A Redditor claims to have lucked out on a half-price Walmart RTX 5080 and that's pretty much the only way you're gonna get a cheap GPU these days

A Redditor on ye olde PC Master Race subreddit claims to have picked up an RTX 5080 in-store at Walmart for a mere $562.49. That's a fantastic price by any measure for an RTX 5080, but particularly right now with prices rising and the cheapest 5080s available online coming in at over $1,300.

Let's assume this is true and Rinascimentale of Reddit did indeed pay a shade over $560 for an Nvidia RTX 5080. How, exactly, does this make sense?

Apparently, the price reduction on the RTX 5080's box is a CVP or Customer Value Program sticker. According to various online discussions, CVP pricing is most commonly used for perishable goods that are about to go out of date.

Reportedly, they can also be used for in-store returns of online purchases that aren't otherwise stocked. There are also indications that some of these prices may be auto-generated by an algorithm and applied to "open box" products that have been hanging around on store shelves. In other words, the algorithm just keeps cutting the price until the thing sells.

Redditors who claim to be present or past Walmart workers claim that such discounts can often be the result of a ruse by employees who apply the CVP discount with the intention of buying the product themselves.

However, it's said that there are limitations on when Walmart employees can purchase such discounted items. Essentially, employees have to wait 24 hours. It's then claimed that items can often be hidden behind other products on the shelf by employees, with the hope that regular customers don't discover the bargains before the 24-hour waiting period elapses.

One implication here is that Rinascimentale of Reddit got lucky and stumbled upon a CVP'ed RTX 5080 that someone working at the local Walmart was waiting to snag themselves. Other observers suggest the Redditor in question may actually be a Walmart employee.

What really happened, we may never know. Pretty much anyone with even a passing interest in PC hardware would spot pretty quickly what a bargain this card was. But then not everyone has a passing interest in PC hardware. And an algorithm is as an algorithm does.

Indeed, there are also numerous Redditors who claim that Walmart closely monitors these kinds of CVP pricing discounts, and an item like this would not have been discounted without approval by a senior staff member.

So, maybe this is just an algorithmic cock-up as opposed to an intentional Walmart employee conspiracy. However, it's also worth noting that one ought to be very careful when buying a discounted product like this.

Did I get scammed? Just bought an RTX 5080 off of Amazon. from r/buildapc

As I reported the other day, an unlucky Amazon customer suffered from the old switcheroo when purchasing another RTX 5080 from Amazon Prime and found an RTX 5060 Ti in the box upon delivery.

In that case, it's likely that someone had bought an RTX 5080, swapped in an RTX 5060 Ti and returned the card for a refund. Thanks to how similar the Asus Prime 5060 Ti and RTX 5080 models look, the card was probably restocked and then shipped out again unwittingly.

If the discounted GPUs at Walmart can indeed be online returns, then there's an obvious risk of falling prey to the same scheme. So, if it were me, I'd probably open the thing up right at the checkout to make sure that the card is at least physically identified as an RTX 5080. Buyer beware, for sure.