Like other GPU buyers, Sean Wilson woke up early on launch day to buy an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090. But the Seattle-area resident had an advantage: He had access to a “cook group”—or a chatroom for scalpers—to help him nab the product.
“I thought that it would be worthwhile to join them so that I could increase my chances of getting a 5090,” he tells PCMag.
The GPU sold out instantly on Jan. 30, but despite the odds, Wilson snagged one with the help of early notifications from his cook group, “House of Carts,” which was closely monitoring Best Buy’s site. “I do feel that HOC provided an edge over normal consumers, as we were able to coordinate things and had notifications come up for restocks that were occurring in waves,” he says.
The RTX 5090 Founders Edition remains hard to find nearly a month after launch. (Credit: eBay)
Inside a Cook Group
Although scalping has long been frowned upon in the PC-building community, some GPU buyers have resorted to consulting with organized resellers in their quest to obtain coveted products.
“It’s 100% linked to Nvidia graphics cards,” says Christopher George, who co-owns House of Carts, a cook group that first began in 2016. His group’s membership has risen from 50 to about 400 in recent weeks. He also estimates about 30% of the new members are focused solely on buying a single Nvidia GPU, rather than becoming active resellers.
Some of these new members are also after the RTX 5090 Founders Edition, which is exclusively sold at Best Buy and costs $1,999 — making it the most affordable 5090 model. “It does seem they all want the 5090 and nothing else,” George says. “All the other 5090s have gone up in price, and people are pissed about it in our group.”
The arrival of Nvidia’s new graphics card is also reviving some interest in product scalping, which reached new heights in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and a historic graphics card supply crunch. At the time, House of Carts itself had well over 2,000 members as the release of Sony’s PlayStation 5 provided more fuel to the resale market.
Since then, scalping has died down. The PS5 is no longer scarce, and the resale market for sneakers—another major cash cow for scalpers—has plummeted. As a result, House of Carts scaled down, but more boom times may be on the horizon with the RTX 5000 series.
RTX 5090 FE models up for sale on eBay. (Credit: eBay)
Ironically, though, George doesn’t like shilling for the group, which costs $50 per month. Instead, he tells GPU buyers to keep their expectations in check when joining a cook group.
“There’s sometimes buyer’s remorse,” he says. “We don’t want you to keep spending your money [on these tools that cook groups use]. Or else you’re going to put more money into trying to get a GPU than what the product actually costs.”
Bots Don’t Always Work
Scalpers are notorious for using automated bots to help them quickly buy products from retailers. These programs can continuously scan a retailer’s site and immediately place an order when the product becomes available, beating human consumers. At times, bots can even help scalpers nab multiple units. But it’s also quite difficult to use a bot, according to George, who is advising normal consumers to steer clear of them.
For one, a bot program often requires buyers to pay $125 to $150 per month and then learn how to use the tool, making it a hefty investment. Another factor is that you won’t be alone in using the bot; you’ll have to compete with other resellers and their own bots. “Some of these guys have been doing this for five-plus years; you’re not going to beat us,” George says.
The other issue is that consumers are quick to assume that bots will buy all the products when an Nvidia GPU sells out. However, according to George, retailers such as Best Buy have been quietly implementing ways to stymie bots from completing the checkout process when a graphics card becomes available. This can include making small changes to the website’s format or input fields to confuse the bots during the checkout process, which can cause the programs to stall.
“It took them a while, but [the retailers] have put a lot of money behind their anti-bot,” he says. “One person might do well botting a site, but you could share the same setup, and another user might only score one. So it’s not really a good average as people might think.”
George posting in his cook group about obtaining an RTX 5090. FE model. (Credit: Christopher George)
In George’s case, his own bot was able to snag an RTX 5090 from Best Buy on launch day. But overall, House of Carts members had more success buying the graphics cards “manually,” using their laptops and smartphones to click through the checkout process.
That’s how Wilson bought an RTX 5090. “On launch day, my success was with using my main account and manually adding to cart and joining the ‘queue’ on Best Buy,” he tells PCMag.
Do You Really Need It?
That said, obtaining the RTX 5090 can still require some luck. To sell the GPUs, Best Buy’s site has long used a digital queue system, which essentially forces interested consumers to line up to buy the product. However, according to George, the system actually works as a raffle. Consumers who want to buy a GPU are entered into a waiting pool while the retailer checks their information. Best Buy then seems to randomly select customers from the pool to buy a GPU.
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“It’s more of an equal playing field,” George says. But the same system can also infuriate and annoy other consumers who see a sold out notice on Best Buy after waking up early to buy a GPU.
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Along with tips on botting, House of Carts also provides intel to members through web scraping, which checks when retailers are preparing to restock. But for now, the biggest hurdle facing GPU buyers is that supplies for the RTX 5090 have been so low that even scalpers have been struggling to obtain the graphics card model.
“People have really felt like they’ve been wasting their time, whether they used a bot or not,” George says, later adding: “One thing we tell people is: ‘Don’t waste your time with this. It’s just a graphics card at the end of the day.'”
It’s also why he recommends free online tools such as inventory checkers. They usually won’t be as fast as the inventory checkers from a cook group, but they can still notify you about restocks at retailers. Another alternative is to try and visit a Micro Center location in the US, where the retailer has been selling units of the RTX 5090, 5080, and 5070 Ti in stores.
“You still can get it if you put in the time and effort. But there’s an extremely limited supply even without a bot,” says another House of Carts member who goes by the name “Azoom.” He scored an RTX 5090 manually during a Best Buy restock on Feb. 12.
Azoom plans on reselling his Founders Edition RTX 5090 for $5,500, or almost three times the normal price. He sees it as a way to capitalize on a luxury product that an average PC gamer doesn’t really need. “You can live without one; that’s why it doesn’t bother me,” he says. “Obviously, we shouldn’t be reselling necessities. A 5090 is OK, and the market will eventually correct itself, and once the supply is there, you’ll be able to get one.”
In the meantime, the high resale value of the RTX 5000 cards can be hard to resist. Sean Wilson, who nabbed an RTX 5090 on launch day, plans on buying more after joining House of Carts. “Initially, I joined just to land one, but realized the resell potential and got into the botting and reselling aspect of it,” he tells PCMag.
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About Michael Kan
Senior Reporter
