The 'by the pallet' buys are for small local projects, not data center size projects (of which we have more than a couple as well), as you probably already knew. This isn't some silly dick measuring contest.

The point was: they're buying them from the retail channels in relatively high volume because there is a massive shortage of GPUs in general, but that does not seem to stop parties with smaller projects who do not qualify for buying directly from NV (assuming NV even has stock to sell).

5090's now sell for the same amount (or more) that you could buy an RTX 6000 for a few months ago, and RTX 6000's are ~19K and up.

I found a stash somewhere, bought two, then two more and when I was ready to buy the remainder they were all gone. Serves me right for being too careful.