In case you haven’t visited a hardware store lately, there is a shortage of NVIDIA’s RTX 5000 cards. The circumstances are not the exact same as the big shortage of GPUs back in 2021, but the whole situation is playing out in a similar way. So similar, in fact, that we now even have “waitlists” to buy NVIDIA’s GPUs.
NVIDIA has announced a “Verified Priority Access” program, offering select gamers a chance to purchase the highly sought-after RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 Founders Edition GPUs directly from the company. This new program, unlike a lot of previous programs we have seen four years ago, is not based on random pre-selection. Instead, it is invite-only and requires potential buyers to apply through a dedicated form on NVIDIA’s website. To be eligible, applicants must have an existing Nvidia account created before January 30th. The form also asks applicants to specify their preferred card, either the RTX 5090 or the 5080—presumably, you will get prioritized for your first selection, but if it works anything like previous programs we have seen, NVIDIA might just give you any card.
How will people be selected after filling out that form? NVIDIA states that an algorithm will be used to determine eligibility, analyzing applicants’ NVIDIA app and GeForce Experience usage to identify genuine gamers. So basically, as long as you havee played games on NVIDIA cards in the past, you should be eligible for this. This is done to prioritize dedicated users and prevent scalpers.
It is not a perfect system—if you are upgrading from a console or a PC with an AMD/Intel GPU, you might not have even used NVIDIA’s apps in the first place and you might therefore not be favored in that algorithm. It kind of works like something that favors loyal NVIDIA users rather than “gamers.” It might be perceived by some as a bit unfair, and understandably so. But it is also probably the best and most reliable way NVIDIA has for telling apart “real gamers” from someone that just signed up for an account and will immediately flip it into Ebay for some quick profit.
Also, I have larger concerns attached to the rollout of such a program. There have been reports of NVIDIA doing the impossible to fix stock issues in the short term, with measures including, but not limited to, repurposing wafers meant for business-grade GPUs. The fact that we have this is a surefire sign that NVIDIA is not really confident on stock getting better, at least over the next few months. The company did briefly launch a program like this for the RTX 4090 back in the day, but stock for those cards normalized relatively quickly. It could be the case for this one, or it could not—rumors say that stock might not normalize across the whole card lineup for at least three months.
The good part is that the market circumstances that made the GPU market so dire back in the day do not apply today. Instead, we have brand-new circumstances to deal with such as tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, which have already contributed to price hikes. Dark times for gamers, indeed.
The company announced that invitations will begin next week. There is a strict limit of one card per person, just to make sure you will not be buying a lot of them to resell them. You can sign up here if you’re interested. These systems did not do much to curb scalping in the past, but Newegg’s random selection system back in the day did allow me to get an RTX 3070 for my computer at MSRP, so I can at least attest to their efficacy.
Source: The Verge
