Nvidia might dominate the GPU market in January

By Monica J. White Published January 2, 2025

Nvidia, AMD, and Intel are all set to update their lists of the best graphics cards sometime in January. Now, according to HKEPC, a Hong Kong media outlet, we know that the Nvidia RTX 5080 is reportedly set to launch on January 21. Meanwhile, AMD may take more time to ramp up its GPU availability, giving Nvidia the chance to dominate the GPU market in early 2025.

With CES 2025 mere days away, we already know that January is going to be one busy month for PC enthusiasts. Nvidia’s got the RTX 50-series, AMD is launching the RX 9000 series, and Intel will add one more GPU to its Battlemage lineup. Only the last one has a confirmed release date of January 16, but it seems that Nvidia will be just one week behind — if the leak is to be believed.

Now, it’s worth noting that although HKEPC announced the January 21 release date for the RTX 5080 on X (Twitter), the publication deleted the post shortly after. VideoCardz preserved it, which is why we can speculate about this release date. Many leakers have already claimed that the RTX 5080 would be the first to arrive, and two weeks after the anticipated CES 2025 announcement sounds like a reasonable estimate for the RTX 5080, so this very well might be true.

If the RTX 5080 launches on January 21, then we might be looking at January 28 for the RTX 5090, but many observers think it’ll appear even later, citing dates up until mid-February. That leaves us with the RTX 5070 (and perhaps the Ti version), which may not be launched until late February. In any case, according to current rumors, we might see three to four Nvidia GPUs within two months of the announcement.

AMD may not be as quick to follow, says VideoCardz. According to a post from the Board Channels, which cites “AMD’s internal department,” the availability for the RX 9000 series is going to be fairly limited at first — similar to what we’ve seen with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Although the first GPU, now dubbed the RX 9070 XT, is said to have a late January release date, the cards will only become broadly available in February.

What about the rest of AMD’s lineup? So far, leakers have only talked about one GPU based on the Navi 48 die — that’s the RX 9070 XT — and one based on Navi 44. The Navi 44 variant will likely be found in the RX 9060 (XT). This GPU, alongside a presumed RX 9070 non-XT version, are now said to be launching in March.

If all of the above turns out to be true, Nvidia may have free reign over the GPU market in early 2025. With both the RTX 5090 and the RTX 5080 going uncontested, and limited availability from AMD at first, all eyes may be on Nvidia. We’ll find out whether this is true in just a few days, so stay tuned for more CES 2025 news.