Nvidia store quietly pulls the RTX 5080 following RTX 5090 removal — street prices climb to 2.2X over MSRP
First, it was the GeForce RTX 5090 , and now the GeForce RTX 5080 – two of the best graphics cards have gone dark. After the Blackwell flagship left Nvidia's marketplace, the GeForce RTX 5080 followed suit. Prices for the sub-flagship have exploded to more than 2.2X its original $999 MSRP, and the Blackwell-powered graphics card is slowly going out of stock at various U.S. retailers. As with the recent disappearance…
Nvidia store quietly pulls the RTX 5080 following RTX 5090 removal — street prices climb to 2.2X over MSRP
First, it was the GeForce RTX 5090, and now the GeForce RTX 5080 – two of the best graphics cards have gone dark. After the Blackwell flagship left Nvidia's marketplace, the GeForce RTX 5080 followed suit. Prices for the sub-flagship have exploded to more than 2.2X its original $999 MSRP, and the Blackwell-powered graphics card is slowly going out of stock at various U.S. retailers.
As with the recent disappearance of the GeForce RTX 5090 on Nvidia’s marketplace, the listings and filters for the GeForce RTX 5080 have also disappeared. While its absence does not necessarily mean Nvidia has discontinued the graphics card, it does raise questions about its status and future availability. This move is especially fishy because other Blackwell SKUs, such as the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and GeForce RTX 5070, remain listed on the marketplace, albeit marked as “Out of Stock.”
The continued presence of the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and GeForce RTX 5070 suggests that Nvidia wants to keep the products visible even when they are not immediately available so that consumers can anticipate restocks. The complete removal of the GeForce RTX 5090 and GeForce RTX 5080 breaks that pattern. It fuels rumors that Nvidia has allegedly stopped production of the GeForce RTX 5090 and possibly the GeForce RTX 5080 too, in favor of a rumored GeForce RTX 5080 24GB.
Rumors claim Nvidia allegedly stopped producing the GeForce RTX 5090 to repurpose the valuable GB202 silicon into the chipmaker’s RTX Pro Blackwell lineup, which fetches higher margins. This has a lot of credence, since many agree that Nvidia stopped being a gaming hardware vendor long ago and has transformed into an AI provider.
Rather than simply discontinuing the GeForce RTX 5090, Nvidia purportedly intends to introduce the GeForce RTX 5080 24GB as the new flagship gaming graphics card. The thing is, a 24GB variant of the GeForce RTX 5080 would solve one of the biggest consumer gripes with the graphics card: the lack of memory. While a GeForce RTX 5080 24GB would offer the same memory as the GeForce RTX 5090, it simply isn't a direct drop-in replacement. The former has 2X fewer CUDA cores, a substantial performance gap that even a 50% memory increase can't make up for.
How much money are you willing to spend during the Black Friday sales?
The GeForce RTX 5080 launched in January of last year with an MSRP of $999. Demand quickly outpaced supply, and with the rapid price hikes due to the memory shortage, the market price has more than doubled its original MSRP. As of this moment, the most affordable GeForce RTX 5080 in stock, the PNY GeForce RTX 5080 ARGB Epic-X RGB OC, retails for $2,199.99, which is 2.2X over the original launch price.
While some stock remains, it’s selling out fast, and the remaining units will only get more expensive as availability dwindles. At this rate, the GeForce RTX 5080 is unlikely to be available by Black Friday. If you are set on a GeForce RTX 5080, you may have little choice but to act quickly and buy at today's elevated prices.
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If the GeForce RTX 5080 24GB is indeed legitimate, the graphics card will almost certainly debut at a substantial premium over the original GeForce RTX 5080. Although Nvidia maintains that the RTX 5090 is still alive, the reality suggests otherwise. We have contacted the company for comment regarding the GeForce RTX 5080’s status.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.