Whether retailers want to admit it or not, you have almost no shot of a bagging a
GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card against the barrage of bots and scalpers that swoop in whenever there’s an inventory refresh. Stock has been slightly better for the
GeForce RTX 5080, but those are nearly impossible find at retail, too. In an effort to make it a little easier (and maybe drum up some good will with gamers), NVIDIA has brought back its Verified Priority Access program.
It’s basically a lottery system and, for the time being, is also probably your best chance at being able to actually buy a GeForce RTX 5090 or GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card, both in Founders Edition (FE) form. A winning lottery ticket in this case is the privilege of paying full price (and not a penny more) for one of the top two GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs.
“We know it’s challenging to purchase a GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics card. Today we’re introducing Verified Priority Access for the GeForce RTX 50 Series. It will give a limited number of verified GeForce gamers & creators in the United States the opportunity to purchase one GeForce RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 Founders Edition graphics card from the NVIDIA Marketplace,” NVIDIA states in a forum post.
Yes, we’ve come to a point where paying MSRP for a graphics card is considered a significant win. Blame it low supply,
blame it on tariffs, blame it on a misalignment of the planets and stars or anything else. Cause(s) be damned, it is almost impossible to find a GeForce RTX 5090 or 5080 in stock. What’s more, custom models by NVIDIA’s hardware partners are retailing for hundreds of dollars more than NVIDIA’s baseline MSRP. And then there are the wild markups by marketplace sellers and scalpers on eBay.
That will eventually change, and rumor has it that
supply is about to improve in a big way. We’ll see. In the meantime, NVIDIA’s Verified Priority Access program is a potential end-around to the goal line, if you’re chosen.
The full criteria for consideration is a mystery, though NVIDIA is accepting applicants from any user who created an NVIDIA account on or before January 30th, 2025. You must also live in the US. If that’s you, fill out NVIDIA’s
Verified Priority Access form and then hang tight. NVIDIA says it will begin sending out invites next week.
For now, the program is limited to the GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080, and not the newly-released GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. We’ll see if that changes, though it’s notable that NVIDIA doesn’t offer a Founders Edition version of that GPU.
Outside of NVIDIA’s own lottery system, Newegg is doing something similar with the return of its
Newegg Shuffle program. There’s one taking place right now (for the next several hours) in which you essentially drop your name in a hat for a chance to buy one of two GeForce RTX 5070 Ti models (Gigabyte Windforce and ASUS Prime). If selected, Newegg will send you a timed link to complete the purchase.
Likewise,
Zotac has implemented a priority access campaign of its own whereby it will select “real gamers and active members” of its Discord channel with an opportunity to by a GeForce RTX 5090 or 5080 graphics card.
What we’d really like to see, however, is the return of a reservation queue system like EVGA used to do for low-supply GPUs. It’s slightly similar to what NVIDIA, Newegg, and Zotac are doing now, but without the lottery aspect—you indicated your interest in a specific card or cards and then waited for your turn to buy one.
