MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z GPUs listed on eBay for almost $27,000 — limited edition graphics card demands 500% premium from resellers

Source: Tom’s Hardware

Image credit: Tom’s Hardware

Launch and Availability

MSI’s limited‑edition RTX 5090 Lightning Z launched to great acclaim at CES 2026, with the ultra‑powerful GPU breaking overclocking records even before it hit the market. MSI produced only 1,300 units, making the card extremely scarce. Its performance is matched by a $5,090 MSRP, prompting scalpers to seek even higher resale prices.

eBay Listings and Pricing

A recent eBay listing priced the GPU at nearly £20,000 (about US$27,000). The seller’s profile mainly featured inexpensive items, raising doubts about the legitimacy of the offer.

When examining sold listings for sealed, brand‑new MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z GPUs, prices ranged from $6,700 to just over $8,800—still about $1,500 above MSI’s MSRP and more than three times the $2,000 MSRP set by Nvidia for the RTX 5090 Founders Edition. Current eBay listings for the card vary widely, from $6,000 up to nearly $15,000.

Overclocking BIOS Options

For users who prefer not to manually tune the card but still want maximum performance, MSI offers an Extreme vBIOS that can draw up to 1,000 W, roughly 200 W more than the stock OC vBIOS. Additionally, MSI released a 2,500‑W XOC BIOS exclusively for overclockers seeking every ounce of performance.

One overclocker attempted a world‑record run with the XOC BIOS, but an earlier version caused a thermal‑shock crack due to the massive power draw. The incident is detailed in this Tom’s Hardware report. Fortunately, MSI still has four more samples of the extreme GPU, allowing further development and higher benchmark results in the future.