Nvidia brings back scalper-beating Verified Priority Access program for RTX 50 Founders Edition GPUs

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It's back.

Where to buy RTX 5080
(Image credit: Future)

Nvidia this week launched its Verified Priority Access for the GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition and GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition add-in-boards allowing a limited number of verified U.S. customers to purchase some of the best graphics cards directly from the Nvidia Marketplace without any hassle. 

To qualify, users must have an Nvidia Account created before January 30, 2025 and submit their interest through a form. Selected users will receive email notifications sometimes next week and will be able to purchase Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition and GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition boards at MSRPs — $999 and 1999, respectively — without having to pay a premium to retailers or scalpers. 

By launching its Verified Priority Access program, Nvidia ensures that some — we do not know how many though — of its loyal customers will be able to lay their hands on its latest products without having to pay extra or camp near traditional retailers. Considering that these people are loyal GeForce users and registered at Nvidia's forums, the green company can fully expect them to spread the word how good the GeForce RTX 5080 and GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards are in the forums, which will work as advertising and will to some degree reassure the gamers crowd that the latest AIBs from Nvidia are available relatively widely. 

As an added bonus, Nvidia will be able to sell its own Founders Edition graphics cards directly to gamers, thus earning some additional cash and not sharing the profit with its add-in-board partners as the VPA program does not cover products even from the close allies of Nvidia in the U.S., such as Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, or PNY.

This Verified Priority Access program is currently limited to U.S. users and applies only to the lates GeForce RTX 5080 and RTX 5080 Founders Edition models. It is unclear whether Nvidia also plans to launch its VPA program for its GeForce RTX 5070 Ti FE when and if it becomes available. 

This is not the first time when Nvidia launches its Verified Priority Access program with its range-topping graphics cards. In 2022 the company already offered such a program for its GeForce RTX 4090. Later on the company expanded it with GeForce RTX 4080 and with products by its AIB partners.

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Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • JTWrenn
    It's a LITTLE late for THAT!
    Reply
  • nogaard777
    JTWrenn said:
    It's a LITTLE late for THAT!
    We're only a couple weeks out from launch. Give it some time. Literally every new release gets scalped these days. Even the B580 and that's an entry level card. At least Nvidia is pretending to care about gamers and that's more than you can say about Newegg conning thousands of people to create accounts and give up their data so they can spam your email with overpriced PC components, just for the chance that they'll sell you a GPU at scalper prices. How anyone still uses Newegg is beyond me.

    The program actually makes sense as Nvidia isn't losing out any profit by ensuring the cards go to gamers instead of scalpers that buy out Best Buy's stock.

    I signed up for it but only because I'd already planned on buying a 4080 super anyways, but didn't when prices shot up with the lack of supply, although I refuse to pay a penny over $999 for it. If I get picked I guess I'll buy a 5080. If not I'll just wait and see what happens with the 9070xt. No big deal.
    Reply
  • derekullo
    Our text books do say that past the Gulf of America it's just a barren wasteland!
    Reply
  • Mathrawkee
    Oh good. Now, if only I were independantly wealthy, then maybe I could spend a small nation's GDP to cop a gfx adapter...
    Reply
  • Mathrawkee
    nogaard777 said:
    We're only a couple weeks out from launch. Give it some time. Literally every new release gets scalped these days. Even the B580 and that's an entry level card. At least Nvidia is pretending to care about gamers and that's more than you can say about Newegg conning thousands of people to create accounts and give up their data so they can spam your email with overpriced PC components, just for the chance that they'll sell you a GPU at scalper prices. How anyone still uses Newegg is beyond me.

    The program actually makes sense as Nvidia isn't losing out any profit by ensuring the cards go to gamers instead of scalpers that buy out Best Buy's stock.

    I signed up for it but only because I'd already planned on buying a 4080 super anyways, but didn't when prices shot up with the lack of supply, although I refuse to pay a penny over $999 for it. If I get picked I guess I'll buy a 5080. If not I'll just wait and see what happens with the 9070xt. No big deal.
    Newegg are a retailer. They care about monies. Nvidia, on the other hand, should very much be concerned that their market base are being fleeced. Your 'no big deal' is a very privileged position, coming from someone who builds ENTIRE COMPUTERS for the cost of one of these stupid cards
    Reply
  • wr3zzz
    So the rumor huge surge of supply is true then...
    Reply
  • aberkae
    wr3zzz said:
    So the rumor huge surge of supply is true then...
    Only if you do Nvidia math. Why go for 1x the margins when you can get 10x the margins with 1/10 of the supply. Nvidia math 101. 🤪
    Reply
  • JTWrenn
    nogaard777 said:
    We're only a couple weeks out from launch. Give it some time. Literally every new release gets scalped these days. Even the B580 and that's an entry level card. At least Nvidia is pretending to care about gamers and that's more than you can say about Newegg conning thousands of people to create accounts and give up their data so they can spam your email with overpriced PC components, just for the chance that they'll sell you a GPU at scalper prices. How anyone still uses Newegg is beyond me.

    The program actually makes sense as Nvidia isn't losing out any profit by ensuring the cards go to gamers instead of scalpers that buy out Best Buy's stock.

    I signed up for it but only because I'd already planned on buying a 4080 super anyways, but didn't when prices shot up with the lack of supply, although I refuse to pay a penny over $999 for it. If I get picked I guess I'll buy a 5080. If not I'll just wait and see what happens with the 9070xt. No big deal.
    Totally missed my point. This should have been in place at launch, not after the initial scalper rush. It was also a joke, but oh well.
    Reply
  • passivecool
    Write something nice to your mother.
    Grab the phone and call up an old friend to whom you have not spoken for years.
    Dust off that book you never got around to reading.
    Help a neighbor.
    Any one of these things just might improve your life more than an additional +12,4%FPS
    and none of them cost an additional $1000.
    It is free of cost to leave the hamster wheel of +pixels + frames +pixels + frames...
    /dadlecture
    Reply
  • nogaard777
    Mathrawkee said:
    Newegg are a retailer. They care about monies. Nvidia, on the other hand, should very much be concerned that their market base are being fleeced. Your 'no big deal' is a very privileged position, coming from someone who builds ENTIRE COMPUTERS for the cost of one of these stupid cards
    That "no big deal" means in the end I don't care if I buy another GPU or not, because I refuse to get ripped off.
    Reply