While Nvidia’s RTX 50-series graphics cards weren’t the zaniest devices at CES 2025, they stole the show with their promised groundbreaking performance breakthroughs. The RTX 5070, in particular, made headlines as a card that can supposedly rival an RTX 4090 for just $549. We later learned it uses DLSS 4’s AI-powered multi frame generation to achieve that in supported titles, but that’s a welcome compromise for those who can’t find room in their budget for the beefier 4K-ready GPUs that are on sale right now — including the $999.99 RTX 5080 and the $1,999.99 RTX 5090.
Those premium cards are capable of greater raw performance, however. In our RTX 5080 review, we found it’s only about 15 percent faster than the RTX 4080 it’s replacing. Meanwhile, the benchmarks we ran for our RTX 5090 review averaged 28 percent better frame rates compared to the RTX 4090 for 4K games running at their highest settings with no frame generation help. That’s still impressive given the Founder’s Edition is small enough that it will fit inside a small form factor PC case. No matter which you’re after, you’ll be exceedingly satisfied if you’re upgrading from an RTX 30-series card or older.
Between resellers and the forewarned scarcity that’s soured past launches, you’ll likely need a good game plan to secure a 50-series GPU early on. If you weren’t already in line at a brick-and-mortar location ahead of time, it might be a little too late to find day one stock judging by the encampments that have spawned. But there’s still hope if you’ll let us guide you on where to try purchasing one online.
It’s typically faster to use a desktop or a laptop to click around and input whatever information you need. If you can, use a computer with an ethernet connection to ensure nothing interferes with your network. Bonus points if you use an ultrawide or multiple monitors to view several browser windows at once.
Some retailers may implement a wait queue. You can use your smartphone, tablet, or another secondary device to try and get a faster queue time. It can also serve as a failsafe between refreshes if one of the sites slows to a crawl on your desktop. That said, your smartphone should only be a last result to using a PC, as you don’t want to waste time juggling multiple tabs and apps or tapping away at tiny input fields.
The last thing you’ll want to be doing when the floodgates open on January 30th is fiddling with passwords and a deluge of confirmation emails. Make sure you have an account with each retailer that’s expected to carry the graphics cards, and do so ahead of launch.
If possible, you’ll also want to add your shipping and billing details in advance. This way, you’ll only have to worry about adding the GPU to your cart and completing the final checkout steps.
Both Best Buy and Nvidia allow you to sign up to be notified when the GPUs become available. B&H Photo actually requires you to sign up in advance if you want to order one. Be sure to sign up for alerts on each variant of the 5080 or 5090 that you’re planning to buy.
You don’t want to rely solely on email notifications for stock alerts, as they’re often delayed and you risk missing your chance. Be sure to load up tabs for each retailer shortly before their listings go live, and then practice hitting that refresh button as fast as humanely possible.
As of writing, Best Buy is the only third-party retailer with listings for the Founders Editions of the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090, and Nvidia will sell them, too. That said, there are multiple options from a variety of manufacturers across all retailers, including MSI, Asus, Gigabyte, Zotac, and more. Keep reading for details on each retailer’s current plans.
Nvidia’s RTX 5080 is the successor to the RTX 4080. It includes DLSS 4 Multi Frame Gen, which greatly improves frame rates at both 1440p and 4K resolutions.
$1000 at Best Buy$1000 at Nvidia
The Nvidia RTX 5090 is the most power Blackwell GPU among the 50-series launch cards. The card supports DLSS 4 with a massive 21,760 CUDA cores and 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM, but draws up to 575W of power.
$2000 at Best Buy$2000 at Nvidia
Best Buy is offering the Founders Edition versions of the Nvidia RTX 5080 and RTX 5090, plus several third-party cards. Eventually, a range of laptops and pre-built desktop PCs with the GPUs will become available. If they’re out of stock, the retailer allows you to sign up to be notified about their arrival, but you’ll want to be proactive and check the site listings early and often.
Purchasing a 50-series graphics card from Best Buy requires creating an account. If you’re lucky enough to add one to cart, you’ll be added to a queue while the system verifies your account and confirms your unit. If successful, you’ll have 10 minutes to complete the checkout process.
Newegg has a comprehensive stock of 50-series graphics cards, though many are already out of stock. There are multiple listings for customized versions of both the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 from third-party OEMs such as MSI, Asus, Gigabyte, and more. Some come factory overclocked, and most have unique shroud designs with three cooling fans — including a few with integrated liquid cooling. Many of them are much bigger than the Founder’s Edition cards, but Gigabyte has some compact options. You’ll want to make note of their dimensions and plan your build accordingly.
B&H Photo is also listing a number of those third-party RTX 5080 and 5090 cards starting at $999.99 and $1,999.99, respectively. The retailer requires you to join a waitlist, however. Purchase opportunities will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis exclusively for those who sign up to receive the stock alerts. It’s worth noting that B&H Photo is showing February availability for some cards.
Micro Center has confirmed that its initial run of RTX 50-series cards will only be available at physical retail locations, and that it will only sell third-party models. Stores opened at 9AM ET nationwide on launch day — meaning stores on the west coast in the Pacific time zone opened as early as 6AM.
You’ll want to arrive as early as possible, as units are available on a first-come, first-serve basis and require a voucher, which Micro Center employees will distribute to those in line. The retailer is also currently limiting purchases to one unit per customer.
Nvidia is also selling Founders Edition cards directly through its online store, but neither the RTX 5080 nor the RTX 5090 were available as of writing.
You should be able to find stock at several other prominent retailers, too. Amazon and Adorama have historically carried the newest GPUs at or close to launch, though neither have individual GPU listings as of writing. Adorama is currently accepting preorders for a number of prebuilt desktops with RTX 5090 cards, however.
Update, January 30th: Updated to reflect current availability for the RTX 50-series cards at several retailers.
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