Leakers said Nvidia stopped making RTX 5090 chips for gamers. Nvidia denies it, but the card has all but vanished from shelves and prices have soared.
Leakers claimed in early October that Nvidia had stopped supplying RTX 5090 chips to graphics card makers, saving the GB202 processor for AI and professional cards that sell for far more. Nvidia's Jeff Fisher said on October 16 that the RTX 5090 isn't discontinued and will keep shipping, but he admitted supply is constrained.
In practice the card is nearly gone. Most US listings sit above $9,300, against Nvidia's $1,999 suggested price, and stores have almost no stock.
Gamers should avoid paying inflated prices and watch for an official RTX 5080 24GB announcement.
Nvidia’s fastest gaming graphics card has a suggested price of $1,999. Try to buy one today and most listings at a big US retailer start above $9,300. That price gap is the clearest sign of what the RTX 5090 pause rumor has done to the market, even though Nvidia insists the card has not been discontinued.
Why does this matter if you would never spend flagship money on a graphics card? Because the story is about where Nvidia sends its chips. The same GB202 processor that powers the RTX 5090 also goes into professional and AI cards that sell for many times more. If gamers lose out in that tug-of-war, prices for top-end PC gaming hardware stay high for a long time, and that pressure can trickle down to cheaper cards as buyers trade down.
In early October, a well-known graphics card leaker known as hongxing2020 shared what was described as a factory notice saying Nvidia would stop supplying GB202 processors for all RTX 5090 models, including the D versions sold in China. A second leaker, Zed__Wang, backed the claim and said the chip would go only into data center and professional cards from then on.
The same message said the RTX 5080 24GB would become the top GeForce card and the current RTX 5080 16GB would be dropped. None of this came from Nvidia, and at the time the company didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The economics are simple. Nvidia’s RTX Pro 5500 uses a chip with the same 21,760 CUDA cores as the RTX 5090, but pairs it with 84GB of memory instead of 32GB and targets well-paid professional and AI work. The full RTX 6000 Pro, with 24,064 cores and 96GB of memory, can sell for $15,000.
Every GB202 chip in a gaming card is one that isn’t earning that kind of money. Keeping cheaper consumer cards away from AI buyers also stops them from competing with Nvidia’s own professional products. And because neither the RTX 5080 nor the RTX 5090 has a direct rival from AMD, Nvidia doesn’t risk losing gaming customers to a competitor by pulling back.
All future GB202 supplies are RTX Pro exclusive https://t.co/eZPZW3HdXU
— MEGAsizeGPU (@Zed__Wang) October 10, 2026
Nvidia publicly addressed the rumor for the first time on October 16, after its RTX Spark launch party in Taipei. Jeff Fisher, the senior vice president who runs Nvidia’s personal computing business, told Taiwanese media that the supply chain is somewhat constrained but that the RTX 5090 has not been discontinued and Nvidia will keep shipping it.
He also mentioned other variants of the card without explaining what they are, and didn’t say how long supply would stay limited. Nvidia’s US online store had briefly removed the RTX 5090 listing, which fueled the rumors. The card later reappeared on the GeForce 50-series page at $1,999, but it still couldn’t be bought there.
The denial didn’t end the story. Later in October, leaker Moore’s Law Is Dead cited a major retailer source claiming the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 16GB face discontinuation dates in the first half of January 2027. That source said the final RTX 5090 shipments arrived in September. Nvidia hasn’t confirmed those dates, and the claims could refer to different stages of production and retail supply.
Whatever is happening at the factory, the RTX 5090 is very hard to find. Most RTX 5090 listings on Newegg were above $9,300, with the priciest at $10,899, and the single listing on Amazon cost $11,565 and shipped from Germany. Physical stores had almost none. In Europe, prices around €7,000 were reported where stock existed at all.
The squeeze isn’t new this year either. Nvidia reportedly cut RTX 50 series production back in February because of a global memory shortage.
The leading rumor says yes, and it would be the first memory change for the RTX 5080 since launch. Reports say the 24GB model will replace the 16GB card in the first quarter of 2027, using denser memory chips on the same design, so it gets more room for textures and AI models but not necessarily more speed.
There’s no official confirmation, price or spec sheet. The current RTX 5080 launched at $999, and denser memory chips aren’t cheap, so a 24GB version could cost noticeably more. Nvidia’s next generation, the Rubin-based RTX 60 series, reportedly isn’t due until 2028, which means today’s lineup has to carry PC gaming for a while.
For most players, the practical lesson is not to chase an RTX 5090 at today’s prices. Paying four or five times the suggested price for a card Nvidia says is still shipping is a poor deal unless you need it for work.
The next signals to watch are early January 2027, when the leaked retailer timeline says production ends, and any Nvidia announcement of a 24GB RTX 5080 in the first quarter of 2027.
Nvidia says no. Executive Jeff Fisher said in mid-October that it will keep shipping, though supply is constrained and leaks claim production ends in January 2027.
Very few cards are reaching stores, so most US listings top $9,300 against a $1,999 suggested price.
It’s rumored for the first quarter of 2027, but Nvidia hasn’t confirmed it or announced a price.
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