- Nvidia’s making an effort to stop scalpers buying RTX 5090 and 5080 GPUs
- The ‘Verified Priority Access’ program is returning, albeit only in the US
- Buyers must have created an Nvidia account on or before January 30, 2025, to be offered a purchase opportunity
The RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 launch has been a rather sorry episode for Nvidia, due to demand far exceeding supply, on top of issues with scalpers – but fortunately, Team Green is taking action to give genuine buyers a better chance of getting one of these high-end GPUs at their recommended prices.
As spotted by Wccftech, Nvidia has brought back its Verified Priority Access program, a scheme that allows a limited number of gamers (or indeed creators) in the US to purchase the RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 at MSRP by completing a form to indicate their interest.
The only stipulation is that people need to have an Nvidia account (that was created on or before January 30, 2025), and note that this only offers the chance to purchase Nvidia’s own Founders Edition versions of the graphics cards.
You may remember that Nvidia introduced this scheme with the RTX 4090 and eventually the RTX 4080 too, after these GPUs were launched.
Considering the still very limited supply of high-end Blackwell GPUs, this will likely prove highly beneficial for would-be buyers. It’s a struggle to find anything near MSRP at all, and third-party RTX 5090 and 5080 graphics cards (meaning GPUs not from Nvidia) which can be found on sale cost far more than their recommended pricing. Of course, this scheme won’t help you buy such a third-party board, only a Founders Edition GPU.
While this priority access scheme is not going to completely turn the tide of the battle against scalpers, it’ll surely help in that fight. If a scalper doesn’t already have a pre-existing Nvidia account, they’ll be out of luck, as creating a new one to get onto the scheme won’t work (due to the mentioned January 30 deadline).
This is similar to Valve’s move with the Steam Deck, where the initial pre-orders were limited to those with a Steam account that had been created in the previous year (and had made a purchase).
While Nvidia’s priority access scheme is only in the US for now, hopefully it’ll be expanded beyond that to other regions in the future.
Nvidia should keep this priority access scheme going forward
Nvidia’s GPUs are always highly sought after upon launch, seemingly regardless of how well any new GPUs are received by gamers, and we’re seeing that again with Blackwell graphics cards. This inevitably introduces two main problems in terms of scalping and inflated prices – with the end result being that very few gamers are lucky enough to snag a new card, and they end up paying far too much for that privilege.
The Verified Priority Access scheme gives gamers a better chance of buying a powerhouse GPU, and what’s more, they get it at a fair price – the MSRP, in fact. So in my opinion, this must be part of Team Green’s sales strategy going forward (at least while stock woes persist).
Scalpers may still find ways to manipulate the system, especially if accounts were made before the January 30 deadline. However, there is no guarantee that those who fill in a form will get a chance to purchase, and Nvidia is ‘verifying’ any applicants to hopefully weed out any dubious would-be buyers. Plus each account is still limited to one purchase only.
As I’ve stated, this isn’t going to benefit all potential buyers as there are caveats involved (notably that the scheme is restricted to US buyers only), but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
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