Last week, we reported that at least two ZOTAC-branded RTX 5090 GPUs feature missing ROPs (raster operation pipelines) that caused performance losses in certain situations – it looks like it’s not just the Blackwell flagship that has been affected. Recently, a user in the HKEPC Facebook community reported the same problem, this time in the RTX 5070 Ti GPU.
NVIDIA ROP Incident Claims Another Victim: RTX 5070 Ti
The user posted their RTX 5070 Ti reporting 88 ROPs in the GPU-Z application, the number of which should’ve listed 96 had the card been a normal one. There are also some differences in the metrics such as memory bandwidth, texture fillrate, and more; it’s unclear if this is a software-level bug or a potential hardware issue like the RTX 5090 previously reported.
In the meantime, TechPowerUP has identified more users reporting the same issues from various GPU makers, including MSI, Manli, Palit, Inno3D, involving both RTX 5090 and RTX 5090 D cards. This confirms that the issue is not limited to a single GPU maker, though it’s scattered far enough across several board makers that it may not be possible to immediately identify all cards with the defect in place, particularly those not yet sold to the customers.
On NVIDIA’s part, the GPU maker confirmed that 0.5% of cards among RTX 5090, RTX 5090 D (the Chinese-exclusive variant of RTX 5090), and RTX 5070 Ti contain production defects; the company advises those with defective units to return the card back to respective board makers for a replacement. Furthermore, NVIDIA confirms that such defect causes a 4% loss in graphics performance, with AI and compute performance unaffected by this issue.
Here’s the full statement from NVIDIA provided to The Verge:
We have identified a rare issue affecting less than 0.5% (half a percent) of GeForce RTX 5090 / 5090D and 5070 Ti GPUs which have one fewer [hardware] ROP than specified. The average graphical performance impact is 4%, with no impact on AI and Compute workloads. Affected consumers can contact the board manufacturer for a replacement. The production anomaly has been corrected.
Pokdepinion: This GPU launch has been quite the messy one, isn’t it?
