NVIDIA confirmed today that its RTX 5080 graphics card joins the growing list of Blackwell-architecture GPUs affected by missing render output units (ROPs), expanding a manufacturing issue that now spans three high-end models.
Why it matters: The discovery raises serious concerns about quality control in NVIDIA‘s latest GPU generation, as affected cards show up to 11% performance loss in popular games despite commanding premium prices.
Technical Details: The manufacturing defect impacts critical graphics processing components in several ways. The issue specifically affects the final stage of graphics rendering, where pixels are processed before being displayed on screen. Independent testing reveals varying levels of performance impact:
- Eight ROPs missing from RTX 5080
- Performance loss up to 4.54% in games
- No impact on AI workloads
Consumer Impact: The manufacturing flaw creates several challenges for users who have purchased these expensive graphics cards. The performance reduction particularly affects gaming and professional graphics applications, though the impact varies by workload:
- Up to 11% loss in 3DMark benchmarks
- 8.5% reduction in Elden Ring
- Variable impact in other applications
The issue appears more widespread than initially reported when first discovered in the RTX 5090. Testing tools like GPU-Z can now identify affected cards across all three models by checking their ROP count against specifications.
NVIDIA has initiated a replacement program through its board partners but hasn’t clarified whether the issue stems from hardware-level disabling or potentially fixable BIOS problems. Some users report their RTX 5080s show 104 ROPs instead of the specified 112.
Looking ahead, analysts suggest this could impact NVIDIA’s competitive position as AMD prepares to launch its RX 9000 series cards next month.
