Lack of availability continues to haunt GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 almost a month on from their launch. Nvidia is working with retailers to replenish stock levels but the company wants to go one step further. To ensure cards don’t end up in the hands of those simply looking to capitalise on scarcity, it’s bringing back its ‘Verified Priority Access’ program.
In a statement on the Nvidia forums, company employee ‘Tim’ shared plans to revive Verified Priority Access that some will remember from the launch of GeForce RTX 4090. Those interested in the program must submit a form using their Nvidia account and await notification via email for an invitation to purchase either RTX 5090 or 5080 Founders Edition based on their selected preferences.
Naturally, Verified Priority Access comes with several terms and conditions. Sadly, the program is only available to residents of the United States. If you didn’t already have an Nvidia account prior to January 30, 2025, you’re also out of luck. To be clear, this is the same profile you may use on the Nvidia App or GeForce Experience prior.
Given Nvidia only offers Founders Editions via the program, it’s unlikely that the company will add an option to purchase GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. There’s every chance the brand could become more encompassing of partner designs in the future but this is just wishful thinking for the moment.
While I applaud these efforts by Nvidia to improve availability of its GeForce RTX 50 Series, this program is ultimately a sticking plaster solution to wider issues of lower stock and price gouging. An official word on when availability is likely to improve would go a long way to satisfying potential customers. For now, retailers are offering broad windows of up to 16 weeks for RTX 5090.
The GeForce RTX 50 Series cards released thus far likely won’t be the last models to suffer from poor availability at launch. Recent reports indicate that a combination of performance issues and wafer damage caused by earthquakes in Taiwan are causing delays for RTX 5070 and 5060. Nvidia hasn’t announced the latter SKU but it’s highly likely to materialise in the near future.
Good luck to all those submitting their interest. For the rest of us, AMD could provide a welcome alternative to waiting around for GeForce RTX 50 Series stock with its Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics card. I’ll be keeping a close eye on how it stacks up as well as on availability of Nvidia GPUs too, so be sure to follow Club386 on Google News to stay in the loop.
