When a graphics card costs 400% more than it did at launch a little less than two years ago, can you actually call that PC component “alive?” Nvidia seems to think so, telling reporters that—despite multiple rumors—the GeForce RTX 5090 is still in production. As if this weren’t already enough of a shell game, you can’t even buy the best-in-class GPU from Nvidia’s own marketplace.
The line that Nvidia hasn’t discontinued its flagship graphics card comes from Nvidia’s VP of its GeForce business, Jeff Fisher. In a statement made to Taiwanese media last Friday, Fisher claimed that any rumors that the company had been ending production of the RTX 5090 are false. According to 4Gamers (via Tom’s Hardware and read with machine translation), the VP went even harder, saying “Nvidia is doing everything it can to get the product on the market.” That’s an interesting statement, considering you can’t buy any variant of the RTX 5090 on Nvidia’s own store page.
Nvidia hasn’t offered a broader picture of how consumers can actually procure its entire RTX 50-series lineup of GPUs. It doesn’t matter whether they’re the coveted Nvidia-made “Founders Edition” cards or the GPUs made by the AIC (add-in card) manufacturers. All its cards, especially those with more than 8GB of VRAM, have seen massive price hikes throughout late 2025 into 2026. The RTX 5090 has caught the worst of these supply woes. Nvidia has blamed the ongoing AI-driven memory shortage for these pricing woes, with Fisher citing a “constrained” supply chain. Nvidia continues to drive the AI hyperscaler buildout with both its AI training chips and billion-dollar deals to build out AI infrastructure.
You can go on Newegg right now and have a hard time not doing a spit take when you see these GPUs running for between $9,000 and $1,100. On Amazon, an Asus TUF Gaming version of the RTX 5090 costs $7,800, which is the lowest I could find outside of resellers at the time of writing.
There have been rare public sightings of the card sitting on store shelves, with Redditors reporting prices under $5,000. More likely, Nvidia is working with certain partners to supply enough GPUs. I recently talked with Brent Fisher, the head of design at pre-config PC builder Maingear, and he said they have a strong relationship with Nvidia to procure these high-end GPUs. Pre-configured PCs with these cards, like the top-end Maingear Zero, end up costing well over $7,000.
It’s these prices that put the rumor mill into overdrive, spinning up tales of Nvidia’s GPUs. And it hasn’t helped that the market has grown incredibly hostile to retailers as well. Brazilian electronics distributor Oderço claimed this week on its Instagram page (read via machine translation) that two pallets of Zotac-made RTX 5090 “disappeared” at the Guarullhos International Airport. The two pallets were worth 2.5 million Brazillian real, or around $470,000.
The old-school crowd of DIY PC builders is screwed. There is no other word to describe it. When a card that’s supposed to cost $2,000 costs $8,000 or more, that product is not “available,” no matter what the maker says. Nvidia still makes retail products, such as the chips found in the latest RTX Spark PCs like the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra. The only question then is whether it will even try to launch any “Super” variants of the RTX 50 series. Even if they do, I seriously doubt they’ll have a price tag that most PC gamers could even briefly consider.
