- MSI’s RTX 5090 Lightning can only be purchased through a lottery system in the US
- Some buyers therefore take advantage of this and resell the GPU for between $8,000 to $15,000 on eBay
- It’s cheaper to buy the RTX 5090 Lightning from the UK and pay for shipping and import, but no matter how you slice it, you’ll be out a small fortune
Have you ever thought about dropping the better part of ten thousand on a GPU? If you’re considering a purchase of MSI’s latest Nvidia graphics card – which is a new premium spin on the Blackwell flagship – prepare yourself for a money-shattering price tag.
VideoCardz discovered that MSI’s RTX 5090 Lightning Z graphics card is priced at truly eye-popping levels for US buyers who would be better off importing the GPU from the UK.
The catch with the RTX 5090 Lightning is that it is a limited edition graphics card, with not many more than 1,000 units being made for global distribution to the buying public. In the US, the added difficulty is that the Lightning can only be purchased through a lottery, meaning you have to win the opportunity to buy this graphics card at its retail price of $5,090 (see what they did there?) in the US.
So, predictably, what has happened is that those who have won the chance to buy the RTX 5090 Lightning have done so, but with the aim of trying to resell the GPU on eBay (or other marketplaces) to those who really want this card but failed to win the aforementioned lottery.
As you can imagine, the markup on the Lightning is an ugly one, with current eBay prices ranging from $8,000 to $15,000.
Now, as VideoCardz points out, for GPU enthusiasts in the US, there is a better approach here rather than buying one of the products listed on eBay, which is to look at UK retailers instead (where there is no lottery system).
At the time of writing, Overclockers UK – one of the major custom PC manufacturers and component sellers in the country – has MSI’s RTX 5090 Lightning in stock and ready to ship for £5,000. For a buyer in the US, it currently costs around $6,800, so even after shipping and import costs, it will still be quite a bit cheaper than paying $8,000 (or actually a lot more).
Analysis: Run with lightning – or don’t and buy a full RTX 5090 gaming PC instead
Granted, in the scenario presented there are support issues if things go wrong with the GPU for a US buyer using a UK dealer. But then there would still be support issues with an eBay seller (some of which are overseas anyway, so for example one of these RTX 5090 Lightning graphics cards is shipped from Germany).
Of course, there’s a bigger problem here though, which is simply: why on earth would you want to pay that much for a GPU anyway, even a flash RTX 5090? True, the RTX 5090 Lightning is undoubtedly an excellent overclocker (it’s “built to sustain 1000W loads with absolute stability”), and it’s a great-looking creation (with a built-in 8-inch screen, no less).
But the prices floating around are just ridiculous, as is the MSRP honestly, wherever you can manage to get the GPU at that level (not in the US, as mentioned). $5,090 is still over 40% more expensive than the most affordable RTX 5090 at Newegg at the moment (which is $3,600 – and yes, prices have gone up with the flagship in general). And unless you’re a truly hardcore overclocker – or just want supreme GPU bragging rights – that’s a seriously painful premium for the Lightning even at MSRP.
More to the point, for five grand you can pick up an entire gaming PC with top-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 Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor with 32GB of DDR5 RAM and an affordable SSD these days (which is also serious these days).
Or a liquid-cooled Alienware Area-51 PC (as shown above) can be configured with the same spec 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% below the price of MSI90 RTX Lightnings. I know which purchase I would make – none of the above, but if I had that kind of budget for my PC gaming, it would definitely be the Alienware machine.
The best graphics cards for all budgets
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