Wednesday, January 22nd 2025
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series Supply Woes Predicted to Last Up To Three Months
NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 Series of "Blackwell" GPUs are set to launch at the tail end of this month, but market conditions are not looking favorable for day one customers. Recent news articles have highlighted alleged regional supply issues, and industry insiders believe that it will be very difficult to obtain the two higher-end models (RTX 5090 and RTX 5080). Monday's report posited that delays could result in stock not turning up until a month after Team Green's official kick-off on January 30. VideoCardz has pointed to a root cause; Team Green's alleged late issuing of finalized BIOSes—board partners were reportedly not able to prepare stock until very late in 2024.
Unfortunately, further disappointing disclosures have trickled out mid-week—PowerGPU's social media account sent out a stern warning: "the launch of the RTX 5090 will be the worst when it comes to availability. Already being told to expect it to be that way for the first three months." Benchlife piled on with more bad news—their report suggests that problems will emerge further down in Team Green's "Blackwell" product stack: "we can confirm that there are not many supplies on the market. This is mainly due to some communication issues between NVIDIA and AIC partners, as well as the Spring Festival Factors are expected to improve in February. In addition, we expect to see the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti starting to appear on the channel in mid-to-late February. As for the $549 GeForce RTX 5070, we may have to wait until early March."
Twelve days ago (!), ZOTAC's South Korean branch released a notice on tagtag.co.kr—regarding "RTX 5090 sales schedule information." This official statement only mentions a single unnamed SKU being readied for the region—possibly the SOLID, SOLID OC, or AMP Extreme INFINITY model. The message reads as follows: "we've recently received a lot of inquiries regarding the availability dates of the RTX 50 Series, so we wanted to update you on the timeline. ZOTAC Korea's RTX 5090 model is expected to be in stock in February. We would like to warn you that sales and deliveries will be difficult on January 30, the currently known date for the start of sales. The RTX 5090 is expected to be in stock and on sale in early February. Please understand that the timing may vary depending on external factors, so availability may be delayed until mid-February. The arrival schedule of the RTX 5080 model is currently being confirmed. We will inform you again as soon as possible."
Anti-scalping measures have been highlighted by France's Hardware & Co.. They report that the nation's LDLC hardware store will be re-deploying its "usual" anti-abuse system: "only one card authorized per customer account. This is valid for both the RTX 5090 and the RTX 5080 listed by the reseller. And when it does this, it is generally because a shortage is looming...it therefore seems relatively inevitable that our dear stores will not magically transform into angels of benevolence, and that if the opportunity arises for them to make a few extra bucks by increasing their prices on the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, they will not hesitate to indulge themselves. We have all been warned!"
In addition, the Hardware & Co. article points to even more extreme measures—Taiwan's AutoBuy has posted an advert that sets strict rules for potential buyers of GeForce RTX 5080 GPUs. Customers will be added to a waiting list upon the purchase of an Intel Core Ultra 200S processor, a Z890 motherboard, DDR5 memory, SSD, an (at a minimum) 850 W PSU, a PC case and a Windows OS license.
Sources:
BenchLife, Tag Tag SK, Hardware & Co., VideoCardz
Unfortunately, further disappointing disclosures have trickled out mid-week—PowerGPU's social media account sent out a stern warning: "the launch of the RTX 5090 will be the worst when it comes to availability. Already being told to expect it to be that way for the first three months." Benchlife piled on with more bad news—their report suggests that problems will emerge further down in Team Green's "Blackwell" product stack: "we can confirm that there are not many supplies on the market. This is mainly due to some communication issues between NVIDIA and AIC partners, as well as the Spring Festival Factors are expected to improve in February. In addition, we expect to see the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti starting to appear on the channel in mid-to-late February. As for the $549 GeForce RTX 5070, we may have to wait until early March."
Anti-scalping measures have been highlighted by France's Hardware & Co.. They report that the nation's LDLC hardware store will be re-deploying its "usual" anti-abuse system: "only one card authorized per customer account. This is valid for both the RTX 5090 and the RTX 5080 listed by the reseller. And when it does this, it is generally because a shortage is looming...it therefore seems relatively inevitable that our dear stores will not magically transform into angels of benevolence, and that if the opportunity arises for them to make a few extra bucks by increasing their prices on the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, they will not hesitate to indulge themselves. We have all been warned!"
55 Comments on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series Supply Woes Predicted to Last Up To Three Months
Right now Nvidia has record income in Gaming sector, with old generation of cards. From what? Are cards really flying from the shelves? All the data shows the contrary - stocks of cards, sales in shops that show sales figures... Sales are actually so bad that in Mindfactory, largest German retailer, AMD GPUs outsell Nvidia!
