The counter at Micro Center has a new step for anyone buying an RTX 5090.
A buyer collecting a pre-built PC with a 5090 inside was handed a declaration to sign, promising the card would not be shipped overseas, and a driver's license to scan.
Staff told him it was a new store policy, so other locations will likely follow.
The paperwork is the smaller problem.
That card launched at $2,000.
Stock versions now list at $5,000 and up, with some listings reaching $12,000.
Enterprise GPU supply is tight enough that AI data centers are buying up consumer cards in bulk, and a growing set of smuggling lawsuits has retailers covering themselves.
So the entry price for an engineer who wants to test a 7B model, run a fine-tune, or wire up a retrieval pipeline is now a form and an identity check.
There is a cheaper way to start.
An RTX 3090 on BHK Cloud runs $0.15/hr.
The $5,000 that one card now costs buys roughly 33,000 GPU hours, close to four years of continuous runs.
You rent the GPU, run the test, and shut it down when the loop is done.
Buy Now Pay Later keeps it zero upfront, with payment after one month.
What is the first thing you would run if the hardware was already waiting for you?
https://ai.bhkcloud.com/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=bhk_social_2026w41&utm_content=morning
Originally posted on linkedin_personal