# The one-card RTX 3090 rig, repriced *The one-card home AI rig this shelf priced on 13 September 2026 is $3,748.48 at the cheapest new RTX 3090 on 1 November 2026, against $3,178.86 then, and $2,848.48 at a typical used one, before tax; at the renewed listing the September page led with, it is $3,199.47 against $3,198.86. The seven other parts moved a net $0.61 in seven weeks; the new and used card prices are what moved.* *Published 2026-11-01 (UTC) · A small (human) team and a fleet of AI agents.* **the short version:** The same eight-part desktop, read again on 1 November 2026 between 06:21Z and 06:43Z, before tax and before shipping. Everything but the graphics card is $1,349.48, against $1,348.87 on 13 September: a change of $0.61. The card is where the money went. The cheapest new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (24 GB) of any brand was $2,399.00, a tracker's reading of an Amazon marketplace listing, up 31.1 per cent from the $1,829.99 the parent page read; the rig at that card is $3,748.48. A typical used card, the median of 161 completed eBay US sales between 8 and 15 October as InsiderLLM reports them, was $1,499.00; the rig at that card is $2,848.48. On one source's own figures the used card rose 17.6 per cent from August to October. The renewed listing the parent page priced still exists at the same $1,849.99. Twelve used or renewed listings were found between $1,500 and $2,040, eight of them on Amazon between $1,729.99 and $1,949.99; none of the Amazon eight was under $1,700. Four of the seven part prices are search snippets, and the page says so row by row. 2,106 words · about 10 minutes (at 220 words/min) · 1 table · data kit: no https://research.strata2signal.com/the-3090-rig-repriced/ --- This page re-reads the bill of [the rig at the top of this shelf's price series](/home-inference-and-diffusion-rig-cost/), a consumer desktop around one NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 with 24 GB of video memory, seven weeks after that page priced it, because the card's price has moved. The parts list is the parent page's; only the prices are new. ## What was read, when and how {#what-was-read-when-and-how} Every figure here was read between 06:21Z and 06:43Z on 1 November 2026, at US retailers, in US dollars, before sales tax and shipping. The window is the receipt: prices moved before you read this. Every price carries a grade. **A**: read on the retailer's own product page. **B**: read on a price tracker listing that retailer. **C**: a search-result snippet, not read on the page, capture time unknown. **T**: a published aggregate, a median or an average, with the source's window and method, or a retailer's "from" line, the lowest of several sellers' offers. The retailer the parent page priced from, amazon.com, served all but two of the product pages this workshop's fetcher asked for (those two returned a server error) and withheld each product's own price ("To see product details, add this item to your cart"). What it did show was the "Other sellers on Amazon" line, the tiles of its "consider these" carousels, and whether an item was in stock; those are recorded as what they are, never as a product page's own price. Most other retailers refused the fetcher outright, so where a page could not be read, a price tracker or a search snippet was, and each row's grade says which. Of the seven parts, three are grade B and four are grade C; none is A. The one in-stock A-grade part price found, the power supply at the maker's own store, is $289.99, $50.00 above the street price three snippets agree on. ## The bill, September beside November {#the-bill-september-beside-november} The parent page's eight parts, by the same titles. A row is the best grade available, and among snippets the cheapest price two independent sources agree on; the cooler's snippet has no second source. | Part | Listing (shortened) | 13 Sep 2026 | 1 Nov 2026 | Change | Grade · source | |---|---|---:|---:|---:|---| | Memory, two 2 × 8 GB kits | TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan Z DDR4-3200, $129.99 a kit | $259.98 | $259.98 | $0.00 | B · pgrid.app, an Amazon listing; Newegg the same | | Power supply | Corsair HX1000i 1000 W | $234.99 | $239.99 | +$5.00 | C · B&H snippet, agreed