German Retailer Selling RTX 5090s With Missing ROPs
German retailer Alternate has listed one of the defective RTX 5090 graphics cards with eight missing ROPs, selling it as a "B-stock" option that has been opened but is otherwise in as-new condition. The only problem is, this card's "new" condition was already defective and won't perform as well as it should with its full complement of ROPs. Despite this, the retailer has the card listed at the same price as the standard version: A staggering 2,899 euros, or around $3,145.
Nvidia's RTX 5090 launched at the end of January, but alongside issues with driver crashes, black screens , and melting GPU cables , a number of the cards have also been found to be missing eight Render Output Units, or ROPs. These aid in anti-aliasing and rasterization rendering and can have a sizeable impact on performance. GamersNexus investigated this earlier in March and found that some affected cards would perform over 10% slower in some games purely because of these missing ROPs.
Despite this problem, Alternate is selling the card as a kind of open-box sample, suggesting that it might come with some cosmetic wear but that it was otherwise in good condition and would ship with all accessories. It won't come with a full warranty, but it does have a short return period that all retailers in the EU are forced to offer.
But despite these issues, the card is still being sold at the same price as RTX 5090s without them, and at the heavily inflated Zotac pricing, too. Far from the original $2,000 MSRP Nvidia debuted the card at, this version is priced at close to 60% higher, at the equivalent price of $3,145, as per VideoCardz .
In a somewhat disingenuous move, the listing features a review of the Zotac RTX 5090 Solid OC card. It may not have been done intentionally, but it feels misleading, considering the review specifically states that the card did come with the full complement of ROPs.
No one should buy GPUs at crazy inflated prices, and especially not for defective graphics cards without proper warranty protection. But when stock is as low as it is, it will probably sell. At least there's only one available for now, so hopefully not too many people will be affected in the end.
If you have an RTX 50-series graphics card and want to check if you're missing ROPs, download CPU-Z or GPU-Z; both can check your ROP count for you. If you find yourself with a card affected by this issue, Nvidia recommends you contact the board manufacturer directly to receive a refund or replacement.
