NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Cards Spotted with Missing ROPs, NVIDIA Confirms the Issue, Multiple Vendors Affected

[_roman_]

This is a perfect opportunity for AMD to screw up a perfect opportunity.

They already screwed up. But hey, they can screw it up many times more with the next graphic card release.

 

[topspeedPT]

Wow! What a MESS!!!

 

[_roman_]

Zotac had nothing to do with this

Even if those board partner knew, they rely on the goodwill and contracts to NVIDIA.

 

[Vya Domus]

I highly doubt that. The hardware has some mechanism to know itself which ones are defect. I assume those defect areas do not exists anymore because the connections are lasercut in the factory. The firmware just probes the hardware and see it.

Anyway - the firmware needs to be programmed for such a mechanism beforehand. The hardware needs to be prepared for that mechanism beforehand. There is no random we have less rop issue.

No because those units are not always fused off, that's why in the past you could flash some cards and unlock shaders, because those were never defective or fused off to begin with, so there wouldn't even be a way to probe for disabled shaders. Some defects you also simply cannot probe for as they can cause intermittent issues so there is no reliable way to detect them through software, it would be a very bad idea to rely on something like that.

I don't think you realize how much stuff actually is present on these chips, you're talking about millions/billions of data lines, you simply cannot test everything every time, it's not feasible. It's more reliable to check the GPU die first, detect the defects and configure the firmware.

 

[_roman_]

for their very high price they present several problems first the 5.0 bus and black screen, then the connectors that melt, in some cases, now even the ROP, it doesn't seem to me that they are worth what they cost

No old cuda, no old physx
melted power supply side connectors + melted cable + defective connector on the graphic card
+ possible fire hazard - which everyone denies in this forum.
150°C thermal pictures are enough to state that in certain cases = trouble.

We rely on the power supply unit, because the cable has no fuses and the graphic card has no fuses.

As of now - no mainboard, no nvme, no monitor was harmed (assumption).
I would be very upset when my M2 NVME would be dead because of the mainboard because of a nvidia 5090 graphic card and a asus power supply.
I would be very upset whne my floor would burn and all the furniture because of a nvidia graphic card, asus power supply unit and a cable.
Who wants to make an insurance for 0€ and take all nvidia card owners as insurance takers? I would not bet on that in the long run.

Still no power supply unit company had made any statements? Or am I wrong? There are two sides. The psu side and the nvidia 5090 side. This only takes in consideration normal usage - not abuse or special use like overclocking or other operation modes I have not even thought of.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

No because those units are not always fused off, that's why in the past you could flash some cards and unlock shaders, because those were never defective or fused off to begin with, so there wouldn't even be a way to probe for disabled shaders. Some defects you also simply cannot probe for as they can cause intermittent issues so there is no reliable way to detect them though software, it would be a very bad idea to rely on something like that.

I don't think you realize how much stuff actually is present on these chips, you're talking about millions of data lines, you simply cannot test everything every time, it's not feasible. It's more reliable to check the GPU die first, detect the defects and configure the firmware.

And that's my point. There would have to be intentional selling of disabled hardware if you're knowingly shipping a different firmware, unless every single 5090 that went to ZOTAC (and others) has these ROPs disabled, so they didn't know any better. That, or the full-ROP versions are not using some hardware because they are running the defect-edition firmware. It should bear out in the firmware, but it might be really hard to discover (I know I couldn't figure it out). What I'm getting at is that this couldn't be an "oops" in the supply chain if they are knowingly working around the missing ROPs with firmware. Maybe there's just one firmware that does a resource check and adjusts accordingly, so we'd never know.

 

[Bwaze]

I don't see news of this in the OP.
Edit- I see it now, they had a Zotac card for review.
I find it weird TPU didn't say anything about the missing ROPs sooner.

Reviewers don’t usually comment on reliability of products, only sometimes after issues are public they comment if they had problems.

All manufacturing has some issues, even if you work in much more critical industries, so reporting a problem with a single unit isn’t really news worthy. I wouldn’t really read any conspiracy into that - a single failure is just that.

Many times the reviewers also notice issues with the product, but when notifying the company they are told they have pre-production sample, and the issues should be fixed in retail, and such issues many times aren’t mentioned in reviews. I know some reviewers then don’t publish such reviews since they don’t represent the retail product, others don’t have issues with that.

