Zotac’s new RTX 5070 card is beautiful. Too bad, you can’t have it

I’ve gone on the record before as being in favor of graphics cards themed after—if not necessarily covered in—anime waifus, to say nothing of motherboards themed after delightful cartoon cats. We deserve variety in our desktop components, is what I’m saying here. And it turns out that Zotac wants to deliver said variety with its latest RTX 5070. The only downside is that, for many reasons, I’ll never get to clap eyes on it.

This X-Gaming variant (spotted by VideoCardz) is made as a bit of licensed merch for JX Online 3, an MMO that’s hugely popular in China even after nearly a decade. But more relevant to me is that it actually has some color aside from black, white, and brushed metal. The main shroud has a pleasant pink-to-teal gradient going on that reminds me of that one disposable cup pattern from the 90s, you know the one. There’s also perhaps a bit of 90s tribal tattoo thrown in. But maybe that’s iconography from the game? I wouldn’t know since it’s only available in China (and that’s what we call foreshadowing).

Zotac

Admittedly, the whole package is let down by the back of the graphics card, which is a printed plate filled with characters from the game in a very “get them all onto the same Photoshop canvas” sort of way. Even if you insist on getting images from the game in there, it could be done with a little more elegance, maybe by focusing on just one and going with their colors. Another Zotac design—this one apparently also JX Online 3-themed—is a bit more subtle, though not as eye-catching.

But as I said before, it hardly matters. Neither this spiffy-looking game tie-in nor the non-licensed regular X-Gaming version of the 5070 with a similar front shroud are showing up on the US version of the Zotac site. And your only other options for a unique-looking RTX 50-series card might be disqualified due to personal budget… or taste. And all of this is academic anyway, since these cards are still in extremely short supply.