- MSI’s RTX 5090 Lightning can only be bought via a lottery system in the US
- Some buyers are therefore taking advantage of this and reselling the GPU for between $8,000 to $15,000 on eBay
- It’s cheaper to buy the RTX 5090 Lightning from the UK and pay for shipping and import, but however you dice it, you’ll be down a small fortune
Ever thought about dropping the best part of ten grand on a GPU? If you are mulling a purchase of MSI‘s latest Nvidia graphics card – which is a new premium spin on the Blackwell flagship – you better prepare for a wallet-destroying price.
VideoCardz spotted that MSI’s RTX 5090 Lightning Z graphics card is priced at truly eye-watering levels for buyers in the US, who would be better off importing the GPU from the UK.
The catch with the RTX 5090 Lightning is that it’s a limited-edition graphics card, with not many more than 1,000 units having been made for global distribution to the buying public. In the US, the extra tricky bit is that the Lightning can only be purchased via a lottery, meaning you must win the opportunity to buy this graphics card at its retail price, which is $5,090 (see what they did there?) in the US.
So, predictably, what has happened is that those who’ve won the chance to buy the RTX 5090 Lightning have done so, but with the aim of trying to resell the GPU on eBay (or other marketplaces) to those who really want this card, but failed to win the aforementioned lottery.
As you can imagine, the markup on the Lightning is a nasty one, with current eBay prices ranging from $8,000 to $15,000.
Now, as VideoCardz points out, for GPU enthusiasts in the US, there’s a better approach here rather than buying one of those products listed on eBay, which is to look at UK retailers instead (where there isn’t a lottery system).
At the time of writing, Overclockers UK – one of the big custom PC makers and component sellers in the country – has MSI’s RTX 5090 Lightning in stock and ready to ship for £5,000. For a buyer in the US, that works out at around $6,800 currently, so even after shipping and import costs, it’s still going to be a good deal cheaper than forking out $8,000 (or indeed a lot more).
Analysis: ride the lightning – or don’t, and buy a whole RTX 5090 gaming PC instead
Granted, in the scenario presented, there are support issues if things go wrong with the GPU for a US buyer using a UK retailer. But then there’d be support issues with an eBay seller anyhow (some of which are abroad anyway, so for example, one of those RTX 5090 Lightning graphics cards is shipped from Germany).
Of course, there’s a bigger issue here though, which is simply: why on earth would you want to pay so much for a GPU anyway, even a flash RTX 5090? True, the RTX 5090 Lightning is doubtless a sterling overclocker (it is “built to sustain 1000W loads with absolute stability”), and it’s a stunning-looking creation (with a built-in 8-inch display, no less).
But the prices floating around are just ludicrous, as is the recommended retail price frankly, wherever you can manage to get the GPU at that level (not in the US, as noted). $5,090 is still over 40% more expensive than the most affordable RTX 5090 at Newegg currently (which is $3,600 – and yes, prices have shot up with the flagship in general). And unless you’re a really hardcore overclocker – or just want supreme GPU bragging rights – that’s a seriously painful premium for the Lightning even at MSRP.
More to the point, for five grand you can pick up an entire gaming PC with top-spec components including an RTX 5090. Again, at Newegg, you can buy a liquid-cooled gaming rig built around the MSI Ventus RTX 5090 and Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor with 32GB of DDR5 RAM (which is also seriously pricey these days) and a 2TB SSD.
Or a liquid-cooled Alienware Area-51 PC (as pictured above) can be configured with the same spec for the CPU (the Intel 285K), GPU (RTX 5090) and RAM (32GB), plus a 1TB SSD, priced at $4,650 at the time of writing, which is 10% under the cost of MSI’s RTX 5090 Lightning. I know which purchase I’d be making – none of the above, but if I did have that kind of budget for my PC gaming, it’d be the Alienware machine, for sure.
The best graphics cards for all budgets
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