NVIDIA RTX 5090 stock rumored to be woeful by retailer, and RTX 5080 GPU isn't much better
We’re continuing to witness speculation that NVIDIA’s RTX 5000 graphics cards are going to be short on stock, and here’s another piece of info you can file under ‘supply worries.’
Expectations need to be realistic for this launch, we’re told – far from everyone who wants an RTX 5090 or 5080 is going to get one (Image Credit: OCUK)
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This time we’re hearing from a UK retailer, but the fact that this info – add salt with it, naturally – is from Europe does not mean it doesn’t add to the wider picture of availability (or lack of it) for those in the US (and elsewhere).
The retailer in question is one of the bigger operations in the country, namely Overclockers UK (known as OCUK), which sells PC components and prebuilt PCs.
According to a post from Andrew Gibson, who is Purchasing Manager at OCUK, supply of the RTX 5080 is “very tight” (meaning a few hundred graphics cards in stock at launch), but the RTX 5090 will be “mega tight” (less than 10 now, maybe double digits, so perhaps 20, by launch time in a week).
Clearly, the RTX 5090 will sell out pretty much instantly, and the RTX 5080 stock won’t last very long at all, Gibson warns. In fact, he expects the stock that the company has to last only seconds, or minutes at most, which doesn’t sound too comforting.
There’s more interest in Blackwell than RTX 4000 at launch
Apparently, the Blackwell GeForce GPUs will be in greater demand that the RTX 4000 series at launch, despite being a more modest uplift in terms of the generational increase, from what we’ve seen thus far (outside of DLSS 4 and MFG, which are only supported by a relatively small number of games).
There are similar tales from other retailers, in the US and elsewhere, all with a common theme – the RTX 5090 is going to be in extremely short supply, and while the RTX 5080 will fare a bit better, it’s still going to fall well short of the expected demand levels.
Naturally, that means price scalping will happen, which will only worsen the situation. Of course, this remains speculation, but so many sources have chipped in with these kinds of predictions that it’s difficult to believe that somehow all these rumors will turn out wrong.
Best-case scenario is that perhaps the RTX 5080 will be better stocked – as a couple of hints from over in the US have suggested – so we can keep our fingers crossed that this pans out. But to say that we’re very doubtful that this is how it will go is an understatement.
Meanwhile, AMD has seemingly pushed back its RX 9070 – well, a delay isn’t official, but a March arrival is, which is late in the promised Q1 timeframe – but that might have been done for the right reasons. (Namely getting these graphics cards right, and fully nailed in terms of drivers, FSR 4 support, and stock levels).