NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50-series Blackwell Availability

[homerdog]

Is MSRP binding at all? Like if Newegg buys cards from NVIDIA or some other AIB are they agreeing to sell them for a certain price? Or at least not sell them for more than a certain price? The S in MSRP makes me think it doesn't matter but I dunno for sure.

 

[DegustatoR]

Suddenly they're the only vendor who is selling cards at MSRP or anywhere close

Nothing stops AIBs from doing the same. The fact that there are FEs is limiting partners appetites for sure - which is good.

But Nvidia doesn't get more from FE sales than from chip sales to partners. FEs aren't made by Nvidia, they are ODM to some partner (there are several which Nvidia has used for "reference" boards production since forever) and then sold by Nvidia.

The margin which partners get is small so hunting that by selling way less cards makes about as much sense as not selling them at all. FEs are a very low volume product, of all sales it is probably accounting for less than 1% of volume.

 

[trinibwoy]

…and they then control exactly how many GPUs partners get vs what they get.

So they’re jumping through all these hoops to control something which they already control. Come on guys at least try to make the paranoia make sense.

The question is always how does this help the bottom line? Nvidia sending 6 5090’s to a Microcenter is not going to bring in the big bucks.

 

[Cappuccino]

You can't have it both ways really. You can't just claim that AIB's margins are low (which is very likely to be true) and at the same time they can undercutting each other? How is that possible if their margin is like single digit.

Causation is reversed, they have low margins because they compete with each other.

They don't. They sell chips at the level of MSRPs they have set.

Do we actually know this or are we just assuming this?

 

[Cappuccino]

So they’re jumping through all these hoops to control something which they already control. Come on guys at least try to make the paranoia make sense.

The question is always how does this help the bottom line? Nvidia sending 6 5090’s to a Microcenter is not going to bring in the big bucks.

How is selling less chips “jumping through hoops”?

I don’t get how this is seen as paranoia, Nvidia managing supply is fairly uncontroversial, they do this all the time. How do you think Nvidia maintains MSRPs even years after launch?

 

[Remij]

So they’re jumping through all these hoops to control something which they already control. Come on guys at least try to make the paranoia make sense.

The question is always how does this help the bottom line? Nvidia sending 6 5090’s to a Microcenter is not going to bring in the big bucks.

What hoops? They announced cards knowing full well there'd be no supply. They know prices will get jacked up. The term paper launch exists for a reason..

Nvidia has better products to sell now.

 

[Cappuccino]

Is MSRP binding at all? Like if Newegg buys cards from NVIDIA or some other AIB are they agreeing to sell them for a certain price? Or at least not sell them for more than a certain price? The S in MSRP makes me think it doesn't matter but I dunno for sure.

I don’t think so, and indeed many retailers drop prices as supply increases (discounts and deals and whatnot).

 

[DavidGraham]

It's not like NVIDIA is alone in facing shortages on launch, the Arc B580 faced the same issue, Ryzen 9000 CPUs faced the same issue, even the Intel 285K had a very low supply initially.

 

[trinibwoy]

What hoops? They announced cards knowing full well there'd be no supply. They know prices will get jacked up. The term paper launch exists for a reason..

Nvidia has better products to sell now.

Ok but what’s the point? How does it make them more money vs selling more cards?

 

[DegustatoR]

Do we actually know this or are we just assuming this?

We actually know this because it's how the whole vendor-partner thing works.

Nvidia has better products to sell now.

These "better products" are for a completely different market and are production limited by packaging. They do not have any influence on the gaming side of the business.
Unless what you're suggesting is some sort of internal struggle with the DC AI department trying to kill the gaming department because... I dunno... lulz?

 

[Remij]

Ok but what’s the point? How does it make them more money vs selling more cards?

I'm of the opinion that Nvidia really doesn't give a shit about selling these GPUs anymore. They have better business elsewhere they'd rather focus on. These GPUs are "Lets see how much these people will pay.. where else can they go?"

Making GPUs scarce as hell allows them to see just that. And sadly people are willing to pay stupid amounts... and people here would have you think the rest of us should be happy about that because Nvidia's just doing "good business"...

It's a joke.

 

[DegustatoR]

I'm of the opinion that Nvidia really doesn't give a shit about selling these GPUs anymore. They have better business elsewhere they'd rather focus on. These GPUs are "Lets see how much these people will pay.. where else can they go?"

Why did they launch them then? There is nothing which is capable of competing with anything above 4070TiS still and it doesn't look like there will be anything until late 2026.

