In lower than an hour after happening sale final week, Nvidia’s newest GeForce RTX 5080 and 5090 graphics playing cards have all disappeared from bodily and on-line retailers throughout the U.S. The stock dried up so quick that it looks like Nvidia might not have had many to promote within the first place, which has prompted folks to start out calling it a “paper launch.”
Earlier than the launch final week, Nvidia’s head of GeForce neighborhood Tim Adams warned everybody that the brand new GPUs may be onerous to seek out: “We anticipate vital demand for the GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 and consider stock-outs might occur.”
They usually completely had been, as a result of each 50-series graphics playing cards offered out on Amazon, Micro Middle, Finest Purchase, and Newegg as quickly as they went reside. Newegg mentioned it “skilled an awesome response” and offered its stock “inside minutes,” based on a information launch final Friday.
PC {hardware} YouTuber Players Nexus reported that one of many greatest U.S. system integrators, or corporations that put collectively pre-built PCs, had a single RTX 5090 on launch day and solely acquired a “small cargo” of them later that very same day. One other firm had 20 playing cards that it offered by way of pre-builts in three minutes.
A banner on the prime of the Micro Middle web site says it’s “working onerous to restock extra Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs,” and to examine again recurrently. Nevertheless it may be some time earlier than they’re accessible once more. U.Okay. retailer Overclockers UK doesn’t anticipate to have the RTX 5080 once more for 2 to 6 weeks, and the RTX 5090 for an additional three to 16 weeks. A Reddit consumer who managed to get an RTX 5090 at Finest Purchase isn’t anticipated to get it till Feb. 21, which suggests US retailers are in the identical boat.
Whether or not or not Nvidia had any playing cards to promote within the first place stays unclear, however the demand is clearly excessive for the 50-series. In line with the Steam {hardware} survey outcomes for January 2025, most of its customers play video games on RTX 3060s, a GPU two generations behind. Fashionable video games like Dragon Age: The Veilguard nonetheless advocate older GPUs, nevertheless upcoming video games like Avowed and Monster Hunter: Wilds are beginning to advocate 40-series playing cards to make the most of ray-tracing. For all of the individuals who felt the provision shortages and value inflation throughout the early years of COVID, this could’ve been a good time to improve your graphics card… if there have been any left to purchase.
