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[li]Amazon is making some models of Nvidia or AMD GPUs exclusive to Prime members[/li][li]A handful of RTX 5000 and RX 9070 models fall into this category[/li][li]The idea is to stop scalpers, or at least throw another hurdle in their way[/li][/ul]
Amazon appears to have made some changes that mean those who are Prime members stand a better chance of buying one of AMD or Nvidiaâs new GPUs.
As you canât have failed to notice, since they launched, itâs been a painful scramble for stock when it comes to Nvidia Blackwell and AMD RDNA 4 graphics cards, with would-be buyers finding it very difficult to secure a GPU.
Club386 was keen-eyed enough to catch (via Tomâs Hardware) that Amazon in the US now has some RTX 5000 or RX 9070 models marked as âreservedâ for Prime members. If youâre logged into your Amazon account and are a Prime subscriber, youâll see these GPUs available to buy. But if you arenât a Prime member, you wonât see them.
Itâs also worth noting that you may not realize that these are Prime exclusives, as that isnât flagged for those who are logged in â they just see that the GPU is on sale.
To give you a quick example, if you search for RTX 5080 models on Amazon (US), youâll see that the Asus ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 OC Edition is an exclusive for Prime subscribers, as is the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5080 Gaming OC.
On those pages, those who arenât Prime members will see a box to âJoin Primeâ instead of the usual âAdd to cartâ or âBuy nowâ options (for those GPUs which are in stock, of course).
There are still more of these (relatively) new Nvidia or AMD GPUs available to everyone than reserved models for Prime members, granted â but thereâs more than a handful of the latter.
[IMG alt=âAn RTX 5070 Ti vs RX 9070 XT against a two-tone techradar backgroundâ]https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/H8...VXLNNrXJTf.jpg
(Image credit: Future / Asus / AMD)
[HEADING=1]Analysis: Prime movers[/HEADING]
Whatâs the reasoning behind this? Well, itâs another way of tempting folks to sign up for a Prime membership, of course, but itâs also a defensive measure against scalpers.
Price scalping types looking to buy MSRP level graphics cards â or more affordably priced models â as soon as they come in stock, to resell in order to make a profit are a scourge on the GPU world. Theyâve made it particularly hard to get hold of more expensive GPUs (Nvidia models in the main), as they can be jacked up to even more ridiculous prices, and weâve seen exactly this happening on auction sites this year.
Requiring a Prime membership for certain graphics cards at least shields them from some scalpers who, in the main, probably havenât bothered subscribing to Prime. (Although thatâs not to say some price gougers wonât, of course â or that they canât sign up there and then).
Still, this should make it a little bit easier for Prime members to grab a GPU. Right now, for example, thereâs an RTX 5070 overclocked edition from Asus available for Prime members at $700. Thatâs still a quarter over the MSRP, but thereâs always going to be a premium for overclocked models, and in that light, it doesnât look like a terrible buy. (Or it wouldnât if the RTX 5070 was a better GPU in general, but sadly, it falls well short of what Nvidia has managed with other Blackwell GPUs).
On the AMD side, equally sadly, more affordable RX 9070 GPUs just arenât available at Amazon currently, although they have been very recently, as Club386 highlighted. They may turn up once again before long, with any luck, and the situation with Nvidiaâs Blackwell graphics cards certainly seems to be improving (dare I say it) on Amazon.
As far as I can tell, this is a US-only scheme for now, and certainly Amazon in the UK isnât running it (at least not yet, at the time of writing).
[HEADING=2]You might also like[/HEADING]
[ul]
[li]Lenovo accidentally leaks Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti and 5060 models in a desktop PC, suggesting these GPUs are close to release[/li][li]If the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT comes with a sub-$400 price tag, it might be the best-value graphics card PC gamers have ever seen[/li][li]AMD could be working on a faster RX 9070 Extreme graphics card[/li][/ul]
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