After two years of waiting, NVIDIA’s highly anticipated GeForce 50 series GPUs arrive in early 2025. Engadget posted a review of the $2,000 RTX 5090 in January, followed by a review of the RTX 5070 in March and, more recently, the RTX 5060 TI. But if you are reading this post, do you already know if you want to splurge on the 50 series card. Then, the question is how to buy. If you read this story on or after April 21, the good news is that major retailers including Best Buy and Newegg have officially started selling Nvidia’s first wave of new GPUs.
As for the bad news? Just like the previous 40 series, early demand for NVIDIA’s new GPUs was high, resulting in limited availability and rampant flaking terminology. More importantly, NVIDIA board partners are priced everywhere, and most non-founder versions of the models cost far more than their retail price. For example, scan newegg for newegg you can’t find a single RTX 5070 listed for the recommended price of $549. Currently, the cheapest model costs $670.
GeForce RTX 5090 priced at $2,000: The RTX 5090 is the most expensive consumer GPU ever made, NVIDIA. It is also one of the most powerful and most eager forces, with the 5090 having 21,760 CUDA cores, 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM and a potential total power attraction of 575W.
Of course, like all new GPUs at Nvidia, the RAW specs are only half the story. In conjunction with DLSS 4, the entire 50 series is capable of generating multiple frameworks. With technology, the RTX 50 GPU can generate up to three additional frames for each frame they render using traditional technology. DLSS 4 is the reason why 5090 can produce 246 frames per second on average and perform full ray tracing in games like similar Cyberpunk 2077.
If you want to buy from Newegg or Best Buy, both retailers will stock models of third-party OEMs, including Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and Zotac.
Geforce RTX 5080 priced at $999: The RTX 5080 has 10,752 CUDA cores and 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM with a memory bandwidth of 960GB/sec. Like the 5090, you will get the benefits of DLSS 4 multi-frame generation. Additionally, the total power draw is more modest at 360W, which means you may not need a 1,000W PSU to power the 5080. Early reviews of the 5080 are mixed together, but that doesn’t stop people from buying new high-end cards.
Similarly, both Newegg and Best Buy will stock third-party options. Your best bets for Founders Edition models are Nvidia and Best Buy.
GeForce RTX 5070 TI, priced at $749. Between the two 5070 variants, the Ti version may be a safer purchase. That’s because it has 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM, not 12GB of 5070. The extra 4GB of VRAM doesn’t seem to be much, but it may translate to a 5070 TI, providing better performance over its lifespan. Modern AAA games use so much VRAM that an 8GB GPU like the RTX 3070 starts to show age.
Unfortunately, the 5070 Ti is a model of NVIDIA that will not offer a founder version, so buying a version on MSRP can be tricky. Your best bet is B&H.
GeForce RTX 5070 priced at $549: The RTX 5070 is NVIDIA’s most affordable 50 Series GPU. The title is currently held by RTX 5060 TI. The 5070 offers stable performance at 1440p and is good enough to occasionally play 4K gaming. That said, it’s no much faster than the 4070 it replaces, and as mentioned before, there’s only 12GB of VRAM, you’ll probably replace it soon.
GeForce RTX 5060 TI, $299 : Until the RTX 5060 arrives sometime in May, the 5060 TI is now the most affordable 50 Series card in NVIDIA. Between the 5070 and 5060 TI, the latter is the better option, with 16GB of VRAM. It offers excellent performance on both 1080p and 1440p, but only if you can retail at $299 as Nvidia suggests, without breaking the bank.
Updated 1/29/25 1:50 PM ET: As one might predict, it seems difficult to get one of Nvidia’s new graphics cards. The company itself publicly stated that it “expects a large demand for the GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 and believes inventory may occur.” Limited availability or wide inventory may affect customers around the world. It is reported that some countries (such as South Korea) cannot see goods until mid-February.
Updated 1/30/25 10:10 AM ET: Now, we have updated more information on availability with these cards officially sold.
Updated 4/21/25 ET at 12:00 pm: We updated this title to more information about the availability of RTX 5060 TI.
