Did you handle to seize that RTX 5090 Founders Edition card you covet? I’m guessing in all probability not contemplating all of the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 playing cards theoretically on sale immediately went out of inventory in below 5 minutes.
I used to be attempting to cowl the RTX Blackwell launch throughout the US and UK immediately, together with the remainder of the PC Gamer crew, and there we have been at 6 am PT, 2 pm UK time, clicking on hyperlinks and attempting to see if we may snaffle new graphics playing cards into our on-line baskets as quickly because the launch time was upon us.
All to no avail. I managed to squeeze right into a queue at Best Buy to stay a Founders Edition of the RTX 5090 into my basket for a couple of minutes earlier than it kicked me out with an error message.
And each different card we may discover on Newegg and Best Buy have been gone the moment we clicked on them. Over at Walmart, there was one lonely PNY RTX 5080, however he obtained snapped up actual fast, too.
Even the shockingly over-priced variations, with RTX 5080s costing the identical because the RTX 5090 MSRP, had gone out of inventory. Though I hope that is just a few kind of itemizing error and somebody hasn’t simply paid $2,000 for one thing that’s solely marginally sooner than an RTX 4080 Super.
It was the identical state of affairs over within the UK, the place inventory was both gone in a couple of minutes or the retailer websites simply utterly fell over. Some locations had pages claiming inventory, however should you clicked by they both fessed up that inventory had gone, or there was no approach so as to add a card to your cart in any case.
By my reckoning, it was all finished and dusted by 6.05 am PT, 2.05 pm UK. And realistically in all probability sooner than that—it was simply that is when the websites really caught up with the very fact the playing cards had been snapped up.
So, is that this successful? I suppose from the standpoint of everybody getting shot of all their inventory, it will likely be seen as a win by each Nvidia and the retailers. How joyful anybody who really needed a brand new RTX Blackwell GPU is correct now, nicely, that could be a special matter.
Was it excessive demand, or low inventory? All the pre-release noise was about both low volumes of chips going to producers or low numbers of playing cards going to retailers. Neither paints a very rosy image of digital cabinets filled with new playing cards. Which is a disgrace contemplating Nvidia was reportedly ready to decide on at any time when it needed to launch this new technology of graphics playing cards, and will certainly have picked a time limit the place it had managed to place extra inventory into the channel.
Though would there ever be sufficient inventory within the channel? Is it that a lot better to have offered out in ten minutes over 5? There will nonetheless be a complete lot of dissatisfied people nonetheless ready on restocks.
I might guess Nvidia catching up on orders of its large ol’ Blackwell server GPUs took extra precedence than the GeForce GPUs. They have been all kinda on the identical TSMC 4N node, so possibly there was a component of creating positive these datacenter prospects have been sorted first.
Still, there’ll probably be extra inventory winding its strategy to retailers quickly sufficient, and we’ll have new RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti playing cards coming our approach subsequent month, too. So regulate our ‘Where to purchase…’ pages should you’re available in the market for one of many new playing cards.
Just please steer clear of eBay, eh?
