- Nvidia’s RTX 5090 is vanishingly thin for stock levels now, but that could soon change
- Rumor has it that board makers are getting a major influx of chips for their RTX 5090 graphics cards
- It might only take a month or so for this apparent surge in stock to manifest on shelves
Nvidia’s RTX 5090 may be extremely thin on the ground right now – you’d be lucky to find one still (note that our guide on where to buy the GPU could help in that quest) – but maybe you should wait anyway, because if a new rumor pans out, this won’t be the case for much longer.
The supply of RTX5090 will be stupidly high soon. Scalpers will cry so hardFebruary 15, 2025
MEGAsizeGPU is a regular contributor to the hardware rumor scene on X and claims to have knowledge of Nvidia’s GB202 supply.
Those are the chips used in the RTX 5090, and apparently graphics card makers are getting “tons” of supply of GB202 (complemented with the necessary VRAM, so there’s no chance waiting for GDDR7 video memory is going to hold up production, either).
That’ll mean they will be able to make a lot more RTX 5090 graphics cards, of course, to sell into retail channels.
This apparent surge in supply – add your own seasoning – won’t come through to shelves immediately, though, because as noted, the boards still need to be manufactured and distributed.
Therefore, MEGAsizeGPU guesses that we will start to see a lot more RTX 5090 GPUs available to buy in “about one month” or so, and this is caveated as a guess, I should stress.
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
Analysis: Scalpers could be in serious trouble
A month sounds on the optimistic side, but if this is true, there’ll be an increase in supply soon enough, and it won’t be too long before the shelves are potentially stuffed with RTX 5090 GPUs.
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I say that they’ll be stuffed because what we must remember about the Blackwell flagship is that it’s a very niche proposition. Indeed, given the price hike with the MSRP over the RTX 4090, the RTX 5090 is even more of an out-of-reach enthusiast graphics card, so the audience for this particular GPU is pretty narrow, frankly. A sudden surge in supply as predicted will probably mean that there are RTX 5090 models sat at shelves, finally, and hopefully prices will therefore normalize more, back towards the MSRP.
So, if you were at all tempted to buy an RTX 5090 at the higher prices some retailers are charging, or indeed a resold GPU on an auction site, the clear advice here is: sit tight. It certainly seems worth waiting, as we should see the results of this apparent move from Nvidia coming through soon enough (and I’m betting more rumors will soon flag this as being correct, if it really is true).
As MEGAsizeGPU points out, the “scalpers will cry so hard” and that might teach folks a lesson that price gouging new hardware, especially seriously expensive goods, may not be a wise course of action, and it doesn’t come without risks.
On a broader note, this is the first glint of an optimistic forecast for Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs that we’ve had since they were launched (it’s been a whole lot of doom and gloom otherwise).
Nothing is mentioned about the RTX 5080 by the leaker, but still, we can hope that if GB202 supply is getting better, perhaps other chips (GB203, and GB205, the latter being the engine of the RTX 5070) are perhaps due for an uptick too, and maybe more of Nvidia’s RTX 5000 graphics cards will see healthier stock levels.
That said, VideoCardz, which noticed the above post on X, also points out that what some retailers appear to be doing is heavily favoring pre-built PCs with new Blackwell GPUs, rather than selling them as standalone products. Regardless, if a lot of RTX 5090 stock is coming through, there should not be an availability problem before too long.