Making GPUs scarce as hell allows them to see just that.

Who's forcing them to make GPUs at all? Is somebody holding them at a gun point?

Seriously this is getting beyond stupid.

 

[trinibwoy]

I'm of the opinion that Nvidia really doesn't give a shit about selling these GPUs anymore.

So why are they still selling them? They can leave the market completely to Intel and AMD and ride off happily into AI land.

Nvidia doesn’t give two shits about “seeing how much people will spend” for some pittance supply of GPUs. Once again how does that make them money?

 

[Cappuccino]

We actually know this because it's how the whole vendor-partner thing works.

We have no idea what Nvidia actually charges AIBs for their chips, and we frankly know very little about their relationship. I’ve always wondered how they smooth over stuff like Super refreshes with AIBs, suddenly the 4070tis the AIBs already bought are discontinued and the 4070ti Super is better for the same amount of money, what do the AIBs do with the 4070tis they had just bought? Is there some expectation that Nvidia will ‘return the favor’ down the road for a future launch?

The only time we got close to figuring out how their relationships work is when EVGA publicly split with Nvidia and even then we found out next to nothing lol.

 

[DegustatoR]

We have no idea what Nvidia actually charges AIBs for their chips

Yes, we do. What they charge is enough to fit the MSRPs they've set with some margin which goes to the AIB. There is no other way it would work.

 

[trinibwoy]

I’ve always wondered how they smooth over stuff like Super refreshes with AIBs, suddenly the 4070tis the AIBs already bought are discontinued and the 4070ti Super is better for the same amount of money, what do the AIBs do with the 4070tis they had just bought? Is there some expectation that Nvidia will ‘return the favor’ down the road for a future launch?

Well there’s this thing called inventory management. Nvidia does it. AIBs do it. Retailers do it.

How will LG sell C5 TVs this year when they previously sold C3s and C4s? It’s a mystery. Come on guys we’re going deep down the rabbit hole now with the tin foil hatting.

 

[Cappuccino]

Yes, we do. What they charge is enough to fit the MSRPs they've set with some margin which goes to the AIB. There is no other way it would work.

Show me a PDF detailing the prices Nvidia charges to AIBs throughout a products life and I’ll concede to you completely on this.

Well there’s this thing called inventory management. Nvidia does it. AIBs do it. Retailers do it.

How will LG sell C5 TVs this year when they previously sold C3s and C4s? It’s a mystery. Come on guys we’re going deep down the rabbit hole now with the tin foil hatting.

Uh yeah, obviously. I never said it was just Nvidia. There’s no conspiracy here, they’ve done it countless times before, along with most manufacturers.

 

[Albuquerque]

Show me a PDF detailing the prices Nvidia charges to AIBs throughout a products life and I’ll concede to you completely on this.

The exact numbers would be considered non-disclosable under penalty of a lot of legal action (eg getting sued, a LOT.)

At the same time, this is a pretty bog-standard method of doing business; coming from a decade of employment at a fortune 200 retailer, this is EXACTLY how it's done. This isn't anything new or abnormal or eventuful for those folks who know how these business operate.

 

[Cappuccino]

The exact numbers would be considered non-disclosable under penalty of a lot of legal action (eg getting sued, a LOT.)

At the same time, this is a pretty bog-standard method of doing business; coming from a decade of employment at a fortune 200 retailer, this is EXACTLY how it's done. This isn't anything new or abnormal or eventuful for those folks who know how these business operate.

Naturally, which is why I am confident we don’t really know the details of how AIBs do business with Nvidia.

Every single Nvidia launch is like this (except the 40 series if I remember correctly, you could basically just buy those), I think it’s a deliberate choice to have short term shortages. Apple chooses to stockpile devices before putting them on sale. Just two different ways of selling products, there’s no conspiracy just plain old supply management.

 

[IQandHDR]

LOL
This is how silly shite start, user used a crappy 3rd party cable:

https://hardforum.com/threads/rtx-5090-fe-molten-12vhpwr.2039669/

Let me get this straight. The guy used a 12vhpwr (first gen) third-party cable, the same cables that were reported to be shoddy as fuck on the 4090, but the guy decided to throw caution to the wind and reuse the very same shoddy cable he used on his 4090 but now on his 5090. Instead of using a proper 12vhpwr v2 cable or even the provided adapter.

I can't even make this shit up. Every day there are those out there proving that our collective intelligence is deteriorating.