Over one and a half months into Blackwell’s lifecycle, Nvidia still hasn’t managed to fix its supply-chain woes. Scalpers are still prevalent despite rumors of improved supply, which has frustrated many customers. Beyond customers, this problem also extends to system integrators, as underlined by PowerGPU, which described the numerous challenges they faced in securing RTX 5090 supply. Addressing allegations of price-gouging in a recent video on X, PowerGPU’s CEO, Jese Martinez, revealed they, too, are victims of scalping from distributors.
“I want people to know that at PowerGPU, when we’re giving you these prices of these 5090s, it’s not that we’re scalping you, it’s not that we’re raising the prices on these GPUs to the point that we’re making this crazy margin. It’s because we’re literally getting these GPUs sold to us at crazy prices,” explains Martinez.
Nvidia recently claimed it shipped 2X more Blackwell GPUs than Ada Lovelace GPUs five weeks after launch, which is, quite frankly, misleading. What the end customer sees is not some superficial metric from Nvidia but the fact that they have been unable to secure an RTX 50 GPU at MSRP since launch. AMD fared somewhat better than Nvidia with its Radeon RX 9070 series launch, but that’s setting the bar relatively low.
This widespread unavailability of GPUs has negatively affected the reputation of system integrators, who’ve been accused of exorbitant pricing. PowerGPU’s CEO revealed that even system integrators, let alone individuals, are being scalped through their distribution channels.
The company endured a two-to-three-week wait for the first RTX 5090 batch, and supply has since remained scarce. In fact, a recent inventory update shot reveals 70 or so RX 9070 series GPUs piled up versus one—just one RTX 5090 unit on Nvidia’s end.