Poor GPU availability has forced vendors to take strict measures for selling GPUs to gamers. Although not every seller requires such a policy, we have found three such vendors who are asking for an exclusive membership.

Sapphire, XFX, And ASUS List RX 9070 XT and RTX 5070 Respectively Only for “Amazon Prime” Members, Adding One More Step to the Purchase Process

It isn’t easy to see an RTX 50 series or an RX 9070 series GPU in the majority of stores all the time. Even though the availability has become better in recent days, a lot of stores still lack enough inventory for everyone to get their hands on one of these cards easily.

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A quick search on Amazon shows that there are hardly any RX 9070 XT or RTX 50 series GPUs available at MSRP, and whenever the GPUs restock, they are bought almost immediately. Perhaps a few vendors thought it would be a good measure to introduce a new policy to ensure scalpers don’t get their hands on these limited stocks.

Sapphire, which is AMD’s board partner, has added a step for users to buy its Pulse Radeon RX 9070 XT Gaming card on Amazon. Similarly, XFX has also listed its RX 9070 XT Mercury OC edition exclusively for Prime members. As spotted by Club386, purchasing the GPU requires you to be an Amazon Prime member. An Amazon Prime subscription is a paid membership that gives you access to various deals, discounts, and some exclusive items like these.

By forcing users to have a Prime membership, vendors’ new move can somewhat limit scalping, even though it isn’t something that a scalper would not be able to bypass. ASUS has made a similar move by listing the RTX 5070 exclusively for Prime members. The membership can be bought in minutes but costs $14.99 per month or $139 per year. Amazon also offers a free one-month trial for newcomers; therefore, the GPUs can still be bought for almost zero increase in price.

Scalpers won’t mind spending another 15 bucks on a card that costs hundreds of dollars. The Pulse RX 9070 XT Gaming is listed at over $1000 and TUF RTX 5070 at over $700, which already feels like being scalped by the vendor itself. Still, considering that one would have to go through the sign-up process, it would limit the number of users wanting to buy the GPUs.

Perhaps there is no better way of improving the supply than by increasing the quantities from the very source, i.e., AMD and NVIDIA. A $600 card getting listed at $1049 is nothing but outrageous. The same is true with the NVIDIA RTX 50 series cards, which are impossible to find at MSRP.

News Source: Tomshardware