Jensen Huang Mania Mirrors Taylor Swift: People Are Camping Outside Retailers For Nvidia 5000 Series GPUs

NVIDIA Corp NVDA could have one of its biggest weeks in company history ahead with the launch of RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, its new graphic cards it highlighted at the 2025 CES conference.

Ahead of the release, some people are braving the cold camping out to be the first to get their hands on the latest GPUs.

What Happened: Nvidia's dominance in the semiconductor space could continue with the launch of the highly anticipated Nvidia Series 5000 GPUs expected to hit stores on Jan. 30.

With retailers already warning about limited supply for the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, computer fanatics may not be as willing to take their chances at missing out on the first-day supply at stores or leaving it up to chance by ordering online.

At least one Micro Center location in Tustin, California, has people camping outside of its store days before the launch, as reported by IGN. Micro Center is a computer retail store with 28 locations in 19 states.

Images shared on Reddit and Discord show people in tents at the front of the store. While some believe the people in the tents could be scalpers, one of the alleged campers responded to the claims on the Reddit thread.

"Hello everyone, I'm the guy that you guys are talking about in the second tent. And yes, we are buying it for our own use, no trades and no sells. We just don't want to pay for that extra $ for a gaming card and yes we do have some time on our hands because we run a business. Good luck to everyone who are trying to get one," the poster said.

The report said there are at least 10 tents located at the California Micro Center location with an estimated 24 people waiting in line for the Nvidia Series 5000 GPUs.

Micro Center discouraged people from camping outside for the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 GPUs ahead of the launch in a YouTube video due to the cold weather.

"We do discourage camping at our locations for the 5090 and 5080," Micro Center said.

While it discouraged camping out, Micro Center acknowledged people should arrive to the stores early or they could be disappointed. Purchases are limited to one graphics card per customer.

The same Tustin, California, Micro Center location also had people camp out ahead of Nvidia's launch of the RTX 3070 in 2020.

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Why It's Important: Camping out at retailers was a more common occurrence a decade ago with people lining up in tents and physical lines to buy items like video game consoles, hot toy releases, concert tickets and more.

While e-commerce trends of buying items online have taken over most industries, new graphics cards appear to be resistant to the trend, alongside Taylor Swift merchandise.

An exclusive book launched by the singer at Target Corp TGT locations on Black Friday drew lines and strong demand at the retailers' locations, echoing a trend of yesteryear where people waited for Target stores to open on the annual shopping holiday.

With a few more days before Nvidia's launch, the number of tents and people camping out could rise and show the star power of Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang.

With the growth of Amazon and other e-commerce retailers, Swift and Huang remain two of a limited number of people who can draw shoppers into physical stores and have them waiting outside before doors open.

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