightning units were ever produced. And that's not the only special thing about this GPU. The GTX 780ti Lightning had unlocked voltage control, which is why Nvidia didn't allow MSI to sell this GPU to the public, and since the launch of the 900 series GPUs was right around the corner, MSI never followed up production on these older-gen cards.

The 12 prototypes MSI had produced were sold off to enthusiast over-clockers, making these the only Nvidia GPU ever made with an unlocked voltage.

Graphics cards don't get a lot of love

Like any tech product, GPUs are used and abused, and once their days are over, they are tossed away. It makes sense since technology is always evolving, and an old GPU really doesn't have any value after it dies. But it's painful to think that many of these rare GPUs were once in somebody's PC case without them knowing how rare their card was. With a little more care and knowledge, we could have more of these cards among us, and their value as a collector's item would only increase as they get old.