Campers are already setting up for the RTX 5090 release

Tents are already starting to pop up outside of the Tustin, California Micro Center location in anticipation of the RTX 5090 release later this week. As you can read in our RTX 5090 review, it’s undoubtedly the best graphics card you can buy, but the campers might not be in it for the frames.

Photos of the campers were shared on the unofficial Micro Center subreddit (spotted by IGN), where two tents are currently set up outside of the Tustin location. Micro Center has discouraged eager customers from camping outside of its locations, though it shared a lengthy video about buying an RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 on release day. In that video, Micro Center says “we suggest coming early.”

Campers already appeared
byu/Temporary-Director46 inMicrocenter

At $2,000 — and many suggestions that third-party models will be more expensive — the RTX 5090 isn’t exactly a mass-market product. However, it’s still likely to see large demand. Some retailers claim that they only have single digits of inventory for release day, so there’s a good chance that the RTX 5090 (and the RTX 5080) will sell out only moments after it goes on sale.

As previous GPU shortages can tell us, high demand and low availability is prime territory for scalpers. Listings for the RTX 5090 have already reached upwards of $7,000 on eBay, despite the card not being available for purchase yet. Prices will likely stay high for a while after the RTX 5090 releases — if inventory is low enough now, there’s a good chance it will stay that way for a few months.

Even when inventory stabilizes, the price of the RTX 5090 could remain high. As VideoCardz noted on X, even list prices for third-party models will reach up to around $2,800. There should be models available at list price, though board partners have reportedly restricted the inventory of list price models due to thin margins.

MSRP for custom RTX 5090 (according to @TechPowerUp):
🟡 ASUS ASTRAL: $2,800
🟡 MSI SUPRIM LIQUID SOC: $2,500
🟡 MSI SUPRIM SOC: $2,400
🟡 PALIT GAMEROCK: $2,200

— VideoCardz.com (@VideoCardz) January 24, 2025

The RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 both launch later this week on Thursday, January 30. As the early images of campers outside of Micro Center tip-off, cards will likely sell out immediately after release. Hopefully, we’ll see more inventory soon.