Nvidia insists all RTX 50-series GPUs will ‘continue to ship’ — here’s what that actually means

Well, it’s been an interesting 24 hours for the best Nvidia graphics cards. To catch you up, the RAM price crisis has hit the computing industry hard — AI data center demand is eating up a lot of the supply, which is impacting how much you pay for your tech.

And as was reported yesterday, Asus had allegedly placed the RTX 5070 Ti into End of Life (EoL) status. Then, Nvidia commented saying that the company will “continue to ship” all RTX 50-series GPUs, and Asus walked back its statement.

This was then followed up on again by Moore’s Law Is Dead with a report that claims that Nvidia has killed the “RTX 5080, 5070, 5060 Ti to supply AI bubble! (Laptops Included).” Here’s a timeline of everything that happened, how we got here and what my advice to you is right now.

How it started

The RTX 5070 Ti Has... Maybe? Been Killed Off (Update) - YouTube

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As we originally reported yesterday, Hardware Unboxed reported that Asus had effectively killed its RTX 5070 Ti, as Nvidia was realigning memory prioritization to its AI data center business.

This is reportedly part of a bigger move to prioritize more performant consumer GPUs with the same amount of memory. An example from HEKPC makes this clear: “When two different models, such as the RTX 5060 8GB and RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, share the same memory capacity, the higher-tier model (the RTX 5060 Ti) will be prioritized for supply.”

Not only is the RTX 5070 Ti brought into question, but also the RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB VRAM — with the connection being made to the RTX 5080 sporting the same amount of memory.

You’ve seen PC gaming come under real pressure, as AI companies snap up a significant chunk of the memory allocation. Looking further back, this started with the RTX 50-series being potentially scrapped outright. Talking to companies on the CES 2026 show floor, it seemed clear to me that the expectation was for new GPUs, but they didn’t materialize.

The follow-ups

This is where it gets a little messy. We reached out to Nvidia for comment, and Team Green confirmed that the company will “continue to ship all GeForce SKUs and are working closely with our suppliers to maximize memory availability."

Hardware Unboxed also got a clarifying statement from Asus walking back their original comments.

“The GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB have not been discontinued or designated as end-of-life (EOL),” the statement reads. “Current fluctuations in supply for both products are primarily due to memory supply constraints, which have temporarily affected production output and restocking cycles.”

This, in Asus’ words, will result in supply appearing “limited in certain markets.” So to quote the timeline of this story directly from Hardware Unboxed’s X post:

1. We request RTX 5070 Ti samples from Asus (and other partners).
2. An Asus PR rep looks into it, comes back and says they cannot provide 5070 Tis due to supply constraints, saying their models are “end of life.”
3. We ask Asus to clarify whether the RTX 5070 Ti is end of life. They confirm it’s end of life.
4. We reach out to retailers to see whether they can purchase RTX 5070 Ti stock for their stores, to fact-check Asus’ claims. They say there is no supply.
5. Given we have received an on the record statement from Asus and confirmed the supply constraints with retailers, we publish a video with this information.
6. Nvidia says all GeForce SKUs are being shipped.
7. Asus reaches out to clarify that Nvidia told Asus that the RTX 5070 Ti is not end of life, but that Asus are “streamlining some models.”
8. We publish that statement.
9. Asus reaches out again to provide another statement (the third statement we’ve received from Asus), now saying the 5070 Ti is not discontinued or end of life. This directly contradicts the original statement.
10. We immediately request RTX 5070 Ti samples now that the cards are not discontinued or end of life. We haven’t heard back yet.

And those memory supply constraints can be felt in some of the price variations. Our friends at Tom’s Hardware have been tracking the street prices vs MSRPs, and have spotted RTX 50-series going up by as much as 32%.

It could be worse

Plot twist. More reports came out during this period of time, too. First, according to MEGAsizeGPU (and reported by Tom’s Hardware), Nvidia has allegedly slashed GPU supply by 15-20%, and there won’t be any new GeForce cards until 2027.

While it’s easy to connect this potential drought to the above price jump I mentioned above, this could also be to do with panic buying surrounding this evolving story. But in a world of supply and demand where the demand is outstripping the supply (and could be made worse based on this rumor), prices could continue to go up.

Nvidia KILLS RTX 5080, 5070, 5060 Ti to Supply AI Bubble! (Laptops Included) - YouTube

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Then, Moore’s Law Is Dead posted a video saying that “the reports are true.” According to the video, the presenter, Tom, had spoken to his sources close to the matter and found out that it is “not just the 5060 Ti 16GB nor the 5070 Ti 16GB.”

Instead, he claims that Nvidia is “basically exiting high-end PC gaming in 2026.” Anything with more than 8GB of VRAM is “having its supply throttled,” and this isn’t just limited to desktop GPUs. A couple of sources have told Tom that “even laptops with dedicated Nvidia graphics cards” are “receiving far fewer shipments.”

One final note: he also confirms the reports of the RTX 3060 12GB coming back are true — “some retailers” have told him that “they just got a fresh shipment” of these GPUs that launched back in 2021.

Our take (and advice to you)

In our Q&A session with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, he talked about this challenge in two ways. First, he mentioned how the company is a “significant consumer” of GDDR video memory for graphics cards and has been “planning that out with all our suppliers for quite some time.”

And Paul Alcorn from Tom’s Hardware asked a question about bringing back old GPUs, to which Jensen said this is a “good idea” — highlighting that “we could bring the latest generation AI technology to the previous generation GPUs.”

But let’s get down to brass tacks. What does this actually mean for you? There’s a lot of people saying a lot of different things, but one thing is clear: RAMageddon has come for GPUs.

Dramatic wording aside, you’ve got two choices if you’re in the market:

• Buy now while the prices are a little inflated.
• Wait it out and hope that price comes down, but you’ll be waiting a while.

I’m not going to give a take one way or the other on the evolving situation — this is just a timeline of events. One thing is clear: AI looks set to impact what you pay for PCs in a big way.

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