The NVIDIA RTX PRO 5500 "Blackwell" workstation card has shown up at a US retailer, and it surprisingly costs more than the flagship RTX PRO 6000. As spotted by Alex Ziskind on X and corroborated by Videocardz, SHI Government Solutions listed the PNY-built model (VCNRTXPRO5500B-PB) with an MSRP of $17,999 and a discounted price of $17,408.63. NVIDIA's own US marketplace, on the other hand, lists the RTX PRO 6000 for $16,000, even though that card has more CUDA cores (24,064 vs. 21,760) and more memory (96 GB vs. 84 GB). So even at SHI's discounted price, the cut-down card costs around $1,400 more. NVIDIA hasn't announced official pricing since it quietly added the RTX PRO 5500 to its lineup in September, so it isn't clear whether the $17,999 figure comes from NVIDIA or PNY.

Videocardz points out that Chinese demand is probably a big factor behind the RTX PRO 5500's price. According to Reuters, ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent have ordered over 3 million RTX PRO 5500 cards at roughly $11,400 each, with total orders from China reportedly topping 6 million. One source said NVIDIA can make no more than 3 million of them in 2027. With the B300 barred from China and the H200 reviewed case by case, the RTX PRO 5500 is one of the strongest NVIDIA GPUs Chinese firms can still buy. The card also packs 28 GDDR7 modules at a time, even as memory prices keep climbing. With orders far ahead of supply, it's reasonable to expect RTX PRO 5500 pricing to stay high for a while.

NVIDIA has finally responded to reports that the GeForce RTX 5090 is being discontinued. Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of NVIDIA's personal computing business, told Taiwanese media after the RTX Spark launch party in Taipei on October 16 that the rumors aren't true, as reported by 4Gamers and the Central News Agency (CNA). The whole thing kicked off last week when leakers claimed NVIDIA had stopped allocating GB202 silicon to the RTX 5090, and BenchLife later added that board partners were no longer receiving GB202 chips for the card. The RTX 5090 also seemingly vanished from NVIDIA's own marketplace and from Micro Center shelves, which only added fuel to the fire. Here's what Fisher said, translated from 4Gamers' Chinese report:

The supply chain (capacity) is indeed somewhat constrained, but NVIDIA is going all out to bring products to market. Although there are other variants of the RTX 5090 (chip), it has definitely not been discontinued. NVIDIA will continue to ship it, and this is very important.

Micro Center seems to have quietly stopped selling the GeForce RTX 5090. Several RTX 5090 listings on the retailer's US website now show as "Not Carried," and a post on r/gpu claims every single one of them does. That label usually means a product has been dropped from the active catalog and won't be restocked. Custom models from ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte are still listed but out of stock at physical stores, and the only RTX 5090 reportedly still sitting on shelves at most locations is an ASUS ROG Astral sold inside a 20th Anniversary bundle for almost $11,000. Neither NVIDIA nor Micro Center has commented on the situation yet, and NVIDIA's own website still lists the RTX 5090 at the now-mythical price of $1,999.

Separately, Redditor johnnyphotog on r/Microcenter says staff were already pulling RTX 5090 cards from the shelves on October 9. Apparently, a manager told him the cards were being sent somewhere else, and while he did manage to buy one, an employee told him it was probably the last RTX 5090 the store would sell. That timing is interesting, since it came a day before leakers claimed NVIDIA stopped allocating GB202 silicon to the RTX 5090 and is saving it for far pricier workstation cards like the RTX PRO 5500. Of course, the MSRP of the RTX 5090 hasn't meant much for a while, with the card selling out at Walmart for $4,299 last month. If GB202 supply has really dried up, whatever partner stock is left will likely get even pricier, so readers set on buying one shouldn't expect prices to come down anytime soon.

