Laptops with NVIDIA RTX 5000 GPUs have launched, but they're pricey, and good luck buying one

NVIDIA's RTX 5000 laptop GPUs have been keenly awaited by many for quite some time, but it's official - these notebooks are now on sale, although you can't actually buy one yet.

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MSI's Vector 16 HX AI is the most affordable Blackwell-powered gaming laptop at Newegg right now - but it's still almost two grand (Image Credit: MSI)

Why not? As VideoCardz reported, breaking down the availability at Newegg in the US, many of these portables are simply out of stock, and some are available for pre-order - but it'll obviously take a while before they're shipped.

How long? Well that depends on the laptop in question as you might guess, but most models are not actually going to be out until April 30, over four weeks away (some are due to ship on April 15, mind, but not many).

If availability is predictably disappointing - we say predictable based on what we were hearing from the rumor mill - then pricing isn't going to cheer you up much either.

The cheapest model that VideoCardz turned up on Newegg was the MSI Vector 16 HX AI which costs $1,899 and comes with an RTX 5070 Ti GPU. If you want the RTX 5080, you're looking at paying at least $2,499, and the most affordable flagship GPU-toting laptop starts at $4,299. Ouch.

So yes, the RTX 5090 is really going to destroy your wallet - and as we've heard elsewhere in reviews, don't expect performance anywhere near the desktop version. Not that you would, but there's maybe more of a gulf between the mobile and desktop Blackwell flagships than some gamers might have expected.

That said, the laptop RTX 5090 is a heck of a lot more power-efficient, and the GPU is providing good performance relative to the wattage being chugged.

Read more: The priciest consumer GPU ever? Custom ASUS RTX 5090 is decked out in gold and signed by Jensen