by Micro Center and pcpartpicker | | Processor | AMD Ryzen 7 5700X | $199.97 | $196.49 | −$3.48 | B · pgrid.app, an Amazon listing | | Motherboard | MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk MAX WiFi | $159.99 | $159.99 | $0.00 | C · Best Buy snippet, "InStock"; the page timed out | | Storage | Crucial P310 1 TB NVMe | $179.00 | $168.10 | −$10.90 | B · pgrid.app, an Amazon listing | | Case | Fractal Design Define 7, black solid | $204.99 | $194.99 | −$10.00 | C · Newegg snippet, agreed by pangoly | | Cooler | Noctua NH-D15 | $109.95 | $129.94 | +$19.99 | C · pcpartpicker snippet, an Amazon listing | | **Everything but the card** | | **$1,348.87** | **$1,349.48** | **+$0.61** | | | **The rig at the cheapest new RTX 3090** | MSI Suprim X 24G, "New Unit", $2,399.00 | $3,178.86 | **$3,748.48** | +$569.62 | B · GPUPrix, "Last updated Oct 31, 2026" | | **The rig at the renewed EVGA listing the parent cites** | "Renewed (5) from" $1,849.99 | $3,198.86 | **$3,199.47** | +$0.61 | T · Amazon's "Other sellers" line | | **The rig at a typical used RTX 3090** | Median of 161 eBay US sales, 8–15 Oct 2026, $1,499.00 | $2,443.31 | **$2,848.48** | +$405.17 | T · InsiderLLM, "Updated: October 15, 2026" | *The September column is the parent's, read off amazon.com's own product pages; its used row was August's average completed sale on a different marketplace, $1,094.44. With the power supply at the maker's store ($289.99, grade A) every total is $50.00 higher; if the board has sold out at Best Buy, the next price seen was a Newegg marketplace offer from $175.95 (grade C, stock not stated), which puts everything but the card at $1,365.44.* ## The card, four ways {#the-card-four-ways} **New.** The cheapest new card of any brand was an MSI Suprim X at $2,399.00, the GPUPrix tracker's lowest US price, last updated 31 October 2026; the Amazon page it links names a marketplace seller and hides the price. Against the $1,829.99 the parent read on 13 September, that is up 31.1 per cent ($2,399.00 ÷ $1,829.99 = 1.311). **The renewed listing the parent priced** ("renewed" is the retailer's label for a used card a third-party seller has inspected and resells at an asking price, with a condition grade such as "Refurbished - Excellent") still exists under the exact title the parent quotes: "No featured offers available", and under "Other sellers", "Renewed (5) from $1,849.99", free shipping. That is the figure the parent read on 13 September and $30.00 below the $1,879.99 it read by hand on 17 September. **Used and renewed asking prices.** Twelve priced listings, from $1,500 (eBay's lowest used asking price, per gpudojo) to $2,040 (a used ASUS TUF at Newegg). Eight were on Amazon, between $1,729.99 (a renewed ZOTAC Trinity OC) and $1,949.99 (a renewed Founders Edition and a renewed ASUS ROG Strix); the median of the seven Amazon renewed listings is $1,849.99, the EVGA listing itself. So on that retailer every priced used or renewed card seen was under $2,000, eight of eight, and none was under $1,700. **Completed sales**, the prices people actually paid. eBay's sold-listings search refused the fetcher, so every completed-sale figure is a third party's reading of eBay, and the readings disagree by up to $540. The one with the best-stated window and method is InsiderLLM's: 161 completed eBay US sales of used cards, 8 to 15 October 2026, excluding shipping, median $1,499 (the middle sale: half closed above it, half below), half of them between $1,397 and $1,552. That is the "typical used" figure this page totals. Three other readings run $1,061 to $1,600. The highest is this page's own median of the 13 RTX 3090 sales, sold on 31 October, among the 24 rows compsniper shows (its headline, $1,599 over 229 sales, states no window and mixes in other models); the lowest, GetPCParts', comes from a series that repeats one value four weeks running and carries a $14.55 reading in June and July, and pcprice.watch's $1,449 is, by its own guide page, a seven-market euro median converted to dollars. ## How much the used card rose, and why one figure leads {#how-much-the-used-card-rose-and-why-one-figure-leads} The parent's used row was $1,094.44, the August 2026 average completed sale on jawa.gg; today's is $1,499.00, InsiderLLM's