AMD Capitalizes on RTX 5090 Shortage as Nvidia's Dominance Falters
Nvidia's dominance in the GPU market is being threatened by its own supply chain issues. In September 2026, AMD outsold Nvidia at one of Europe's largest PC part retailers, Mindfactory, capturing roughly 56% of GPU unit sales compared to Nvidia's 40%. The reason behind this shift is not due to any improvements made by AMD but rather the unavailability of Nvidia's flagship RTX 5090, which has become functionally unpurchasable.
The RTX 5090's price has skyrocketed to over $9,500 on third-party marketplaces, making it nearly unaffordable for enthusiast PC builders. This is due in part to the GDDR7 memory shortage, with Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron prioritizing wafer capacity for AI-datacenter HBM production over consumer GDDR7 output.
Nvidia has already passed on some of this cost to its board partners twice in 2026, leading to a significant increase in the cost of building RTX 5090 units. As a result, budget-conscious buyers are routing around Nvidia's flagship product and opting for AMD's cheaper Radeon cards instead.