Looking to get your hands on Nvidia’s RTX 5090 or RTX 5080? Too bad, you’re already too late. Both new RTX 50-series “Blackwell” GPUs went up for sale earlier today, and many went in a flash.
This wasn’t entirely unexpected, as Nvidia had released a warning that stock for the new generation of graphics cards was going to be low, with manufacturer MSI even delaying the launch of the RTX 5090 until February 6. Lines had grown long at U.S. distributor Micro Center, where hopeful buyers camped out for a chance at snagging one.
With stock levels low, scalpers have overtaken eBay listings for the product, with sold listings of the RTX 5090 reaching over $6,000, a 200% increase over the $1,999 MSRP of the 5090. Third-party manufacturers are also marking up their MSRP prices of the RTX 5090, with the Asus ROG Astral reaching $2,799, a 40% increase in asking price. This isn’t uncommon for higher-end cards, but the $800 increase is a whole PS5 Pro.
Worldwide, Nvidia’s MSRP Founder’s Edition cards, which feature an advanced split PCB, have been in demand, with different regions restocking at different times. But, while demand remains high and stock levels remain low they’re nearly impossible to purchase, even for the most diehard of fans.
One user commented on the Nvidia forum: “I refreshed every second since 2pm and not once did it become available to buy!!!” Other users over on Reddit are already posting memes titled “Another Launch, Another Failure” after failing to buy one of the new graphics cards. “Paper launch is true,” claimed one Redditor, echoing the sentiment around the RTX 30-series launch, which was also in short supply in 2020.
But why there are so few RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 graphics cards in circulation? In October, it was reported that the designs of Nvidia’s Blackwell-based processors were flawed. CEO Jensen Huang said: “We had a design flaw in Blackwell, it was functional, but the design flaw caused the yield to be low.” Fixing this flaw in its data center chips may have affected production for the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 consumer GPUs.
Nvidia only has so much time booked at its chip foundry, TSMC. Nvidia’s Blackwell GeForce cards are made using the same TSMC 4N node, on the same architecture as the affected boards. If yields are low, then it will have to spend more time manufacturing working chips. This low yield in its initial run of B100 and B200 boards could have had a knock-on effect on other products. As Nvidia hurried to fix the issue and make yields higher toin turn make its data center customers happy, consumer products might have been hit hard.
After all, the Blackwell B200 chip and the RTX 50-series share the same overall manufacturing process. Nvidia’s revenue from its data center customers reached a staggering $30.8 billion in Q3 2025. By comparison, its gaming revenues sat at just $3.3 billion.
However, the stock situation for Nvidia’s consumer graphics cards will likely get better in the future. For now, Nvidia may just have to face a consumer backlash from gamers who can’t buy what we called the “fastest graphics card on the consumer market” in our RTX 5090 review.
Sayem is a freelancer based in the UK, covering tech & hardware. You can get in touch with him at @sayem.zone on Bluesky.