Taiwanese outlet BenchLife has added more detail to last week's report that NVIDIA is pulling GB202 silicon away from the GeForce RTX 5090. According to BenchLife, board partners are no longer receiving GB202 chips for RTX 5090 production. The same applies to the China-specific RTX 5090 D and RTX 5090 D V2 variants. NVIDIA hasn't said anything officially yet. Apparently, the company doesn't see this as an end-of-life (EOL) move either, since the chips are simply being shifted to more profitable GB202-based RTX PRO cards like the RTX PRO 6000 and the recently unveiled RTX PRO 5500. In the meantime, any RTX 5090 cards still reaching shelves are built from chips partners already have. The card immediately sold out at Walmart for $4,299 last month, so buyers shouldn't expect prices to come down anytime soon.

The RTX 5080 part of the story is a bit more interesting. BenchLife says NVIDIA plans to launch an RTX 5080 with 24 GB of GDDR7 in the first quarter of 2027, replacing the current 16 GB model. However, board partners have yet to receive any development material for it. So far they've only been told verbally that it should arrive soon. That's odd, considering partners reportedly had RTX 50 SUPER silicon in hand back in July, before GDDR7 pricing put that launch on hold. We still don't know if the RTX 5080 24 GB and the long-rumored RTX 5080 SUPER are the same card. A Q1 2027 window would make CES in January a likely stage, though that's guesswork for now.

NVIDIA has reportedly stopped allocating GB202 silicon to the GeForce RTX 5090, according to leaker MEGAsizeGPU (@Zed__Wang) on X. "No more GB202 for 5090, confirmed," the leaker posted, adding in a follow-up that "all future GB202 supplies are RTX Pro exclusive." GB202 is the largest "Blackwell" graphics chip, and the RTX 5090 doesn't even max it out. The same chip powers the 96 GB RTX PRO 6000 with 24,064 CUDA cores, as well as the recently unveiled RTX PRO 5500, which pairs the RTX 5090's 21,760 CUDA cores with 84 GB of memory. Apparently, NVIDIA would rather put every GB202 it gets into those far pricier workstation cards. The company hasn't confirmed any of this as of the time of writing.

A second leaker, hongxing2020, posted "5090 EOL, 5080 24GB ready" alongside an apparent factory notice saying NVIDIA will no longer sell any RTX 5090 model, China-market D variants included. The same notice says an RTX 5080 24 GB will become the top GeForce card and the 16 GB version will be discontinued. That sounds a lot like the RTX 5080 SUPER, which was rumored with 24 GB of GDDR7 on the same GB203 chip, although it isn't clear if the two are the same card. SUPER cards reportedly reached board partners in July, only to be put on hold over GDDR7 pricing. As for the RTX 5090, I doubt NVIDIA would formally call this an end-of-life (EOL) move, since the chips are simply being redirected to a more profitable product line.

NVIDIA today quietly added another card to its pro-viz product lineup with the RTX PRO 5500 "Blackwell" workstation GPU edition. Featuring 84 GB of GDDR7 memory, it is equipped with a GB202 die that includes 21,760 CUDA cores. This is the same CUDA core count as the consumer GeForce RTX 5090 SKU, but it is now certified for professional workloads and has a much higher memory capacity. The 84 GB of GDDR7 is connected to the GB202 with a 416-bit memory bus that delivers about 1,398 GB/s of memory bandwidth. This would put each GDDR7 memory chip at about 26 Gbps per pin, which is a standard GDDR7 memory speed, but not the fastest available on the market. Additionally, to achieve the massive 84 GB capacity, there need to be 28 memory modules. NVIDIA placed 14 GDDR7 modules on the front side with the GPU die and 14 GDDR7 modules on the back of the PCB, effectively sandwiching the PCB.

Compared to the rest of the RTX PRO lineup, the new RTX PRO 5500 "Blackwell" sits just a tick below the flagship RTX PRO 6000 SKU, which has a slightly higher CUDA core count of 24,064 and a 96 GB memory capacity. However, the RTX PRO 5500 is also much more powerful than the RTX PRO 5000 in the 5000 tier. The RTX PRO 5000 "Blackwell" has a much lower CUDA core count of 14,080 cores, with up to 72 GB of memory. Technically, the new SKU is much closer to the RTX PRO 6000 than the RTX PRO 5000 SKU, just with a slightly lower core count and memory capacity. The official specification sheet follows, courtesy of PNY.