October median on eBay. Side by side they say used is up 37.0 per cent ($1,499.00 ÷ $1,094.44 = 1.370), but that compares an average on one marketplace with a median on another, and the gap between the methods is part of the number. The nearest thing to one ruler is InsiderLLM's own pair of readings. On 19 August 2026 it pulled 68 completed eBay US sales of single cards; the 52 used, pre-owned or open-box cards among them had a median of $1,275 (the 16 refurbished, $1,400). Its October reading is 161 completed sales of used cards between 8 and 15 October, median $1,499. The two state their filters differently (August: Buy It Now, single cards, 3090 Ti and parts-only excluded; October: used, excluding shipping), so this is one author's two readings, not a method shown to be identical. That is **+17.6 per cent in two months** ($1,499 ÷ $1,275 = 1.176), and it is the figure this page leads with. The parent's own used source could not give an October figure: jawa.gg's monthly chart did not load, and its twelve-month average, $953 over 106 sales, is the kind of trailing figure the parent page withdrew on 18 September. The rig moves less than the card, because the box did not move: up 17.9 per cent at the new card against the parent's cheapest-new total ($3,748.48 ÷ $3,178.86 = 1.179), up 16.6 per cent at the used card against its used total ($2,848.48 ÷ $2,443.31 = 1.166). ## The memory did not move, yet {#the-memory-did-not-move-yet} The parent's 2 × 8 GB DDR4-3200 kit was $129.99 on 13 September and $129.99 on 1 November, at the same retailer. Over the same weeks the contract price of a DDR4 8Gb chip, what PC makers pay under agreement, rose from $26.00 in late September to a record $27.50 in October, up 5.77 per cent (TrendForce's September table; Sammyfans citing DRAMeXchange for October), and TrendForce forecast on 30 September that conventional DRAM contract prices would rise 10 to 15 per cent quarter on quarter in the fourth quarter. The spot price of the same chip barely moved: $46.04 on 22 September, $46.864 on 30 October, up 1.8 per cent. For this one kit the contract rise has not reached the shelf. Whether it does is the next read's question. ## The wider market, for context {#the-wider-market-for-context} **NVIDIA says its GeForce RTX 5090 (32 GB) is not discontinued; it is scarce.** On 19 October 2026 HotHardware reported the senior vice president of NVIDIA's GeForce business unit saying on the record that the card "has certainly not been discontinued, and NVIDIA will continue shipping them", while acknowledging constrained supply; on 27 October PC Guide reported that one unnamed board partner can no longer order the card's chip with its memory. The cheapest listing found, via pgrid.app, was an ASUS ROG Astral at $7,499.00. **A new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 (16 GB) costs about double its list price.** The cheapest listing pgrid.app showed was a PNY model at Best Buy for $1,999.99, with no stock or condition printed (Wccftech reported the same listing on 28 October, beside a Micro Center card at $1,829.99 for in-store pickup only), against a $999 list price NVIDIA has not changed; Hardware Busters wrote the same day that in-stock cards at the big US retailers "now start at roughly $2,000". So a used 24 GB RTX 3090 at $1,499 costs less than a new 16 GB card of the current generation, and a renewed one at $1,849.99 about the same. Nothing here changes what the rig draws: the parent's running-cost section stands, and [what a million tokens of writing costs in electricity, card by card](/electricity-per-million-tokens/) has this card's rows at three power caps. ## What this page does not say {#what-this-page-does-not-say} - **Asking prices, not purchases.** No card was bought for this page; the completed-sale figures are third parties' counts of eBay, named with their windows. - **Four of seven part prices are snippets**, capture times unknown; the cooler's has no second snippet behind it. - **No product's own price was read on amazon.com**; its card prices here are "Other sellers" lines and carousel tiles on its pages, or a tracker's reading. Three of the eight Amazon card prices are carousel tiles, and three more renewed listings hid their price; two lower new prices ($2,295.00 and $2,345.00) were snippets dated 17 October and are not used. - **The board's stock is unresolved.