MindFactory: more AMD GPUs than NVIDIA sold!
Some people are actually mad at TechEpiphany for creating these datasets, are accusing him of pro-AMD stance, faking numbers, or just dismissing Mindfactory as pro-AMD store somehow...
It's clear that Nvidia displays revenue as they see fit. It will be even easier now, since there is no "Gaming" sector any more - it's "Gaming and AI PC"...
Oh that includes AMD AIBs too
Disgusting.
AMD‘s gaming sales last quarter: $462M, down 25%
Nvidia’s gaming sales last quarter: $3,300M, up 14%
And yet somehow Nvidia is withholding product to raise prices.
Tell me, do you know how to read a corporate financial statement? Would you like to compare and contrast Nvidia and AMD’s? Do you know what a 10-Q is? Do you know what an auditor is? I’m better “no” is the answer to all the above.
EG1. Do people actually think that's how it works or are they just trying to shoot crap at nvidia and see what sticks? It blows my mind if grown ups think that nvidia is trying to artificially limit supply to "get more money" when they aren't getting any from retail sales.
I think there will be a shortage on nGreedia FE editions, sure, which is what everyone is raving about or in this case, or fail to mention, but is the most likely scenario.
They are perpetuating this shortage thing as something "across the broad spectrum" but they are probably casting this illusion spell to create FOMO (fear of missing out) and thus, everyone will want to rush to the stores while they milk the living crap out of early buyers, laughing their asses off while their stock rooms are filled to the brim. Heck, even nGreedia said in early November last year, that they stopped making some RTX4000 series cards and ramped up production on RTX5000.
What, do people seriously think nGreedia only manage to squeeze out a couple of them in 3 months time? Laughable.
As for your offer, thank you, but I doubt you can comply, as my "country" of residence is South-Africa, and I won't feel safe enough to make payment upfront with all the scams about, I will only want to pay until it's slotted into my machine and I can confirm that it's working. So then, there is that, an impasse as I doubt you would want to do that. That relies on high trust societies, which near no country has anymore, if I was in Japan, sure.
Anyways, I am still milling over, if I want to buy the RTX5070Ti or RTX5080, this GPU will have to last me around 5 years, probably a ZOTAC, as they offer a 5-year warranty if you register (3 years without registration) for these prices I expect 5 year warranties, these prices are getting way out of hand and there seems no signs of this trend improving. Sick of paying $1000 for things that cost a fraction of the asking price to manufacture, many of us do vote with our wallets, but unfortunately there are way many more people that don't, ergo, it will never improve.
Sales of largest German retailer, and possibly the largest EU retailer, does tell a bit about market - since it is the only one we can gather some statistics from. I know the data doesn't suit many people's idea on how this small portion of the market really behaves - that's why I wrote that the guy that compiles it is under constant attacks, insults, even threats.
Revenue numbers - record income in Gaming, at the end of generation while cards aren't flying off the shelves, are something that can't be explained easily. Are Nvidia or AIB partners selling cards by the truckload outside regular retail channels? When that happened during cryptocrazes, the shelves in the stores were empty, and prices skyrocketed. We have seen elevated prices for RTX 4090, but they are readily available even in my backwater country, let alone across EU. Is EU somehow lagging and not interested in AI and other uses of these cards, while the rest of the world is grabbing them? Doesn't look like it, PCPartPicker, Newegg show tons of them in stock, just like in EU.
To believe Nvidia's Gaming revenue figures as indicator of sales of Gaming cards would mean also to ignore Nvidia's previous behaviour when they had large revenue in single sector - they spread the revenue in all sectors to hide that fact and to hide the vulnerability of such surge - "look, it's not just crypto, we have huge raise in Pro graphics, Automotive etc...". That is of course illegal, but one lawsuit was dismissed by judge, saying that there is no sign Nvidia did that maliciously. The other lawsuit was settled for a laughable figure of 5 MILLION dollars - which Nvidia also didn't pay.
But it's all moot now that Nvidia renamed the sector into "Gaming and AI PC". Anything goes now.
Especially in my country... Prices start at 1220ish €, the 4080S was once at 999 €, now slowly approaching 1099 €. (all prices include VAT)
With redesigning RT, DLSS, frame generation etc. Nvidia can now make older generation suddenly seem very outdated quickly - for a long time the only thing that mattered was performance, and in a generation your card was working as one to two tiers lower new generation.
NVidia is clearly focusing on enterprise AI, as they should, while maintaining supposed 'supremacy' by making halo products like xx90s