Performance Impact: Nvidia RTX 5090 and 5070 Ti Cards from Various Vendors Lack ROP Units

Uh-oh: Nvidia’s RTX 50 series is facing a rough start. It’s seen limited performance improvements and huge price hikes from manufacturers. To top it off, some users have discovered defective parts, impacting their GPUs’ performance.

If you were one of the few to get your hands on the RTX 5090, it might be a good idea to run GPU-Z. Some customers have reported only 168 of the graphics card’s 176 ROP units are functioning, resulting in a performance dip of up to five percent based on the task. The cause of this issue—whether it’s software or hardware—remains uncertain.

ROP units are crucial in rendering images on your screen. According to Nvidia’s documentation on the 5090, it should have 176 ROPs. GPU-Z can verify this, but not everyone is finding that number.

MSI 5090D https://t.co/Ij48LQ98hD pic.twitter.com/EfHgPcMi2k

– HXL (@9550pro) February 21, 2025

On a forum, someone shared their experience with a Zotac RTX 5090 Solid. GPU-Z showed only 168 ROPs for that model. TechPowerUp also confirmed this issue, noting that it caused slight performance drops, even though the clock speed was the same as other brands.

For example, in the game Elden Ring (with a 60fps cap removed), the performance fell to 174fps from 184fps with Nvidia’s Founders Edition. Meanwhile, other games like Starfield and Doom Eternal showed almost no drop in performance.

Interestingly, this issue isn’t isolated to one brand or model. Other users on social media reported similar findings with MSI and Gigabyte cards, while some Zotac users confirmed their GPUs had all 176 ROPs working.

The root cause is the chip. A small batch of GB202 is defective, and the bios can not do anything with this issue.

– MEGAsizeGPU (@Zed__Wang) February 21, 2025

It seems the problem is likely hardware-related. Solutions like driver reinstalls or GPU BIOS changes haven’t worked for users. A trusted source suggests that the faulty batch of GB202 chips may require a replacement for those affected.

Nvidia addressed the issue, stating that less than half a percent of the RTX 5090, 5090D, and 5070 Ti GPUs may have been shipped with missing ROPs. This can lead to a four percent drop in gaming performance, though it doesn’t affect AI tasks. Nvidia has fixed the manufacturing problem and recommends that impacted users reach out to their GPU brands.

So far, only the RTX 5090 and 5090D have been confirmed with missing ROPs. Some users worried when their 5080s reported “112 out of 128” ROPs, but that’s actually the correct count for that model.