At PAX West in Seattle, Washington, Nvidia is offering a selection of its Founders Edition graphics cards at list price while supplies last. The company has RTX 5070, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090 models available in person, bundled with packs of GeForce Trading Cards Series 1. Jacob Freeman, GeForce Evangelist at Nvidia, announced the effort on X, inviting attendees to “come find me” if they want a card at MSRP.
The in-person sales are an extension of Nvidia’s Verified Priority Access (VPA) program, a lottery system for Founders Edition cards first launched in 2022 for the RTX 40-series. It returned in 2025 for RTX 50-series GPUs. While gamers can still register online, Nvidia has increasingly favored selling MSRP cards at live events. The company ran a similar operation last month at QuakeCon in Austin, Texas.
Why MSRP Access Matters Right Now
The list-price availability arrives as prices for Nvidia’s top-end cards climb sharply. The RTX 5090, which carries a EUR 1,720 MSRP, now regularly lists for more than EUR 4,302 online. The card has become a focal point thanks to its 32GB of GDDR7 memory, which makes it well suited for flagship gaming and relatively low-cost local AI inference.
Earlier this month, median list prices for RTX 50-series GPUs jumped by as much as 39%, following reports of regional price increases outside the United States. The middle of Nvidia’s Blackwell lineup took the hardest hit, with the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB rising 29% and the RTX 5070 climbing 36%.
The RTX 5090 has continued rising even after that spike. At the time of the initial increase, the median price sat at EUR 4,044. Buyers now spend at least EUR 4,302 for one online. Lower prices are available for shoppers near a Micro Center, where some models have dropped to as low as EUR 3,614.
DLSS 5 Expands to Older RTX Cards
Nvidia this week launched DLSS 5 for RTX 50-series GPUs in NBA 2K27. The release followed a leaked DLL that allowed modders to enable Neural Rendering in nearly any game. Within days, the community got DLSS 5 running on RTX 40-series and even older RTX 30-series cards, though performance on the latter was unplayable. Nvidia says it plans to bring official DLSS 5 support to RTX 40-series GPUs at a later date.
Nvidia does not have a dedicated booth at PAX West 2026, but several partners do, including Starforge Systems, Razer, and Lenovo. Freeman said he will post updates on X detailing where and when attendees can find him and the available cards.
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Image: tomshardware.com
