RTX 5090 Prices Skyrocket to $5,000 Amid AI Demand

The GeForce RTX 5090 gaming graphics card launched at $2,000, but prices have skyrocketed to as high as $5,000 in the US and €5,200 in Europe. New pictures show pallets of brand-new retail cards being used in AI servers.

During the cryptocurrency boom, mining companies bought GeForce cards in bulk, making them scarce for gamers. NVIDIA responded by introducing Lite Hash Rate versions of several RTX 30 cards, which reduced Ethereum mining performance while leaving gaming performance unchanged.

The same scenario is now playing out with AI workloads. Large firms are buying up gaming GPUs to use in their systems, driving up prices and making them hard to find for gamers.