** Best Buy's snippet read in stock; the maker's store, Micro Center and B&H read out of stock or backordered, and one distributor lists it as end of life. - **One window, one morning.** To check a row, open the page it names and read what it says on the day you do; if it does not reproduce for the day printed, say so at the [contact desk](https://strata2signal.com/contact/), where a person reads every message. This page adds corrections and later readings below, each dated (UTC), with a window at both ends where one applies, and each saying in plain words what it counts. ## Who ran this, and thanks {#who-ran-this-and-thanks} The prices are the pages and snippets named row by row and listed under Sources, read by an agent in one window on 1 November 2026, every fetch and refusal logged. A small human team ruled on what to lead with and signed the numbers; a fleet of AI agents read the pages and did the arithmetic under that team's rulings. Thanks to the trackers, publications and retailers named under Sources, whose pages these are; none of them owed us anything. ## Sources {#sources} 1. GPUPrix: https://gpuprix.com/us/gpus/geforce-rtx-3090 · thecomparator.tech: https://thecomparator.tech/gpu/rtx-3090/ · gpudojo: https://gpudojo.com/rtx-3090 2. Amazon, the renewed EVGA listing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BDXT6F51 · the renewed ZOTAC: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09BBS9444 3. Completed sales: InsiderLLM https://insiderllm.com/guides/used-rtx-3090-buying-guide/ · compsniper https://compsniper.com/worth/rtx-3090 · pcprice.watch https://www.pcprice.watch/search/RTX3090/US/GPU and https://www.pcprice.watch/gpu-buying-guide/rtx-3090-price-used-and-specs · GetPCParts https://www.getpcparts.com/market-prices/gpu-graphics-cards/rtx-3090 · jawa.gg https://www.jawa.gg/parts/gpus/geforce-rtx-3090-5e593 4. pgrid.app: https://www.pgrid.app/us/rams/teamgroup-t-force-vulcan-z-ddr4-16gb-2x-3200mhz-cl16 · https://www.pgrid.app/us/cpus/ryzen-7-5700x · https://www.pgrid.app/us/ssds/crucial-p310-1000gb · https://www.pgrid.app/us/gpus/geforce-rtx-5080 · https://www.pgrid.app/us/gpus/geforce-rtx-5090 5. The snippet rows and the maker's store: Corsair https://www.corsair.com/us/en/p/psu/cp-9020259-na/hx1000i-fully-modular-ultra-low-noise-platinum-atx-1000-watt-pc-power-supply-cp-9020259-na · B&H https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1782265-REG/corsair_cp_9020259_na_hx1000i_1000w_fully_modular.html · Best Buy https://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-b550-tomahawk-max-wifi-socket-am4-amd-b550-atx-ddr4-wi-fi-6e-motherboard-black/6504286.p?skuId=6504286 · Newegg https://www.newegg.com/fractal-design-atx-mid-tower-define-7-steel-computer-case-black-fd-c-def7a-01/p/N82E16811352109 · pcpartpicker https://pcpartpicker.com/product/4vzv6h/noctua-cpu-cooler-nhd15 6. HotHardware, 19 October 2026: https://hothardware.com/news/is-geforce-rtx-5090-really-discontinued-nvidia-speaks-out · PC Guide, 27 October: https://www.pcguide.com/news/nvidia-says-rtx-5090-not-discontinued-but-board-partners-reportedly-cant-place-any-new-orders/ · Hardware Busters, 28 October: https://hwbusters.com/news/rtx-5080-price-nears-2000-at-us-retailers-double-the-cards-999-launch-msrp/ · Wccftech, 28 October: https://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-rtx-5080-prices-soar-past-2000-at-us-retailers-as-neweggs-own-inventory-runs-dry/ 7. TrendForce: https://www.trendforce.com/price/dram/dram_spot · https://www.trendforce.com/news/2026/09/23/insights-memory-spot-price-update-dram-spot-prices-hold-cautious-tone-ddr4-2gx8-drops-3-6/ · https://www.trendforce.com/presscenter/news/20260930-13258.html · Sammyfans, 30 October: https://www.sammyfans.com/2026/10/30/dram-nand-prices-samsung-sk-hynix-pc-dram-2027/ 8. The parent page, priced 13 September 2026: https://research.strata2signal.com/home-inference-and-diffusion-rig-cost/ # The night watch *A small telescope on a balcony, open-source astronomy software on a small always-on computer, and one AI agent a night that rehearses the night on a simulated sky, freezes its plan before dark, and writes up the real results the next morning. The teaser said what it is; this page says what it will run on and what an agent is allowed to ask of it.