Is there any clarity on what's driving the production constraints? Did Nvidia expect the high price of the 5090 would yield a much lower demand than they're seeing? Is it intentional by Nvidia to create a false scarcity? Is demand higher than expected (the problem during the crypto GPU scarcity)? Are there needed supply inputs that are not available, making it impossible for Nvidia to build as many as they want? Unless this is a marketing tactic to create news around high demand for the already pricey 5090, it's obviously not in Nvidia's interest to not have product to sell to people who want to give them money.
Ironically, if the tight supply was predictable for the top of the line 5090, Nvidia should have charged more than the already high $1999 -- pricing should be set to what the market wants to pay for the available volume. Higher volume would yield a lower price per card (still more total dollars to Nvidia, but lower per-unit profit). If there is room for scalpers to buy and resell at a higher price, that's a definitive sign the manufacturer price is too low. All it means is that scalpers are earning that money instead of Nvidia.
I don't like it, but I understand why scalping works for show tickets -- there is a hard limit to how many seats are available in a venue and the performer doesn't want to set crazy high prices because it makes them look bad for charging their loyal fans too much. But there is no equivalent in tech -- unlimited supply in the long run and if they have a high-end line and lower end options, there's no real backlash against the manufacturer for charging a lot at the top end.
To be fair, at the shorter end of the wait, 3 weeks, that's a pretty reasonable lag for a new product.
Question for people who follow this closely, why don't retailers just offer wait lists (or do some)? I don't understand the sales model where scalpers or whoever is fast enough to grab a card the moment they're released effectively gets priority on the cards. Why don't they just have a list for hot items, give customers 1 day (or some other short but reasonable time) to confirm order when stock is available, and just work their way down the list. This seems like such a trivially simple problem to solve, and yet I don't see anyone doing this. I myself have paid extra to a scalper to get hot tech. I did not like that. I would have happily waited a few more weeks if I had known my spot in line was secured.
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