- Amazon is doing some exclusive NVIDIA or AMD GPU models
- A handful of RTX 5000 and RX 9070 models enter this category
- The idea is to stop students, or at least launch another obstacle on their way
Amazon seems to have made some changes that mean that those who are main members have a better opportunity to buy one of the new AMD or NVIDIA GPUs.
As it cannot have failed to notice, since they launched, it has been a painful fight for the stock when it comes to Nvidia Blackwell and AMD RDNA 4 graphics cards, and the possible buyers find it very difficult to ensure a GPU.
Club386 was acute enough to catch (through Tom Hardware) that Amazon in the USA. Now it has some RTX 5000 or RX 9070 models marked as “reserved” for prime members. If you have logged into your Amazon account and is a main subscriber, you will see these GPUs available to buy. But if you are not a main member, you will not see them.
It is also worth noting that you may not realize that these are main exclusive, since that is not marked for those who are connected, they only see that the GPU is on sale.
To give it a quick example, if you look for RTX 5080 models at Amazon (USA), you will see that the ASTRAL ASTRAL GEFORCE RTX 5080 OC edition is an exclusive for main subscribers, as well as the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5080 Gaming OC.
In those pages, those who are not main members will see a box to ‘join Prime’ instead of the usual options of ‘add to the cart’ or ‘buy now’ (for those GPUs that are in stock, of course).
There are still more of these (relatively) new NVIDIA or AMD GPU available for all than the models reserved for prime members, granted, but there are more than a handful of the latter.
Analysis: Prime Movers
What is the reasoning behind this? Well, it is another way of tempting people to enroll in a main membership, of course, but it is also a defensive measure against resellers.
The types of price scale that seek to buy MSRP level graphics cards, or models at more affordable prices, as soon as they arrive in stock, to resell for earnings are a scourge in the world of the GPU. They have made it particularly difficult to obtain the most expensive GPUs (NVIDIA models in general), since they can be prepared for even more ridiculous prices, and we have seen exactly this happening at the auction sites this year.
Require a main membership for certain graphics cards at least protect them from some coatings that, in general, have probably not bothered to subscribe to Prime. (Although that does not mean that some that price gougers will not, of course, or that they cannot register there and then).
Even so, this should make it a little easier for members to take a GPU. At this time, for example, there is an Overcked RTX 5070 of ASUS edition available for prime members to $ 700. That is still a room over the MSRP, but there will always be a premium for overclocked models, and in that sense, it does not seem like a terrible purchase. (Or I would not do it if the RTX 5070 was a better GPU in general, but unfortunately, it is not enough what Nvidia has achieved with other Blackwell GPU).
On the AMD side, equally unfortunately, more affordable RX 9070 GPU are simply not available at Amazon, although they have been very recently, as Club386 stood out. They can appear once again in a short time, hopefully, and the situation with Nvidia Blackwell graphics cards certainly seems to be improving (I dare to say it) in Amazon.
From what I can say, this is a scheme only in the US for now, and certainly Amazon in the United Kingdom is not executing it (at least not yet, at the time of writing).
