RTX 5090 turns 1, but there’s nothing to celebrate
One year after launch, the GeForce RTX 5090 is still defined less by performance and more by access. The card sits at the top of the current GPU stack and remains the flagship for this generation. The card wasn’t easily available at launch, and let’s remind our readers the card was pushed back a little. While we have seen plenty of reviewers and influencers with multiple RTX 5090 cards at launch, regular buyers had to wait another few weeks for stock to normalize. But this didn’t last long.
From a hardware view, RTX 5090 represents the full-fat Blackwell configuration. It pairs a large die with 32GB GDDR7 memory and targets the highest tier of gaming and compute workloads. Like previous halo cards, the focus is raw throughput rather than efficiency or value, and it follows the same path as the RTX 3090 and 3090 Ti before it. It looks like we have to get used to $2,000 MSRP at this point, but what’s the point of MSRP anyway?
Extreme OC models are back, and even pure gold models
One good thing is the return of flagship OC models. MSI, ASUS, and even GIGABYTE have either announced or launched limited-edition enthusiast models. Unfortunately, it looks like none of the companies plan to make them widely accessible, either due to pricing or limited production runs. We are starting to think of these cards as influencer-only models.
MSI LIGHTNING, ASUS ROG MATRIX and GIGABYTE INFINITY
One thing that did not make much sense was ultra-limited editions like the ROG Astral Dhahab, or even a pure gold version. MSI showcased a Titanium model last year, but it never reached production. With cards already this limited and this expensive, the last thing gamers wanted to see was even more expensive and even more limited models. Still, they do look nice.
MSRP but not really
Currently, there are two realistic ways to get close to MSRP. One is an invite to the verified priority access program. Those invites appear infrequently, in fact, I don’t recall the last time I saw an user bragging about an invite. The other is buying directly from NVIDIA through its own web stores, but those drops have been scarce. Over the past two months, buyers had a combined total of about eight minutes to purchase a Founders Edition card at list price. At least that’s true for some EU countries.
At retail, pricing has drifted far from anything official. The lowest in-stock listing we could find was the MSI RTX 5090 Liquid at $3,699 , sold by Newegg. Other stores either show no stock at all or list placeholder prices that do not reflect real availability. This has become the normal state rather than a temporary spike.
Crypto, COVID and AI, new GPUs can’t catch a break
There is also little reason to expect a late-cycle correction. With next-generation GPUs now expected around mid-2027, the window for prices to settle is short. Demand from the AI sector has not eased, and the market is now dealing with a DRAM shortage crisis that pushes costs in the opposite direction.
Looking back, each GPU generation seems to hit its own wall. One era had crypto. Another had COVID-era supply limits. This one has AI demand and memory constraints. Unfortunately, writing about graphics cards while knowing that many gamers cannot afford them does not give us much joy.
Still, we stay hopeful that this card will return to MSRP by the end of the RTX 50 series. We also hope graphics cards will not face another nemesis in 2027. The RTX 5090 launched on January 30 with an official price of $1,999. One year later, that number exists mostly on paper.
