Nvidia may be killing off the RTX 5090 as AI chips take priority over gaming GPUs

[Alfonso Maruccia]

A Failing Industry: Nvidia has reportedly decided to kill its flagship offering in the latest generation of GeForce gaming GPUs. The GeForce RTX 5090 will soon disappear from the market, leakers claim, because the world's most valuable semiconductor designer is going to make much more money off data center AI accelerators.

According to MEGAsizeGPU, Nvidia has "confirmed" that the GB202 chip will not be used to build new RTX 5090 cards anymore. All future GB202 supplies are going to be exclusively used to make more RTX Pro Blackwell-based models, the leaker later confirmed with a new tweet.

Nvidia's alleged decision to remove the RTX 5090 from the market was reiterated by a second leaker known as Hongxing2020. In particular, Hongxing2020 said that Huang's corporation is already preparing a replacement, namely a new GeForce RTX 5080 model equipped with a massive 24GB VRAM frame buffer.

Hongxing2020's leak allegedly stems from a factory notice Nvidia sent to its manufacturing partners. The reported decision also affects the China-exclusive "D" variants of the GeForce RTX 5090. Either way, these remain unconfirmed and rather "wild" rumors. So far, Nvidia has neither confirmed nor denied what would be one of the most significant shifts in its gaming GPU lineup.

Nvidia released the GeForce RTX 5090 in January 2025, alongside the more "affordable" RTX 5070 and RTX 5080 models. While graphics technology continues to evolve, the mighty Blackwell flagship remains the performance king for extreme gaming hardware and high-resolution setups.

Needless to say, the GB202-based card is also one of the most expensive pieces of computer hardware money can buy right now. The GeForce RTX 5090 is selling for thousands of dollars and then some, putting it out of reach for all but a small fraction of gamers. And yet, a Blackwell-based RTX Pro card can cost tens of thousands of dollars when configured for servers and AI-focused workstations.

If the rumors are true, the upcoming 24GB GeForce RTX 5080 might be the actual retail version of the Blackwell "Super" GeForce model everyone has been talking about for months. Rumors about such a card surfaced even before Blackwell's official debut. However, the explosive growth of the AI industry is forcing IT companies to rethink their business strategies for the foreseeable future.

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Nvidia may be killing off the RTX 5090 as AI chips take priority over gaming GPUs

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Now que the hordes of people who couldn't afford 5090s and constantly whine about how evil Nvidia is proceed to crash out because the card they couldn't buy is being discontinued.

 

[The Talking Tech]

Greed...no doubt about it.

And as long this presidential administration continues to allow data centers go rampant, every tech company will prioritize A.I over anything causing already manufactured products to keep increasing in price.

Just to think people made a big deal over the price of eggs a couple of years ago.

 

[opckieran]

Honestly surprised it took them this long to do this. Wafers aren't cheap.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

At it's current pricing, the 5090 so out of mainstream reach as to be irrelevant to gamers anyway.

Honestly, I'd be happy to see it drop off the game performance charts to encourage a bit more optimization from devs.

And I say that as a 5080 owner (but also someone that waited for the 5080 to dip below a grand to buy it).

 

[DrSuess]

If AMD doesn't follow suit they will lock up the high end GPU market.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Waitaminiute.

If the 5080 is Nvidia's best available card now, did they just let AMD back into competition for the best high-end card by default with the 9070 XT? It's only like 5-15% slower.

 

[yRaz]

If AMD doesn't follow suit they will lock up the high end GPU market.

A whole 2% of the market....

 

[Chris Rchr]

I must be the only one who thinks the 5090 was never a gaming GPU, but rather a showcase piece—much like the Titan series—designed to show off who has the biggest... load of crap, paying a fortune for very little extra performance.

 

[maxxcool7421]

If AMD doesn't follow suit they will lock up the high end GPU market.

AMD is already going to do the same thing, a MI400 series chip earn 67,000$ per chip ... a lowly sad pathetic 9070 only earns 170$ per die.

AMD already canceled all 9080's ..

2028 there will only be 9,000$ halo gpus for sale. everything else will be integrated gpus. but even then why make a sad little tiny cpu that only earns 300$ a die when the same silicon can make 67,000$ per die.

hope you like 2500$ playstations.

 

[godrilla]

I must be the only one who thinks the 5090 was never a gaming GPU, but rather a showcase piece—much like the Titan series—designed to show off who has the biggest... load of crap, paying a fortune for very little extra performance.

Just because ai became a current thing doesn't mean the enthusiast market just vanished. Here is the delta difference in the latest 2 titles that were dropped with Nvidia's own features in terms of performance scaling.