Nvidia's assurances about the integrity of its GPU lineup have been called into question once again. Previously, the company had stated that "no other Nvidia GPUs" were affected by the problem of missing rendering units (ROP), one of the key specs directly affecting gaming performance. However, recent reports from German Heise Online and HardwareLuxx suggest that RTX 50-series laptop GPUs may also be suffering from similar problems.
According to the reports, Nvidia has reached out to laptop manufacturers to ask them to verify the ROP counts in their systems. This development has raised concerns among consumers, who were led to believe that the issue was isolated to a specific subset of Nvidia's desktop GPUs.
In response to these reports, Nvidia's GeForce global PR director, Ben Berraondo, told The Verge that "All partners continue to run checks as part of our standard testing procedure" and that Nvidia will reach out to the German publications to discuss the matter further. Pressed for a more detailed response, Berraondo said: "Nope," as in none of the laptop GPUs are vulnerable to the missing ROP issue.
Adding to the confusion, Heise and HardwareLuxx have stated that the testing will lead to some delay in the release of some of the RTX 50 series laptops. Specifically, they point out that some laptops are likely to ship in April or May, although originally announced release dates in March.
Also, Nvidia officially confirmed that missing ROPs are a "rare issue" that hits GeForce RTX 5090/5090D and 5070 Ti only and just 0.5% of the related GPUs are involved.
We have identified a rare issue affecting less than 0.5% of GeForce RTX 5090 / 5090D, RTX 5080, and 5070 Ti GPUs which have one fewer ROP than specified. The average graphical performance impact is 4%, with no impact on AI and Compute workloads.
Sources: Heise Online, HardwareLuxx, The Verge
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