New reports have indicated that the soon-to-be-released Nvidia RTX 5090 and 5080 will be quite hard to find at launch. The flagship and the next step-down cards appear to have been delivered at a fraction of the quantity of previous generations.
The RTX 5090 and 5080 are Nvidia’s now current generation powerhouses. Announced at CES 2025, these cards are just landing in reviewers’ hands – including ours – but when it comes to buying them, these GPUs might be missing from stores.
Speaking to Moore’s Law is Dead (MLiD), a YouTube channel dedicated to hardware news, four sources detailed the situation surrounding the two RTX 50-series cards. The first source claimed that they’ve only received “~20 RTX 5080s for the first month of sales”, while getting “zero 5090s”.
![moore's law is dead screenshot saying: RTX 5090 & 5080 Supply Leak (Mid-January 2025): Moore Source 1: We [NA Distributor] will get ~20 RTX 5080s for the first month of sales, and ZERQ 5090s. For comparison, we got a couple hundred RTX 4080s in 2022. Oh, and we don't expect to get any 5090 supply until late Q1 or Q2. Source 2. We (AIB wil have aroud the same amount of RTX 5090s for launch as we had RTX 30902 Meanwhile, we will have more 5080s, but it's a fraction of what we received for the 4080 launch two years ago. So, at least from AlBs (I don't know anything about FE supply), I'd roore's Law Is D ¿ YouTube MOS estimate there may be similar or even less RTX 5090 supply than there was 3090, and then there should be a third to half as many RTX 5080s as there were 4080s at launch as well. Source 3: Obviously | [Nvidia] am not exposed to discussions about supply, but what I can say is that we were just warned that there won't be many RTX 5090 FEs available from the Employee Store at launch. And to be clear - it was very easy for an Nvidia Employee to get an RTX 4090 FE when it launched in 2022 from that same internal store. Source 4: All I can say is that over here [EU AIB] the RTX 5090 looks like it will be very rare, but the RTX 5080 seems to have ok supply for at least the initial launch.](https://www.gizfy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Nvidia-GeForce-RTX-5090-stock-to-be-very-rare-at.jpg "mlid-rtx-5090-stock")
The other three sources corroborate this, with their second source stating that they’ve got “more 5080s, but it’s a fraction of what we received for the 4080” two years ago. Another source, an EU manufacturer (AIB), says that the 5090 will be “very rare” but doesn’t expect to see the 5080 as too hard to get. They describe the stock as an “OK supply.”
Even Nvidia staff will struggle to get their hands on the latest GPU. MLiD’s Nvidia insider claims that the RTX 5090 FE, the “stock” or “reference” card for the 5090 made by the company itself, will be limited in stock. “We were warned that there won’t be many RTX 5090 FEs available from the Employee Store at launch.” They add that the 4090 FE was quite easy to get three years ago.
Meanwhile, Zotac doesn’t expect to deliver its 5090 GPUs until February. However, external factors could be causing the potential stock issues.
According to Benchlife, and translated by regular GPU fanatic Harukaze5719 on X, the RTX 5000 series cards are in limited supply. This is being attributed to the upcoming Lunar Year festival and “communication issues between Nvidia and [other manufacturers].”
With this said, Benchlife expects the more affordable Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti to begin shipping in “mid-to-late February.” However, those hoping to upgrade their PC to the even more affordable RTX 5070, might need to wait a little longer, as according to Benchlife these won’t hit the market until “early March.”
