Best Buy creates the GPU pricing meme nobody asked for, so here's the sadly inevitable Nvidia RTX 5090 for $5090

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds — (Image credit: Future)

This is definitely not a trend we want to see develop: graphics cards with pricing to match their model numbers. But it's happened, all the same. The MSI Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 32G LIGHTNING Z Liquid Cooled Graphics Card is up on Best Buy for $5090.

Okay, it's actually $5090.99. Apparently, the draw of the extra $0.99 is so strong it partially trumped what must have been an intentional gag by whoever priced this thing up.

An MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G Lightning Z graphics card on display at CES 2026 — We've eyeballed this water-cooled monster, previously. (Image credit: Future)

Of course, even if intentional (likely) and a real price (quite possibly), what this mainly does is just underline the fact that the brief period where GPU prices normalised, at least relative to official MSRPs, is now firmly behind us.

You can check out our current best graphics card deals here. We're not actually listing any RTX 5090s right now on account of the painful pricing. But even so, the cheapest RTX 5080 is over $1,300. And a 5060 Ti 16 GB starts at $520. Ouch.

Long story short, pretty much nothing is available at MSRP. And as things stand, what with the AI industry planning to spend even more on hardware this year, it's hard to see how that gets better, not worse, any time soon. Bleh.

Best graphics card 2026

1. Best overall: AMD Radeon RX 9070

2. Best value: AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB

3. Best budget: Intel Arc B570

4. Best mid-range: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti

5. Best high-end: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090

👉Check out our full graphics card guide👈

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Jeremy has been writing about technology and PCs since the 90nm Netburst era (Google it!) and enjoys nothing more than a serious dissertation on the finer points of monitor input lag and overshoot followed by a forensic examination of advanced lithography. Or maybe he just likes machines that go “ping!” He also has a thing for tennis and cars.

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