How to buy a gaming GPU in 2025: Subscribe to Amazon Prime, apparently

It's no secret that supply constraints, high demand, and scalping have been a problem for recent gaming GPU launches from both AMD and Nvidia. Recently, though, some AIB partners and retailers have taken steps to thwart scalpers, often resorting to manually vetted pre-orders or direct to consumer sales, bypassing traditional retail channels entirely. Amazon seems to have taken a different approach that may prove controversial to some. 

A number of Nvidia GeForce RTX 5000 series GPUs, like this Gigabyte Windforce RTX 5070, are locked behind an Amazon Prime subscription. The same is true for the Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 9070 Gaming OC and XFX AMD Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT GPUs. Frustratingly, this doesn't seem to have helped bring down the inflated prices much, with the aforementioned RX 9070 GPUs starting at $669.99 and topping out at $789.99. The RTX 5070 is even more egregious, coming in at $819.99, as opposed to the RTX 5070's $549 MSRP. 

To be fair, this isn't the first time we've seen a retailer go the subscription route for preferencial access to new hardware. Notably, Best Buy limited GeForce RTX 3000 sales behind a $199 annual subscription. The Amazon Prime subscription in question costs $14.99 per month or $139 annually, and Amazon found itself in hot water in 2023 for predatory practices surrounding Prime memberships — specifically for making it difficult to cancel memberships and automatically enrolling customers when they did not intend to.