- MSI’s RTX 5090 Lightning can only be purchased through a lottery system in the US.
- Therefore, some buyers take advantage of this and resell the GPU for between $8,000 and $15,000 on eBay.
- It’s cheaper to buy the RTX 5090 Lightning in the UK and pay for shipping and import, but whichever way you look at it, you’re losing a small fortune.
Have you ever thought about spending the better part of ten thousand dollars on a GPU? If you’re thinking of buying MSI’s latest Nvidia graphics card, which is a new premium version of Blackwell’s flagship, you’d better prepare yourself for a price that will destroy your wallet.
VideoCardz found that MSI’s RTX 5090 Lightning Z graphics card has a truly eye-watering price for US buyers, who would be better off importing the GPU from the UK.
The problem with the RTX 5090 Lightning is that it is a limited edition graphics card, of which no more than 1,000 units have been manufactured for global distribution to the purchasing public. In the US, the hardest part is that the Lightning can only be purchased through a lottery, which means you have to win the chance to buy this graphics card at its retail price, which is $5,090 (see what they did there?) in the US.
So, as expected, what has happened is that those who have earned the opportunity to buy the RTX 5090 Lightning have done so, but with the aim of trying to resell the GPU on eBay (or other markets) to those who really want this card, but have not managed to win the aforementioned lottery.
As you can imagine, the Lightning’s markup is ugly, with current prices on eBay ranging from $8,000 to $15,000.
Now, as VideoCardz points out, for GPU enthusiasts in the US, there’s a better approach here instead of buying one of those products listed on eBay, which is to look at UK retailers (where there’s no lottery system).
At the time of writing, Overclockers UK, one of the country’s largest custom PC builders and component sellers, has MSI’s RTX 5090 Lightning in stock and ready to ship for £5,000. For a buyer in the US, that’s currently equivalent to around $6,800, so even after shipping and import costs, it’ll still be a lot cheaper than shelling out $8,000 (or even a lot more).
Analysis: Take advantage of the lightning bolt, or not, and buy a full RTX 5090 gaming PC instead
Of course, in the scenario presented, there are support issues if something goes wrong with the GPU for a US buyer using a UK retailer. But there would still be support issues with an eBay seller (some of which are overseas anyway, for example one of those RTX 5090 Lightning graphics cards ships from Germany).
Of course, there’s a bigger problem here, which is simply: why would you want to pay so much for a GPU anyway, even a flash RTX 5090? Admittedly, the RTX 5090 Lightning is certainly an excellent overclocker (it’s “built to handle 1000W loads with absolute stability”) and is an impressive-looking creation (with a built-in 8-inch display, no less).
But the prices circulating are simply ridiculous, as is, frankly, the recommended retail price, wherever you can get the GPU at that level (not in the US, as noted). $5,090 is still more than 40% more expensive than the most affordable RTX 5090 on Newegg currently (which costs $3,600, and yes, prices have skyrocketed with the flagship model overall). And unless you’re a really hardcore overclocker, or just want to show off the GPU, that’s a very painful premium for Lightning, even at the MSRP.
More specifically, for five thousand dollars you can buy a complete gaming PC with high-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 the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor with 32 GB of DDR5 RAM (which is also very expensive these days) and a 2 TB SSD.
Or a liquid-cooled Alienware Area-51 PC (as shown in the image above) can be configured with the same specs for the CPU (Intel 285K), GPU (RTX 5090), and RAM (32GB), plus a 1TB SSD, priced at $4,650 at the time of writing, which is 10% less than the cost of MSI’s RTX 5090 Lightning. I know what purchase I would make: none of the above, but if I had that kind of budget for my PC gaming, it would probably be the Alienware machine.
The best graphics cards for all budgets
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to receive news, reviews and opinions from our experts in your feeds. Be sure to click the Follow button!
And of course, you can also follow TechRadar on YouTube and tiktok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form and receive regular updates from us on WhatsApp also.
