It's official, high-end gamers: Just wait for NVIDIA RTX 5080 Super GPU as RTX 5090 nears $3000

If you were thinking of casting caution to the wind and sacrificing your bank balance to own an NVIDIA RTX 5090 graphics card, here's some bad news - the cost of these already incredibly pricey GPUs appears to be going up, over in Europe, and also in the US.

First off, VideoCardz spotted a report on pricing over in Europe from German tech site PC Games Hardware (PCGH) as highlighted by 3D Center (see the above post on X).

According to PCGH, you can't get the Founders Edition direct from NVIDIA in Germany as it's out of stock, and custom third-party spins on the RTX 5090 are mostly around the €2600 to €2800 mark. (While there are some listings towards the €2200 price point, these are pre-order graphics cards with dubious delivery dates, we're told).

Back in the summer, just a couple of months ago, there were RTX 5090 models that you could actually buy (as opposed to pre-order) at around €2300 in Germany, so the Blackwell flagship has undergone a fairly hefty price hike.

If we look at the situation in the US, it isn't very comforting either. Take the ASUS TUF RTX 5090 which is one of the more affordable flavors of the third-party Blackwell flagship. This is now $2850 on Newegg, and it's the cheapest RTX 5090 you can get from the online retailer (at the time of writing). It's been a very similar price on Amazon in the US recently, too, except it's completely out of stock there now.

Going by the price tracking on PC Part Picker, the RTX 5090 has been around $2750 for much of the year in the US, but dipped back towards $2000 more recently - however, it's never been more expensive than what it's shot up to now.

It's a difficult time, then, if you want to buy the most powerful consumer desktop GPU on the market. Will Black Friday offer up any kind of deals on the RTX 5090? Given what's happening currently with pricing, that seems an unlikely prospect to say the least.

At this point, gamers with deep pockets who are mulling the purchase of an RTX 5090 may as well wait for NVIDIA's next Blackwell refreshes. The RTX 5080 Super should be inbound next year, based on the latest rumors - fingers crossed, arriving relatively early on - at a much cheaper price point than the RTX 5090 right now. Although that said, it could end up in high demand, which might usher in a predictable situation that we've seen time and time again.

Namely scalpers buying up stock to resell on auction sites, and all the usual woes around stock being thin on the ground. Fingers crossed this isn't the case, but I've got a weary feeling in my bones that the high-end of the GPU market is about to hit something of a rough patch.