If you were hoping to get your hands on a new, incredibly powerful, incredibly expensive Nvidia graphics card… maybe it’s time to make like Luke Skywalker and find a new hope. According to one store in the United Kingdom, it’s going to take “3-16 weeks” to get new RTX 5090 cards in stock. The RTX 5080, much less expensive and much less warmly received, will take “2-6 weeks.”
That’s according to Oveerlcokers UK, posting an update on its stock situation just one day after the cards’ launch last Thursday. “Due to incredibly high demand and limited stock, all 50 Series cards sold shortly after launch with some pre-orders taken in restricted quantities.” It’s hardly surprising since even the larger retailers like Best Buy and Newegg appeared to be out of all new card variants less than an hour after the official launch.
Overclockers UK’s esitmate doesn’t necessarily represent the inventory outlook for the entire market, but the situation sure seems grim for anyone trying to upgrade their desktops. We’ve grown accustomed to new high-end GPUs being in short supply, and it looks like this launch is an especially egregious example.
A story out of Japan shows an increasing level of frustration and desperation among early shoppers. A PC Studio retail shop in Akihabara had to apologize to both its customers and its neighbors, as the unruly crowd for the launch caused several injuries and even reported “damage to a neighboring kindergarten fences and signage” according to a report from Tom’s Hardware. All this was despite the store using a raffle system to sell the limited amount of cards available in the physical store.
The new RTX 5090 and 5080 should at least get a little company soon-ish: Nvidia’s own RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti are on the way, as are the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT from AMD. None of those cards have a definite release date at the moment, though they should all be here before the end of March. (Which is well before that “16 weeks” figure.) If you need a card that costs less than a car payment, Intel’s new Arc B580 and B570 are hitting the value segment.
Even so, it seems that many buyers (and perhaps AI startups) won’t accept anything less than a high-powered GeForce card these days, and Nvidia will sell every one that it can make. Scalpers and other resellers are eating well, if they can find any, with some confirmed eBay listings going for as much as three times the retail price.