 

[Vya Domus]

What I'm getting at is that this couldn't be an "oops" in the supply chain

Of course, Nvidia knows as every wafer is checked optically for defects, that's how they came up with that 0.5% figure, it's not like they made up some statistical estimation, they know exactly how many chips were defective and for what reason.

I still couldn't find any info if these GPU dies are marked differently, that would clarify a lot of things.

 

[Dragokar]

Seeing so many pop up in reports it is hard to believe it is only 0.5%.......but since they don't disclose the numbers of shipped GPUs vs. defective ones it is hard to tell.

So now your cards can burn due to “user error”, can face black screens or miss performance targets when you got lucky enough to get one anyway. That's an “epic” launch, but it still benefits the company and the other two are going to screw up again I suppose.....

 

[sbacc]

Seeing so many pop up in reports it is hard to believe it is only 0.5%.......but since they don't disclose the numbers of shipped GPUs vs. defective ones it is hard to tell.

So now your cards can burn due to “user error”, can face black screens or miss performance targets when you got lucky enough to get one anyway. That's an “epic” launch, but it still benefits the company and the other two are going to screw up again I suppose.....

It's only 0.5% for dGPU sold through retailer, but what is the percentage for system builder... I mean how many percent of those customer follow the technews and are able to check for those ROP...

Edit : by customer I mean the final one, not the system builder making the PC

 

[trsttte]

The issue is they got caught

Next driver version will stop reporting real active ROP numbers and just have a define with whatever the number is supposed to be, problem solved.

An entire new level of silicon lottery was just unlocked

 

[W1zzard]

I haven't seen a review for a Zotac RTX 5090 Solid, either TPU didn't publish it yet, or I suspect Nvidia knew about this issue and told reviewers to not say anything about the affected cards.

The Zotac review is in progress, I noticed the odd performance and they shipped a second card so that I can compare both, to further debug the issue. We were thinking GPU clock issue, maybe PCIe 5.0, or lanes, or power, or heat.

Until yesterday, nobody noticed that ROPs were missing. When I found out I drafted the news post, informed Zotac, asked for a statement and published our story, nothing was held back.

Also @wNotyarD

Next driver version will stop reporting real active ROP numbers and just have a define with whatever the number is supposed to be, problem solved.

That won't work .. what about the missing performance?

 

[Hecate91]

The Zotac review is in progress, I noticed the odd performance and they shipped a second card so that I can compare both, to further debug the issue. We were thinking GPU clock issue, maybe PCIe 5.0, or lanes, or power, or heat.

Until yesterday, nobody noticed that ROPs were missing. When I found out I drafted the news post, informed Zotac, asked for a statement and published our story, nothing was held back.

Also @wNotyarD

Thank you for the clarification.
As you can tell I just don't have much of any trust left for Nvidia, after their doubling down on the power connector, and now trying to downplay missing ROPs, I wonder how Nvidia is actually going to fix this or are the AIBs going to be left dealing with customers.

 

[Anc13ntEvil]

How would they know it only affects .5% of cards? It's only been a couple of days since this news came out. Maybe they already knew how many cards were affected and sold them anyway? Perhaps I'm seeing a conspiracy theory where there is none? Then again, it is Nvidia.

 

[Princeinterweb]

I am so glad I am in a near desperate need for a GPU this cycle..........

 

[lexluthermiester]

And this is one of the reasons why I'm going to be skipping the RTX5000 gen. I usually skip a gen in my personal upgrade cycles, but not this time. Now I'm either going with an RTX4000 or just skip two gens. This has quickly become a mess of incompetence and has been pathetic in nearly every respect. From the blatant performance gap from what was OPENLY promised VS what was actually delivered, to the melting power jacks(AGAIN), to the price gouging bullshit and now this revelation about missing specs that should be present and are not.

What they need to do to at least partly recover is as follows:
A. Reduce prices(a lot) to reflect the piss poor performance compared to previous gen cards.
B. Do away with the dangerous ATX3.0 power jack and bring back the PCIe jacks that are KNOWN to be safe and DON'T melt.
C. Offer replacements for cards that not at the declared specs.
D. Plan for a better future, one where they are honest, competent and fair.

@ NVidia
People, pull your heads out of your asses, get your shit together and quit being incompetent jerks! This showing is piss poor and unacceptable. You REALLY need to pull a GTX1000 series kind of run with RTX6000, in every respect, including performance/power/price ratio.

