The very powerful and very expensive Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 goes on sale today at 9 a.m. EST (6 a.m. ET, 2 p.m. UK), and despite costing $1,499, it is expected to sell as quickly as the GeForce RTX 3080. As such, Nvidia has apologized ahead of time for the "limited supply" of the RTX 3090.

In a blog post, Nvidia emphasized that the GeForce RTX 3090 is primarily targeted at creative professionals, researchers, and hardcore gamers who want to play at 8K resolution. In other words, it is not a mass-produced graphics card.

"The GeForce RTX 3090, like the Titan RTX before it, was built for a unique user group, so we want to apologize in advance for the limited supply at launch," Nvidia said. "We know this is frustrating," Nvidia added, "and we'll be working with the and we are working with our partners to increase supply in the coming weeks."

Nvidia noted that the RTX 3090 is only 10-15% faster in 4K gaming than the RTX 3080, which basically means gamers are being directed to the $699 RTX 3080.

That's all well and good, but the RTX 3080 sold very quickly when it went on sale last week and is very hard to find. Furthermore, the RTX 3080 sells for a ridiculous price on eBay, close to the RTX 3090.

Therefore, despite Nvidia's statement that the RTX 3090 is not for the average PC gamer, it is likely that many who could not get their hands on the RTX 3080 will rush to the RTX 3090.

Speaking of which, prices for third-party RTX 3090 products have leaked, and some of them are very expensive: a Reddit post by a colleague at Tom's Hardware pointed out that EVGA's RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra Gaming and Asus ROG Strix RTX 3090 OC Edition graphics cards are being traded for as high as $1,800, the post details.

The situation is the same in the UK, where the aforementioned Asus RTX 3090 sells for a wallet-emptying £1,649.99. For this amount of money, you get one of our picks for the best gaming PC.

Given the price, one suspects that the RTX 3090 will soon be snapped up and sold for even higher prices by scalpers looking to make a quick buck. Nvidia has stated that it has learned its lesson from the problematic RTX 3080 launch and has safeguards in place to prevent people from abusing the limited supply of high-end GPUs.

There are only a few hours left until we find out how quickly the RTX 3090 will sell, and AMD will no doubt be on the sidelines as it plans to reveal the full range of Big Navi and Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards on October 28.