If you blinked, you missed the initial wave of
GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards at retail before they sold out. And if you sneezed, you also missed your window of opportunity to snag a
GeForce RTX 5080. The
GeForce RTX 5070 Ti came and went in similar fashion during its retail debut, and we suspect the non-Ti variant will be more of the same. All of this raises the question, when the heck will there be a restock?
The answer is a mix of good, bad, and sobering news. Starting with the former, the landscape for new GPUs will definitely improve over time, which in the
coming weeks will also include AMD's
Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070. The bad news is, it's going to take some time, and the sobering news comes by way of an update by Overclockers UK, a major overseas retailer.
In a post on X, the company confirmed that all three existing GeForce RTX 50 series models (5090, 5080, and 5070 Ti) are sold out. Furthermore, it's no longer accepting preorders for NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 5090, which is probably the most in-demand (and most scarce) product of the three right now. Meanwhile, the GeForce RTX 5080 is seeing "limited stock" replenishes on a weekly basis, while preorders remain open (for now) for the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti.
Overclockers UK also provided ETAs for all three cards, which are as follows...
- GeForce RTX 5090: 2-14 weeks
- GeForce RTX 5080: 1-3 weeks
- GeForce RTX 5070 Ti: 2-6 weeks
That's quite the range for the top model, which could see a stock replenish as soon as a couple of weeks from now or as long as several months. Stretched out to 14 weeks, it could be late May or early June before GeForce RTX 5090 models are back in stock.
"Pre-orders are being taken for RTX 5070 Ti SKUs where we are confident we will secure additional stock within the ETA provided. Where pre-orders are closed for an RTX 5070 Ti SKU, please sign up for stock notifications to be the first to find out once stock is available," the retailer stated in a post on X.
The retailer also said that for any customers who purchased a GeForce RTX 50 series card but have not yet received a confirmation email, it means the order is now in a preorder queue "and we are working with our supply chain to fulfill within the ETAs" listed above, or sooner if possible. Anyone who doesn't want to wait can cancel their order for a full refund.
We appreciate that Overclockers UK continues to offer
status updates like this, though it would be even more helpful if we knew how many cards it expects to receive—even a general estimate would suffice. Restocks are great and all, but if they're few in number and keep selling out immediately, as has been the case so far, then the actual wait could be much longer than advertised.
Meanwhile, NVIDIA has brought back its
Verified Priority Access program for the GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 in FE form, which is basically a lottery system to be selected to buy a card direct from the company. Newegg has been doing something similar with its
Shuffle program, as has
Zotac in its Discord channel, all in an effort to bypass bots and scalpers to get cards in the hands of actual gamers.
So far, however, we have not seen any company take the same approach as EVGA before it exited the GPU market. EVGA won favor among gamers with a reservation queue system that gave gamers an opportunity to get in line to buy a high-demand GPU once they became available. It didn't solve the issue of scarcity, but was probably the most fair (and least frustrating) way to actually buy a GPU during a shortage.