Buying overpriced goodies from a trendy food truck is one thing, but NVIDIA just took the concept to an absurd new level at GTC 2025—selling RTX 5080 and 5090 GPUs from a pop-up sales stall. Forget overpriced avocado toast; how about a graphics card for over a grand, served fresh with a side of artificial scarcity?
NVIDIA’s exclusive “food truck” deal is only available to GTC attendees, who’ve already paid a small fortune for access to the event. And no, there’s no discount for those passes. NVIDIA, ever the master of controlled supply, has just 1,000 units of each GPU on hand, selling them in small, randomized batches. It’s a strategy straight out of the luxury fashion playbook—manufacture hype by making the product scarce enough to be unattainable for most.
Predictably, this limited-access gimmick is fueling scalping concerns. When these GPUs hit the hands of “lucky” buyers, expect a flood of listings on eBay and Craigslist at even more obscene markups. In reality, NVIDIA benefits from this chaos: scalpers make the inflated MSRP look reasonable in comparison. If you thought the RTX 4090’s resale madness was terrible, buckle up—because here we go again.
Price Drops? Not So Fast.
Speaking of pricing, there’s finally a drop in the RTX 5000 series—but only in Europe, and it’s not as generous as it sounds. Due to a stronger Euro, prices have dropped slightly—€100 off the RTX 5090 and €50 off the 5080. It’s a nice gesture, but let’s not pretend it’s an act of goodwill from NVIDIA. The price cut is purely currency-driven, and gamers in other regions wonder when (or if) they’ll see similar adjustments.
But the real issue isn’t just pricing—it’s availability. Even if GPUs were priced more reasonably, the artificial scarcity would still ensure that most buyers end up empty-handed. If NVIDIA really wanted to curb scalping, it could make the ‘Verified Priority Access’ (VPA) scheme a permanent fixture, not just a temporary PR move. Restricting purchases to one per customer, tying access to longstanding accounts, and expanding the program beyond the US could all help keep GPUs in real buyers’ hands instead of resellers.
For now, though, the cycle continues: a hyped-up launch, a deliberate supply trickle, and a feeding frenzy that leaves gamers frustrated and NVIDIA laughing all the way to the bank. The food truck gimmick might be a fun spectacle, but in the end, it’s just another example of how Team Green plays the market like a well-scripted performance—leaving consumers hungry for real change.
