Quoted Tech Dispatch: November 2026

Welcome to our first edition of the Quoted Tech Dispatch! We’ve rounded up the most essential Canadian hardware industry updates for you. Quick, insightful, and straight to the point.

In this month’s edition of The Dispatch, we’ll be covering:

• RTX 5090 Shortage & Surge: Why AI demand is pushing consumer GPU prices past $10,000 CAD

• Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus: Delivering flagship-level performance and smarter budget allocation for custom builds

• Canada's Productivity Mega-Deduction and Ontario's Competitiveness Tax Cut: How new tax policies help businesses write-off capital investments faster

• LiDAR Workstation Case Study: How AeroVision Canada and Quoted Tech cut processing delays on multi-terabyte datasets

RTX 5090 Shortage: Prices Surge Past $10,000 CAD

The RTX 5090 was already an expensive GPU. Now, finding one at a reasonable price is becoming a challenge.

Prices for Nvidia’s flagship GeForce RTX 5090 have reportedly climbed from around $2,500 CAD to more than $10,000 CAD in some markets, as demand from AI workloads puts additional pressure on an already limited supply.

The RTX 5090 has become attractive to businesses running AI workloads because its performance and large VRAM capacity can provide a lower-cost alternative to much more expensive enterprise GPUs. As data-centre hardware remains difficult to source, some organizations are turning to consumer GPUs to build their own AI systems.

According to ExtremeTech, the resulting demand has contributed to the RTX 5090 becoming increasingly difficult to find at retail, with prices rising dramatically.

For businesses, the situation highlights a growing challenge: consumer and enterprise GPU markets are becoming increasingly connected. When companies use consumer GPUs for AI infrastructure, supply constraints can quickly reach the retail market.

Intel may not call the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus a flagship processor, but for PC buyers, the more important question is: how much performance are you getting for your money?

At $400-450 CAD, the answer is increasingly compelling.

The 270K Plus delivers 24 cores, 24 threads and a maximum boost speed of 5.5GHz, with a core configuration similar to Intel's higher-end Core Ultra 9 285K. Independent testing has also found performance that can compete with considerably more expensive processors.

TechPowerUp calls it Intel's fastest gaming CPU, while GamesRadar+ describes it as an Ultra 9 in all but name and price.

The real advantage is what the price means for the rest of a PC build. Spending less on the CPU leaves more budget for a faster GPU, additional memory, storage or other components that can have a significant impact on overall system performance.

That makes the 270K Plus particularly interesting for users who want one PC for gaming, content creation, software development and other demanding workloads.

The 270K Plus isn't necessarily the fastest CPU available. Its appeal is the combination of high-end performance and a more accessible price.

For buyers building a powerful PC, that can mean getting the CPU performance they need while putting more of their budget toward the components that matter most.

Read the full review of Intel's Core Ultra 7 270K Plus.

Tax Incentives: A Stronger Case for Upgrading

Slow rendering, lengthy simulations and delays processing large datasets can hold a business back. Two proposed tax measures could strengthen the financial case for upgrading the hardware behind those workloads.

Canada’s Productivity Mega-Deduction proposes permanent immediate expensing for a broad range of eligible business assets acquired on or after September 15, 2026. Ontario’s Competitiveness Tax Cut would parallel that treatment for provincial income-tax purposes.

For qualifying workstations, computers and servers, this could mean deducting the full eligible cost in the year equipment becomes available for use, rather than spreading deductions over several years.

A 100% write-off does not mean a free computer. A hypothetical $10,000 workstation, fully deductible at an assumed combined income-tax rate of 25%, would generate a $2,500 income-tax reduction. The primary advantage is receiving the deduction sooner, improving cash flow.

Computers were already covered by an earlier temporary immediate-expensing proposal. The newer measures are particularly significant for their intended permanence and broader coverage.

For businesses, the opportunity is to connect faster deductions with measurable productivity improvements: shorter rendering times, faster engineering analysis or greater capacity for local AI workloads.

Both measures remain proposed as of October 29, 2026. Confirm eligibility and timing with your accountant.

Read the full article on Canada's Productivity Mega-Deduction and Ontario's Competitiveness Tax Cut.

From Point Clouds to Possibilities

Capturing millions of LiDAR measurements is only the beginning. For AeroVision Canada, the real challenge is turning that data into accurate terrain maps, detailed 3D models and useful information for customers across engineering, construction, energy and utilities.

With datasets reaching multiple terabytes, processing can become a bottleneck. Some of AeroVision’s processing and point-cloud registration jobs previously required overnight runs, delaying the team’s ability to review results, make adjustments and prepare customer deliverables.

To help reduce those delays, Quoted Tech designed a workstation around AeroVision’s complete geospatial workflow, balancing processing power, memory capacity and graphics performance.

The system combines a 32-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9975WX processor, 512GB of DDR5 ECC memory and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090. Each addresses a different demand: CPU-intensive calculations, exceptionally large working datasets, and GPU acceleration for compatible applications and interactive visualization.

The result is substantially faster processing and point-cloud registration, helping the team move more quickly through preparation, quality checks and refinements. Greater computing capacity also provides room for larger datasets and increasingly complex projects.

For AeroVision, the benefit extends beyond faster calculations. Less waiting between processing stages means more flexibility to refine results, respond to project requirements and turn captured data into deliverables customers can use.

The project demonstrates why workstation specifications should follow the workload. A powerful GPU alone cannot resolve a memory bottleneck, and additional CPU cores cannot compensate for every constraint.

Read the full story to see how Quoted Tech helps AeroVision turn data into results.