* *Published 2026-11-01 (UTC) · A small (human) team and a fleet of AI agents.* **the short version:** [the night watch](https://nightwatch.strata2signal.com) is a small telescope that looks where AI agents choose, one agent a night, every night kept on its own page. The rig is ordinary amateur gear, driven through open-source astronomy software on a small always-on computer. An agent never touches any of it: it gets a short, fixed list of requests, and the safety rules are code above every one of them, never toward the Sun, never below the balcony's own horizon, nights only, with a separate watchdog that stops the mount if the software goes quiet. Each night's page holds the real stacked photographs beside up to six paintings, each labelled a painting, the agent's words with its facts checked against astronomy catalogs, and the frozen plan with its checksum. It is being built now. No date is promised. 1,202 words · about 5 minutes (at 220 words/min) · 0 tables · data kit: no https://research.strata2signal.com/the-night-watch/ --- *If you're new here: [strata→signal](https://strata2signal.com) is a small workshop that runs its own machines and writes up what it finds. [The night watch](https://nightwatch.strata2signal.com) is its next exhibit, and its teaser is up: a small telescope on a balcony under a bright suburban sky, aimed each night where a different AI agent chooses, Anthropic's models and open models on our own hardware alike. This page is the next layer down: the parts, the software, the three turns, and the rules that keep a language model from ever holding the controls.* ## The rig, part by part {#the-rig} The parts are chosen, none assembled, each picked for having an open-source driver, so the control surface cannot change under a years-long archive. - **A GoTo mount:** a Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi in alt-azimuth mode, which needs no polar alignment. - **A small apochromatic refractor:** an Askar FMA180 Pro, 40 mm of aperture and a 180 mm focal length, f/4.5. - **A colour astronomy camera:** a ZWO ASI585MC, 3840 × 2160 pixels, uncooled. On this scope it frames about 3.5° by 2°, the whole Andromeda Galaxy in one field; Saturn is a ringed dot about thirteen pixels across, at best. - **A motorised focuser:** a ZWO EAF (2025) on Askar's autofocus bracket, so the software runs the focus curve; focusing by hand is the pain this part was chosen to end. - **The cables:** a powered USB hub at the scope and one active USB cable indoors to a small always-on computer. Nothing here is weather-rated; it comes inside between sessions. ## The software {#the-software} - **[INDI](https://indilib.org/)**, the open driver library for astronomy, speaks to the mount, the camera and the focuser (two of those drivers wrap the camera maker's closed library). Its own simulators, including a camera that draws real catalogued stars wherever the simulated scope points, are what agents rehearse on before any hardware moves. - **[KStars](https://kstars.kde.org/) with [Ekos](https://indilib.org/about/ekos.html)**, the open observatory suite, is for us, by hand, at first light and for maintenance. The nightly runner is a small client of our own on INDI's library, because a narrow thing we wrote can be tested on the simulator and audited line by line. - **A plate solver**, [ASTAP](https://www.hnsky.org/astap.htm) or [astrometry.net](https://astrometry.net/), reads where the scope is really pointing from the stars in a frame. - **[Siril](https://siril.org/)** stacks the frames; **[astropy](https://www.astropy.org/)** computes the sky timeline; claims are checked against SIMBAD, [NED](https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/) and [JPL Horizons](https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/). - **The painter** is planned to be [FLUX.2 klein 4B](https://github.com/black-forest-labs/flux2), the Apache-2.0 image model our [print lab](https://printlab.strata2signal.com) already runs, painting from the agent's description of what it saw; an open vision model describes the stacked photograph first. ## How an agent takes its turn {#the-three-turns} 1. **Rehearse.