@ Jensen Huang
All of these circumstances clubbed together make you look like a liar. You claimed specific levels performance, RTX5000 has not delivered. You are either woefully out of touch with reality(likely given your comment about $10,000 PCs) or have lost grip of your senses & mental faculties entirely. Either way, get a grip or step down.


I think AMD and Intel really have a chance to close the gap here.. And yes folks I'm an NVidia guy. However I'm not a fanboy nor someone whose judgment is less than objective.

 

[Solaris17]

This has quickly become a mess of incompetence. This has been pathetic in nearly every respect. From the blatant performance gap from what was OPENLY promised VS what was actually delivered, to the melting power jacks(AGAIN), to the price gouging bullshit and now this revelation about missing specs that should be present and are not.

I already own an arc welder so wifes gonna be pissed. Its a shame from a PCB size standpoint its an amazing feat of engineering.

 

[Tek-Check]

As somebody said elsewhere, the issues are mounting almost daily:

- consumer brainwashing by marketing that 5070 is "faster" than 4090
- MSRP means "Multiple $hitty Retail Prices"
- more users complain about black screen issue
- 600W power connector is still melting two years later, with no user error (DerBauer)
- no cards to be purchased anywhere in any meaningful volume
- PhysX 32-bit support ended ( list of affected games )
- defective chips with less ROPs that Nvidia knew about before shipping (legal issue?)
- a halo card catches random fire (not enough time for AIBs to test PCBs?)

 

[W1zzard]

I wonder how Nvidia is actually going to fix this or are the AIBs going to be left dealing with customers.

These usual mechanics for cases like this are that merchants or AICs (depending on local laws) collect the defective cards and replace or refund. The GPUs go back to NV and AICs get credit for them. This is what happens with RMAs as well. Any component returned will be repurposed, all these companies have staff and equipment to repurpose components, nothing goes to waste

Of course things could be different in this case, I have no official or inofficial information. Just sharing what's done usually

 

[lexluthermiester]

I already own an arc welder so wifes gonna be pissed. Its a shame from a PCB size standpoint its an amazing feat of engineering.

5090? I shouldn't have to tell you this, but I'll say it for everyone else reading, make sure all of the pins on that power cable are properly & firmly seated in the jack socket. Be extra careful. There is potential for fire.

 

[tvshacker]

That won't work .. what about the missing performance?

They'll claim temperature constraints or bad airflow in the case, not allowing max boost/throttling

 

[W1zzard]

They'll claim temperature constraints or bad airflow in the case, not allowing max boost/throttling

That might work with end users who have a single card and no experience with professional testing .. they won't ever notice 5-10% missing performance.. not gonna work here when I have a stack of cards of the same SKU that all perform significantly better. Just take out one card, plop in another, numbers won't lie

 

[Tek-Check]

They'll claim temperature constraints or bad airflow in the case, not allowing max boost/throttling

No. There is a physical defect on the chip itself that does not fit the official spec.
It can become a legal issue immediately if anyone tries to hide anything.

 

[Dragokar]

The Zotac review is in progress, I noticed the odd performance and they shipped a second card so that I can compare both, to further debug the issue. We were thinking GPU clock issue, maybe PCIe 5.0, or lanes, or power, or heat.

Until yesterday, nobody noticed that ROPs were missing. When I found out I drafted the news post, informed Zotac, asked for a statement and published our story, nothing was held back.

Also @wNotyarD


That won't work .. what about the missing performance?

That's well organized.

 

[Deleted member 190956]

I think AMD and Intel really have a chance to close the gap here.. And yes folks I'm an NVidia guy. However I'm not fanboy nor someone whose judgment is less than objective.

They'd have to be stark raving mad to concede defeat at this point. Even intel, with all its problems. nvidia has been screwing the pooch for multiple generations of product now, either iterative or complete garbage like the current one. Remember when intel was considered invincible, the 1000-pound gorilla that NOONE, noone could be possibly out-R&D and outcompete? We've been fed the line that nvidia could at any moment's notice crush the competition, while all they had in line was the shittiest generation of Geforce since the leafblower thing.

The gaming market is up for grabs. And I don't want to use that kinda sexist glengarry glenn ross line from Blake but.... it's that.