In my calendar, January 30 is circled many times over in sparkly gel pen. For what reason? A birthday? An anniversary? No, two hotly anticipated hardware launches of course—specifically from Nvidia's RTX 50-series. However, word from a UK-based retailer suggests I shouldn't get my hopes up of actually getting hold of one.
Amid rumours aplenty, staff at Overclockers UK took to the forums to confirm that stock availability for both the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 will be extremely limited upon release. So limited in fact, that Overclockers UK only has a "single digit" amount of the RTX 5090 graphics cards in stock a week before launch (via Videocardz).
Purchasing manager Andrew Gibson went on to write, "Initial waves of supply are poor and will probably take some time to build up. 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."
This is in part due to demand expected to be greater than even the 40-series, and considering the claim that the RTX 5090 boasts 'twice the performance of the 4090,' it's not hard to see why. Gibson also highlights that Overclockers UK will have considerably more of the RTX 5080 in stock, though this is still limited to a "few hundred" units.
Stock supply issues are not limited to the UK, either. US-based retailer PowerGPU also took to X earlier this week to manage expectations, writing, "The launch of the RTX 5090 will be the worst when it comes to availability. Already being told to expect it to be that way for the first 3 months."
And I thought picking up a base PS5 console on launch day was a mission—this makes that look like a jaunt through Miraland. So, what's happened to create such a limited supply? Gibson theorises in his forum post that the launch's proximity to Chinese New Year could be one factor. That aligns with what we're hearing regarding some review units of third-party cards. This is a theory also echoed by Benchlife, which posits that communication issues between Nvidia and card partners based in China and Taiwan have likely been exacerbated by spring festival celebrations (also via Videocardz).
Looks like I'll be holding on to my many pennies until sometime after February, then. Though I suppose it doesn't hurt to keep an eye out for stock drops of the RTX 5090 Founders Edition and third-party cards in the meantime—good thing we've collated a list of US-based and UK-based RTX 5090 retailers right here.
