You’ll need to win the lottery for a chance to buy the RTX 5090

By Monica J. White Published January 29, 2025

Nvidia’s RTX 5090 is almost here, but the January 30 release date doesn’t necessarily mean immediate availability on the shelves. So far, it seems like stock levels will be highly limited for a while, which prompts some retailers to get creative. One Japanese retailer is now hosting a lottery, and the prize is a ticket that allows you to spend $2,000 and more on Nvidia’s best graphics card. Meanwhile, even MSI confirms that availability is going to be pretty scarce.

The store, called “Goodwill Nagoya Osu,” said that it’ll begin selling the RTX 5090 on January 31, but you can’t just walk in and shell out some of your hard-earned cash on a GPU. You’ll have to gamble and hope for the best. Sales begin at 11 a.m., but only those who are lined up outside the store at 10.20 a.m. will be given a ticket. This peculiar ad was spotted by VideoCardz.

Camping outside a store is no news to a GPU enthusiast, as we’ve seen people setting up tents outside of Micro Center a couple of days ago. That’s a much longer wait, but at least those shoppers won’t have to rely on luck to let them spend $2,000 and get their hands on Nvidia’s latest graphics card. However, we have also seen the lottery system used in the U.S. before during the GPU shortage, so it’s not that unusual — we just haven’t had to deal with these types of shortages for a while now.

【告　知】RTX5090,RTX5080販売方法に関して1/31　11時より販売開始の次世代GPUは名古屋大須店では『抽選販売』といたします。10時20分より抽選券を配布。10時20分の時点でお並びいただいた方を抽選対象といたします。入荷商品、数量は、1/30の23時以降にお伝えします。 pic.twitter.com/sWUh0p9nOa

— GOODWILL 名古屋大須店 (@GW_Nagoyaoosu) January 29, 2025

All of these somewhat extreme measures can be traced back to the limited stock we’ve been hearing about for the last week or so. It appears that at launch, the RTX 50-series will be hard to come by. While Nvidia’s Founders Edition is likely to be available, there may not be enough GPUs to meet the demand — which is definitely saying something, given how expensive the card is going to be.

Third-party cards are a gamble — it’s hard to say which retailer and which manufacturer will have good availability on launch day. As reported by StinceBuilt, MSI has confirmed that it’ll be delaying the shipment of its RTX 5090 graphics cards, and the GPUs will not be available until February 6. Preorders will still open on January 30 as planned, though.

What about the RTX 5080? Will that card be in stock? Check back tomorrow as we’ll make sure to keep you posted on where to buy an RTX 5090 and an RTX 5080 on launch day.