The RTX 5090 is vanishing from store shelves. US retailer Micro Center has switched many listings for Nvidia’s flagship graphics card from “out of stock” to “Not Carried”, and in some cases “No Longer Carried”, which suggests the chain does not expect to restock it. Nvidia has confirmed nothing, yet rumors of a production halt are gaining weight.
What Micro Center’s listings show
According to VideoCardz, picked up by Notebookcheck and Tom’s Hardware, models from Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, PNY and Zotac are affected. Custom cards from Asus, MSI and Gigabyte remain visible online but are unavailable at every physical store. The wording matters: an out-of-stock product normally comes back, while a “Not Carried” one is no longer meant to be ordered by the retailer.
One notable exception remains, Asus’s ROG Astral Edition 20, sold only in a bundle priced at almost $11,000. Micro Center also still sells prebuilt gaming desktops fitted with the RTX 5090.
The rumor: a pivot to AI hardware
A few days earlier, Notebookcheck reported that Nvidia had allegedly stopped supplying GB202 chips, the GPU behind the RTX 5090. Future allocations would go to the far more profitable RTX Pro workstation cards. Tom’s Hardware floats the same idea, framing it as speculation: moving that silicon into products such as the RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell.
Nothing is official yet. Nvidia has not commented, and its website still lists the card as “starting at $1,999”. An unverified Reddit post even claims Micro Center staff pulled every RTX 5090 off the shelves on October 9. Treat that one with caution.
Prices were already out of reach
Launched in January 2025 with a $1,999 list price, the card was hard to find at that figure long before this news. ComputerBase reports that the few units left in Europe start at €5,999. Tom’s Hardware also notes that Japanese retailers have raised RTX 50-series prices by roughly 12% to 41%.
What comes next
Another rumor cited by Notebookcheck says Nvidia is preparing a 24 GB GeForce RTX 5080 for the first quarter of 2027. It would become the top GeForce model if the RTX 5090 really is dropped. An RTX 50 Super series has also been anticipated for a long time, with no firm date.
A word of caution: the status change at Micro Center may simply reflect dwindling stock, not an official end of life for the RTX 5090. If you were hoping to buy one, do not count on sensible prices returning soon. Have GPU prices made you give up on a build? Let us know in the comments.
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