** The afternoon before, the agent asks what will be up and previews candidate plans on INDI's simulated sky, the real night's sky on a virtual clock, and sees sample frames and the rig's limits. 2. **Commit.** It commits one plan: targets and why, exposures and frame counts, up to six painting intentions. The plan is frozen with its checksum and printed byte for byte beside what actually happened. A plan that overbooks the night is refused; a frozen plan is never edited; if weather closes in, the same plan waits up to a week for a clear night. 3. **Curate.** Next morning the same agent gets the stacked photographs, the star map, the timelapse and the log, and writes the page: prose, claims (each checked; one the catalogs cannot confirm is marked unverified, never cut), painting briefs, captions, a line for a child. ## Why an agent never touches the hardware {#never-the-hardware} The agent talks to a small relay that is connected to the simulator only. A separate night runner, the only program that may point the real mount at a target during a watch, executes the frozen plan; no agent is in the loop while the telescope moves. The agent's whole vocabulary is a handful of requests: what is up, preview this, commit this, give me the results, paint this, here is the page. No shell, no file access, no raw path to a driver. The software holds where the balcony is; the agent is told what is up in rough terms, so many minutes after dusk, low, mid or high in the sky, never a clock time, an altitude in degrees, a compass direction or a coordinate on the ground. The safety rules are functions with tests that prove they refuse, never prompts: no motion and no exposure unless the Sun is well below the horizon; never below the balcony's own measured horizon, never above a ceiling; nights only, inside a budget of sky minutes; pointing verified by a plate solve before any target; wind, rain or cold in the forecast is a no-go. A watchdog whose only powers are stop, tracking off and park acts when the runner goes quiet. And a frame leaves the computer only if the software can prove it is sky above that horizon, so no building, street or neighbour is ever published, or ever reaches an agent. ## What a night's page will hold {#the-night-page} The frozen plan beside what happened; the photographs, each captioned with how many frames of how many seconds were stacked; the agent's words with the catalog-checked facts beside them; the paintings, each labelled a painting with its model and licence, and never shown as a photograph; both logs; a public data kit of the stacked frames; and the seal: a checksum of every file and of the page. Once sealed, the page stays up, and later notes are added beneath it, dated. Rehearsal nights on the simulated sky go on a separate shelf, labelled simulated, never on the wall. ## When {#when} It is being built now: the relay and the page on the simulators, and first light by hand once the parts arrive; then the first agent night. No date is promised. Later, visitors will be able to suggest a region for an agent to consider. ## What this page does not say {#what-this-page-does-not-say} - **Where the balcony is**, beyond a balcony under a bright suburban sky; the agents are not told either. - **Which agent goes first**: Claude's models open the watch; from the third watch on, open models running on our own hardware take turns too. - **What the pictures will look like.** Nothing has been photographed, and this page has no pictures. - **Anything measured.** Focus curves, solve times and frames per night are first light's to report. ## Who ran this, and thanks {#who-ran-this-and-thanks} Thanks to the INDI, KStars and Ekos projects, to the authors of Siril, ASTAP, astrometry.net and astropy, to CDS for SIMBAD, NASA/IPAC for NED and JPL for Horizons, and to Black Forest Labs for the klein model. A small human team chose the parts and approved this page; a fleet of AI agents researched the hardware, hardened the plan and drafted this page under its rulings. ## Sources {#sources} Read 2026-11-01 (UTC). **Our records:** the project plan and the hardware research, internal; the teaser as served at https://nightwatch.strata2signal.com. Write a detailed, section-by-section summary of the text above.