Following a two-year wait, NVIDIA’s highly-anticipated GeForce 50 series of GPUs arrived at the start of 2025. Engadget published its review of the $2,000 RTX 5090 in January, followed by reviews of the RTX 5070 in March and, most recently, the RTX 5060 Ti. But if you’re reading this article, chances are you already know if you want to splurge on a 50 series card. The question then is how to buy one. If you’re reading this story on or after April 21, the good news is that major retailers, including Best Buy and Newegg, have officially begun selling the first wave of NVIDIA’s new GPUs.
As for the bad news? Like with the 40 series before it, early demand for NVIDIA’s new GPUs has been high, leading to limited availability and rampant scalping. What’s more, pricing from NVIDIA’s board partners has been all over the place, with most non-Founders Editions models costing far more than their MSRP. For instance, scanning Newegg you won’t find a single RTX 5070 listed for its $549 suggested price. Right now, the cheapest model costs $670.
GeForce RTX 5090 for $2,000: The RTX 5090 is the most expensive consumer GPU NVIDIA has ever released. It’s also one of the most powerful and power-hungry, with the 5090 featuring 21,760 CUDA cores, 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM and a potential total power draw of 575W.
Of course, as with all of NVIDIA’s new GPUs, raw specs are only half the story. In conjunction with DLSS 4, the entire 50 series is capable of multi-frame generation. With the tech, RTX 50 GPUs can generate up to three additional frames for every frame they render using traditional techniques. DLSS 4 is the reason the 5090 can produce an average of 246 frames per second with full ray tracing in games like Cyberpunk 2077.
If you prefer to buy from Newegg or Best Buy, both retailers will stock models from third-party OEMs, including ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and Zotac.
GeForce RTX 5080 for $999: The RTX 5080 features 10,752 CUDA cores and 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM, with a memory bandwidth of 960GB/sec. Like the 5090, you get the benefit of DLSS 4 multi-frame generation. Moreover, total power draw is more modest at 360W, meaning you probably won’t need a 1,000W PSU to power the 5080. Early reviews of the 5080 have been mixed, but that hasn’t stopped people from buying the new high-end card.
Again, both Newegg and Best Buy will stock third-party options. For a Founders Edition model, your best bets are NVIDIA and Best Buy.
GeForce RTX 5070 Ti for $749. Between the two 5070 variants, the Ti version is probably the safer purchase. That’s because it features 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM compared to the 5070’s 12GB. An extra 4GB of VRAM might not seem like much, but it will likely translate to the 5070 Ti offering better performance over its lifespan. Modern AAA games use a lot of VRAM, so much so that 8GB GPUs like the RTX 3070 are starting to show their age.
Unfortunately, the 5070 Ti is the one model NVIDIA won’t offer a Founders Edition version of, so finding one to buy at MSRP may be tricky. Your best bet here is B&H.
GeForce RTX 5070 for $549: The RTX 5070 was NVIDIA’s most affordable 50 series GPU. That title is currently held by the RTX 5060 Ti. The 5070 offers solid performance at 1440p and is decent enough for some occasional 4K gaming. That said, it’s not much faster than the 4070 it replaced, and, as mentioned, with only 12GB of VRAM, you will probably replace it before long.
GeForce RTX 5060 Ti for $299 : Until the RTX 5060 arrives sometime in May, the 5060 Ti stands as NVIDIA’s most affordable 50 series card right now. Between the 5070 and 5060 Ti, the latter is the better deal, with it featuring 16GB of VRAM. It offers excellent performance at both 1080p and 1440p, and provided you can find it for NVIDIA’s suggested retail price of $299, it won’t break the bank either.
Update 1/29/25 1:50pm ET: As one may have predicted, it seems like it will be difficult to get your hands on one of NVIDIA’s new graphics cards. The company itself stated publicly that it “expect significant demand for the GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 and believes stock-outs may happen.” It’s possible that limited availability, or widespread stock-outs, could affect customers worldwide. It’s reported that some countries, like Korea, won’t see shipments until mid-February.
Update 1/30/25 10:10am ET: We updated this piece with more information about availability now that some of the cards are officially up for sale.
Update 4/21/25 12pm ET: We updated this piece to more information about RTX 5060 Ti availability.