Supply of the RTX 5090 GPU hasn’t exactly been available in great quantities since it launched, but a new rumor says that it’s going to increase soon. Last year NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang more or less warned of a possible GPU shortage. Based on releases of previous RTX GPU generations, a low initial stock was expected. That being said, it doesn’t make it any less frustrating for buyers when stock depletes completely mere minutes after launch.
Picture this scenario. You’re ready to go, payment information in hand, with an idea of what GPU you want, only to be met with site errors or out-of-stock messages the moment you try to add a GPU to the cart and check out. This is a scenario that many gamers are all too familiar with, especially recently. NVIDIA’s RTX 50-series GPUs were released at the end of January, and they were gone in short order. Many of the available GPUs were snatched up by scalpers. Though a fair amount likely went to regular buyers as well.
Some retailers, like Zotac, even came up with a way to try and minimize scalper purchases. Now, NVIDIA might be making it all the more difficult for scalpers to unload the stock they acquired.
NVIDIA to increase RTX 5090 supply thanks to excess yields of TSMC B200
The rumor comes from a leaker named MEGAsizeGPU. In a recent post on X, they stated that NVIDIA has an excess of TSMC B200, and that it will now be using it for the production of more RTX 5090 supply.
If NVIDIA does have excess stock of TSMC B200, it would make sense for the company to put it to use. Lest it lose out on revenue it could be making from newly manufactured graphics cards. Which plenty of consumers still want to buy.
MEGAsizeGPU further explains that NVIDIA had purchased a ton of TSMC B200 wafers for use with its Blackwell B200 AI GPUs. However, the market no longer wants these designs, causing the demand to decrease significantly. These GPUs are intended for things like powering large language models. As well as other applications that need tons of processing power. As TweakTown notes, many companies have moved on to using custom ASIC designs.
So what’s NVIDIA to do with all these extra B200 wafers? According to MEGAsizeGPU, the company will be repurposing it for its new RTX 50-series GPUs. With an increase in the RTX 5090 supply, more will be available for buyers who want to use the GPUs in their own rigs. Scalpers will obviously have access to this stock as well. That being said, if the stock is increased to a large enough amount, more and more will go to consumers. Leaving scalpers with fewer people to sell to.
There should be more stock of NVIDIA’s other RTX 50-series GPUs as well
So far all NVIDIA has released are the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080. Both of which are still nearly impossible to get at the moment. NVIDIA will also be releasing the RTX 5070 Ti later this month, and it will be releasing the RTX 5070 at the beginning of March. There’s a good chance that the initial stock of these two GPU models will be higher than their more powerful counterparts. Largely because of the excess B200.
Still, there’s also a chance that stock will start low. So any consumers looking to make the upgrade will want to be prepared to check out as quickly as possible.
