It’s been seven months since Nvidia launched its flagship RTX 5090 card to a hungry audience of PC gamers… and people building AI data centers… and a bunch of scalpers trying to bilk them all. In that time, I’ve yet to see one actually available to purchase at the alleged base price of two thousand dollarydoos. Until now! As of just before 11 AM Eastern US time, Newegg has one for the base price.
Specifically this one, the Zotac Gaming Solid model, a basic triple-fan design which apparently has the reference PCB with no overclock. As the good Lord intended. It comes with a free copy of the upcoming Borderlands 4, all the better to show off your PC’s upgraded gaming prowess, which is the latest promotional tie-in via Nvidia.
The presence of an elusive RTX 50-series card with no markups from AIB partners or retailers was spotted by posters on SlickDeals, who also found a $1,000 Asus RTX 5080 on Amazon. That one’s a “limited time deal” that’s reserved for Prime members (and I’m seeing it pop in and out with another price at $1,117, so don’t be surprised if it’s gone by the time you’re reading this).
Is the drought of availability for these in-demand graphics cards—or at least the availability of cards at the price Nvidia announced for them—finally coming to a close? It seems possible. Eight months could be enough time for Nvidia to get its act together in terms of producing these things with its fabrication partners. Nvidia recently lowered the price of some RTX 50-series cards in Europe, though that appears to be a correction for the rising value of the Euro versus the US dollar as the American economy gets pummeled by tariffs. But conventional wisdom and basic supply and demand say it’s not something Nvidia would do if it was selling every single card it could make.
Just on a whim, I decided to find the lowest price I could on the highly desirable Nvidia Founder’s Edition cards for the RTX 5090 (unattainable for me). It was going for $2,350 on StockX and $2,500 on eBay, still a 17-25 percent markup, both on secondary markets. Cheaper cards (relative term here) like the 5070 and 5070 Ti seem to be in much higher demand, and still have markups at higher percentages.
Still, it seems like the situation is improving from the near hopeless pursuits of these graphics cards earlier in the year, and a bit faster than I was expecting. Happy hunting, PC gamers… and [extended censored BLEEP] to you, scalpers.
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