With Nvidia’s new line-up of high end graphics cards – the GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 – poised for release at the end of the month, retailers and companies have started warning potential buyers that the cards might suffer from stock shortages.
According to WCCFTech, one of the big companies making the graphics cards, MSI, has already warned of stock shortages. Reports have indicated that this shortage in GPU stocks comes from poor communication between Nvidia and its partner companies, like MSI, who didn’t seem to get enough chips for their own custom releases of the graphics cards.
The same reports also indicate that, while there will be shortages at launch, stocks of the GPU are expected to be more stable some time in February. This still means that some potential buyers might find it difficult to get their hands on the new graphics cards, however, since the stabilising of GPU stocks will be more of a gradual process.
Retailers have also spoken about the suspects, with Overclockers UK stating on its forums that launch-day stocks for the RTX 5090 are only available in single-digit figures. The RTX 5080, on the other hand, will be more available, with a few hundred units in stocks, but they will still likely sell out quite quickly.
“We are expecting greater demand than 40 series, but with the launch just prior to CNY and lots of other rumours circulating initial waves of supply are poor and will probably take some time to build up,” posted Overclockers UK staff member Gibbo. “So the stock we have will be made available from the launch via the webshop but I know what we have is likely to last only seconds, minutes at most.”
“We will also be trying to limit how many pre-orders we take, we will take some pre-orders but not thousands as we want to ensure customers get realistic expectations and are not waiting months.”
While it is currently unclear what this could mean for the GPUs and their pricing, going by history, we are likely to see quite a bit of scalping going on with massively inflated price tags. This means that both the $999 RTX 5080 as well as the $1,999 RTX 5090 will be available through scalpers at much higher prices than they should be. We last saw this happen around 2021 with the cryptocurrency boom and the launch of Nvidia’s RTX 3000-series graphics cards.
Nvidia itself has posted a statement on the availability of its upcoming graphics cards, stating that the company and its partners are shipping more stock to retailers in an effort to curtail stock shortages.
“We expect significant demand for the GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 and believe stock-outs may happen. NVIDIA & our partners are shipping more stock to retail every day to help get GPUs into the hands of gamers,” reads the statement.
The GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 were unveiled during CES 2025 earlier this month alongside the RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards. For more details, check out our coverage of the announcement, and check out some of the new DLSS 4 features while you’re at it.
