GeForce RTX 5090 Releases To Retail…Annnd, It's Gone
After a months of leaks and rumors followed by weeks of anticipation, NVIDIA's much-ballyhooed GeForce RTX 5090 released to retail this morning, and then sold out in a nanosecond. Maybe even faster. It was a 'blink-and-you-missed' it retail launch, though not an unexpected one—NVIDIA this week warned that it was anticipating "significant demand" for its newest flagship and had "stock-outs may happen."
Well, there's no "may" about it. Best Buy unlocked sales of a wide range of GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards at 9:00am ET this morning. The Founders Edition version that NVIDIA produces is always highly sought after, but in cases like this where stock is so limited, custom cards from its hardware partners are prone to flying off of store shelves too. That's part of the reason why people were camping out in front of at least one Micro Center location this week.
I was logged into Best Buy ahead of time, as is good practice for these kinds of events. When 9:00am rolled around, Best Buy was clearly getting hammered, with retail listings slow to load. But load it did, and to my surprise, I was seemingly able to add a Founders Edition model to my cart.
"You're in line! Wait times can take up to a few minutes or longer, based on product demand. Next we'll verify your account and check available inventory," a message read.
It was fool's gold, though. A few moments later, an error message inevitably appeared indicating a problem adding the item to my cart. Then on a subsequent attempt, another message indicated, "Sold out. Sorry, this item has sold out. Please check back later, we'll hopefully have more soon!"
As has become customary, Best Buy exclusively sells the Founders Edition model—you won't find the GeForce RTX 5090 FE at any other retailer, not unless it's listed by a marketplace seller (with a highly inflated price, no doubt). However, non-FE (read: custom) models are nowhere to be found in stock either. That's true even of the most expensive variants. For example, ASUS sells a factory-overclocked ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 for $2,799.99, and that too is sold out at places like Best Buy, Newegg, and elsewhere.
As you might expect, there's a way of new listings on eBay, some as high as $9,999.99 (Buy It Now price). And comically, there are also listings that are attempting to screw over scalpers and their bots. Such as this one, which has a $1,999 Buy It Now price but is for a photograph only. The description reads, "Don't buy, only for bots. Once receive photo of card."
A fast sell-out of NVIDIA's new flagship champion was always bound to happen. Gamers can debate the generational uplift that's at play when taking multi frame generation out of the equation, but the GeForce RTX 5090 is the new fastest gaming graphics card on the planet. Kudos if you managed to score one in the less-than-nanosecond it was available. For everyone else, be patient—there will be restocks, though expect those to sell out fast too.
