nvidia's latest gpus sell out in minutes fueling scalper frenzy
Santa Clara, Friday, 31 January 2025.
NVIDIA’s newly released RTX 5090 and 5080 graphics cards quickly vanished from shelves on January 30, 2025, highlighting surging demand. Priced initially at $1,999 for the RTX 5090, the cards are now offered by scalpers for over $6,000 on eBay—exceeding a 200% markup. This high demand comes amid previous announcements of potential shortages due to design flaws in Blackwell processors, which affect manufacturing yields. Despite these challenges, NVIDIA reported significant revenue from data center customers, reaching $30.8 billion in Q3 2025. The striking scarcity and immediate resale markups underscore the market’s insatiable appetite for cutting-edge graphics performance, triggering concerns of consumer dissatisfaction among gamers. The price surge has prompted enthusiasts to act swiftly, intensifying the competitive landscape for acquiring the latest technological marvels. NVIDIA’s success in improving supply could play a critical role in calming the explosive reseller market.
Supply chain constraints and manufacturing challenges
The rapid sellout stems from NVIDIA’s earlier acknowledgment of production limitations. In October 2024, CEO Jensen Huang revealed design flaws in Blackwell processors leading to low yield rates [1]. The company’s manufacturing partner TSMC’s 4N node process for Blackwell GeForce cards has particularly affected the production of B100 and B200 boards [1]. Major AIB partners like MSI have already pushed delivery dates to February 6, 2025, due to these supply chain difficulties [5].
Prebuilt systems offer alternative access
While standalone cards remain scarce, major retailers have introduced prebuilt gaming systems featuring the new GPUs. Systems with the RTX 5080 start at $2,299.99, featuring high-end configurations with Intel’s Lunar Lake or AMD’s Ryzen 9000 processors [2]. Premium builds with the RTX 5090 range from $4,500 to $4,560, including liquid cooling solutions [2]. These prebuilt options provide an alternative pathway for consumers seeking the latest graphics technology.
Performance improvements drive demand
The overwhelming demand reflects significant technological advances in the RTX 50 series. NVIDIA’s new DLSS 4 technology enables up to eight times higher frame rates compared to traditional rendering [3]. The flagship RTX 5090 features 21,760 CUDA cores with 32GB GDDR7 memory, making it the first GeForce GPU to exceed 20,000 cores [4]. These specifications position it as the fastest consumer graphics card available [1].