Nvidia rations RTX 5080 & 5090

Nvidia is apparently planning a strictly controlled market launch of its new GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 graphics cards. According to insider reports, availability in Germany is said to be very limited. What buyers need to know now about the start of sales.

Tight quotas for GeForce launch

The expectations for Nvidia’s new high-end graphics cards GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 are high. But anyone hoping to get hold of one of the coveted models when sales start at the end of January could be disappointed. Information from industry circles suggests that Nvidia will severely limit the availability of the cards, especially the top GPU RTX 5090.

A moderator of the PC Games Hardware Forum, who relies on well-informed dealer sources, speaks of “extremely tight” quotas for the launch. Accordingly, Nvidia should determine exactly which retailers are allowed to offer cards at the start of sales. Only selected retailers in the top category in Nvidia’s distribution system will initially be supplied.

According to the insider, the privileged providers in Germany include large online shops such as Mindfactory, Alternate, Caseking, Cyberport and a few others. Smaller retailers and even industry giant Amazon, on the other hand, may have to wait weeks for supplies. The forum post speaks of a second, third or even fourth wave of delivery for these retailers. GeForce RTX 50: Nvidia’s new generation of graphics cards in the video

Restrictions for business customers

It is also interesting that Nvidia apparently wants to severely restrict sales to business customers. B2B retailers and wholesalers should come away completely empty-handed. The attempt behind this is probably to provide the coveted cards primarily to gamers and enthusiasts. In the past, companies had sometimes bought large quantities in order to build inexpensive AI accelerators or to resell the cards at a premium.

For private individuals, this means: If you want to get your hands on an RTX 5090 or 5080 at launch, you have to join the digital queue at the retailers mentioned. It can be assumed that the number of items per customer will be limited to a maximum of one card. Nevertheless, experts expect that scalpers and bots will also try to grab cards.

Surge in performance and high demand expected

The reason for the high demand is obvious: the RTX 5090 promises a significant jump in performance. According to the manufacturer, it should be almost twice as fast as the previous model RTX 4090. In 4K resolution with ray tracing activated, up to 240 FPS should be possible – an impressive number. However, top performance also comes at a price.

With a recommended retail price of 2329 euros, the RTX 5090 is anything but a bargain. The strict quota at launch is not unusual for sought-after hardware. There were also similar scenarios with previous GPU launches or the current PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles. For Nvidia, the strategy has the advantage that it can mitigate bottlenecks in the supply chain while keeping demand high over a longer period of time.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 50 Series

	RTX 5090	RTX 5080	RTX 5070 Ti	RTX 5070
architecture	Blackwell
GPU	GB202-300	GB203-400	GB203-300	GB205-300
Compute Units	170	84	70	50
CUDA Cores	21,760	10,752	8,960	6,144
Clock speeds (MHz)	2,410 / 2,010	2,620 / 2,300	2,450 / 2,300	2,510 / 2,160
AI TOPS	3,352	1,801	1,406	988
Memory (GDDR7)	32GB	16 GB	16 GB	12GB
Storage interface	512 bits	256 bits	256 bits	192 bits
Memory throughput	28Gbps	30Gbps	28Gbps	28Gbps
Bandwidth	1,792 GB/s	960GB/s	896GB/s	672GB/s
PCI Express	5.0×16
TDP	575W	360W	300W	250W
Release	January 30, 2025	January 30, 2025	February	February
Price	2329 euros	1169 euros	879 euros	649 euros