On February 24, 2025, the tech community was rocked by alarming news regarding NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5000 series graphics cards, particularly the RTX 5090 modelReports surfaced indicating that certain retail units were missing rendering units, severely impacting their performanceThis scandal broke when a user known as "Wuxi Gamer" posted on the TechPowerUp forum, revealing that their Zotac RTX 5090 Solid was showing a lower number of ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines) than expected in GPU-ZDespite the user’s attempts to resolve the dilemma—ranging from updating drivers to switching between BIOS versions that came with the card—nothing seemed to rectify the issue.

Upon thorough authentication, TechPowerUp confirmed that the problematic graphics card contained only 168 ROP units instead of the standard 176 expected for an RTX 5090. While it might seem trivial, losing eight ROP units translates to a notable 4.54% decrease in the GPU's rasterization capabilitiesIn the competitive world of graphics processing, even minor reductions can lead to significant performance degradation.

This degradation became painfully clear in real-world benchmarksWhen tested with the renowned game "Elden Ring" at 4K resolution, the flawed graphics card underperformed by 5.6% when compared to the Founders Edition, and it fell behind the ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 OC by as much as 8.4%. Indicators such as 3DMark Time Spy Extreme further highlighted the issue, as the tested card only managed a score of 22621, which paled in comparison to the Founders Edition's 25439 and the Gigabyte Gaming OC's 26220.

NVIDIA's global public relations director, Ben Berraondo, issued a statement on February 22, acknowledging the rare but troubling defectAccording to Berraondo, “We discovered a rare issue that affects less than 0.5% of the GeForce RTX 5090/5090D and RTX 5070 Ti GPUs, wherein the ROP count falls short of specificationsThe average graphical performance impact is about 4%, but it does not affect AI and computational workloads

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Affected users can reach out to their motherboard manufacturers for replacementsThis production anomaly has been corrected.” His reassurances were met with skepticism as customers still found themselves grappling with potential issues.

However, on February 24, TechPowerUp delivered yet more shocking newsUsers on Reddit began reporting that the RTX 5080 Founders Edition was also showing ROP deficienciesTypically, the RTX 5080 is expected to be equipped with 112 ROPs, but users discovered only 104 ROPs on their units—an identical shortfall of eight, mirroring the RTX 5090 issueUpon conducting tests with the latest NVIDIA drivers, the disappointing result remained unchanged.

The ROP units are pivotal in graphic computation, functioning at the closing stages of rendering tasksThey are tasked with managing pixel-level operations, such as color blending and anti-aliasing to smooth out image edgesThey write pixel data to texture memory accurately, storing completed pixel values in the framebufferThis role markedly differs from the GPU core, which primarily computes color, lighting effects, and material properties during rendering.

Given that different games vary in their reliance on ROP-intensive tasks, the performance decline resulting from missing ROPs will manifest differently across various titlesThe previously identified issues with the GeForce RTX 5080 FE raise concerns about the possibility of other models also being impacted by this defect, creating anxiety among consumers and industry observers alike.

The RTX 50 series has garnered high expectations since its launch, hailed for its advanced architecture and formidable performance capabilitiesGamers anticipated a smoother and more immersive gaming experience, while professional users hoped to enhance their productivity and creative quality through its potent graphics processing abilitiesYet, the recent string of ROP unit deficiencies has undeniably cast a shadow over NVIDIA's brand image

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