In less than an hour after going on sale last week, Nvidias latest GeForce RTX 5080 and 5090 graphics cards have all disappeared from physical and online retailers across the U.S. The inventory dried up so fast that it seems like Nvidia may not have had many to sell in the first place, which has prompted people to start calling it a paper launch.Before the launch last week, Nvidias head of GeForce community Tim Adams warned everyone that the new GPUs might be hard to find: We expect significant demand for the GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 and believe stock-outs may happen.And they absolutely were, because both 50-series graphics cards sold out on Amazon, Micro Center, Best Buy, and Newegg as soon as they went live. Newegg said it experienced an overwhelming response and sold its inventory within minutes, according to a news release last Friday.PC hardware YouTuber Gamers Nexus reported that one of the biggest U.S. system integrators, or companies that put together pre-built PCs, had a single RTX 5090 on launch day and only received a small shipment of them later that same day. Another company had 20 cards that it sold via pre-builts in three minutes.A banner at the top of the Micro Center website says its working hard to restock more Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs, and to check back regularly. But it might be a while before theyre available again. U.K. retailer Overclockers UK doesnt expect to have the RTX 5080 again for two to six weeks, and the RTX 5090 for another three to 16 weeks. A Reddit user who managed to get an RTX 5090 at Best Buy isnt expected to get it until Feb. 21, which suggests US retailers are in the same boat.Whether or not Nvidia had any cards to sell in the first place remains unclear, but the demand is clearly high for the 50-series. According to the Steam hardware survey results for January 2025, most of its users play games on RTX 3060s, a GPU two generations behind. Modern games like Dragon Age: The Veilguard still recommend older GPUs, however upcoming games like Avowed and Monster Hunter: Wilds are starting to recommend 40-series cards to utilize ray-tracing. For all the people who felt the supply shortages and price inflation during the early years of COVID, this wouldve been a great time to upgrade your graphics card if there were any left to buy.