TECH NEWS – AMD Radeon RX 9070 and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5000 graphics cards are reserved for Amazon Prime members.

The poor availability of the new architecture graphics cards (AMD: RDNA 4, Nvidia: Blackwell) has forced the manufacturers to take strict measures to sell the GPUs to gamers. Not all sellers are following this policy, with three sellers found by WCCFTech actually requiring buyers to become Amazon Prime members. This is no coincidence, as it’s not easy to come across RTX 5000 or RX 9070 graphics cards. Although availability has improved in recent days, many stores still don’t have enough stock to make it easy for everyone to get one.

A quick search on Amazon shows that there are hardly any RX 9070 XT or RTX 5000 cards available at MSRP, and when they do come back in stock, they are snapped up almost immediately. Perhaps some manufacturers thought it would be a good idea to implement a new policy to prevent scalpers from accessing these limited supplies. Sapphire, AMD’s board partner, has stepped in to allow users to buy its Pulse Radeon RX 9070 XT gaming card on Amazon. Similarly, XFX has listed its RX 9070 XT Mercury OC exclusively for Amazon Prime members. Asus made a similar move by listing the RTX 5070 for Prime members only.

An Amazon Prime subscription is a paid membership that gives you access to various offers, discounts, and some of these exclusive products. By requiring users to have a Prime membership, the sellers’ new move may limit scalpers somewhat, but they can still subscribe, which would be the same. Memberships can be purchased in minutes, but cost $15 per month and $140 per year. Amazon is also offering a one-month free trial for new members, so GPUs can still be purchased at a near-zero price increase.

Yes, but for the scalpers, that $15 isn’t a loss when you’re spending hundreds of dollars on a card (and there are certainly that many profit margins). The Pulse RX 9070 XT Gaming is available for over $1000 and the TUF RTX 5070 for over $700, which might feel like scalping to the seller. But you’d also have to go through the registration process, and that might limit the number of users willing to buy the GPUs.

It’s annoying when they try to sell a $600 card for $1,050. That is almost double the price!

Source: WCCFTech