• Corsair has mentioned that solely one in all its prebuilt PCs has been affected by Nvidia’s hardware-level fault
• That seems to again up Nvidia’s assertion that the issue, which slows down PC gaming efficiency, is certainly ‘uncommon’
• Corsair additionally underlined that it’s totally checking graphics playing cards to make sure they meet the official {hardware} spec going ahead

Corsair has shed some additional gentle on RTX 5000 GPUs, as utilized in its pre-built PCs, and the way widespread the reported issues are with Nvidia’s new graphics playing cards falling wanting their official {hardware} spec.

In case you missed it, there’s not too long ago been some controversy over a ‘uncommon’ chip-level fault in some Blackwell graphics playing cards, whereby some rendering pipelines for 3D graphics are lacking, slowing down efficiency in some PC video games.

Whereas it is a critical concern – and undoubtedly one thing that shouldn’t have occurred – Corsair has assured us that the issue is as uncommon as Nvidia indicated (maybe even rarer).

For those who recall, Nvidia mentioned that this concern may hit as much as 0.5% of the doubtless affected GPUs (RTX 5090 and 5080 boards, and Workforce Inexperienced later admitted that this fault can be discovered with RTX 5070 Ti fashions, however not vanilla 5070 playing cards). Nonetheless, based on Corsair, just one buyer has run into hassle with a Blackwell GPU that’s brief on its rendering pipeline (ROP) depend.

Corsair informs us: “Initially, our testing procedures didn’t flag this particular ROP discrepancy throughout our manufacturing course of. Nonetheless, upon studying of this concern, we instantly applied a radical overview of the detailed manufacturing studies for every system shipped to this point. Matching the anticipated breadth of this concern, now we have recognized just one buyer with an affected GPU and are actively working with them to supply a alternative.”

Corsair additional provides that it has now applied proactive measures relating to this potential drawback with Nvidia’s graphics playing cards, and the corporate now has a “multi-stage testing protocol throughout system manufacturing to particularly validate the right ROP depend on all RTX 50-series GPUs.”

Corsair additionally says it’ll take a look at all GPUs going ahead to make sure they meet their official specs, observing that: “Each graphics card, together with these within the RTX 50 sequence, undergoes rigorous testing to substantiate it meets the producer’s specs, together with the right ROP depend.”

Evaluation: Rarity and the blame sport

On the face of it, what Corsair is saying right here – that there’s only one case the agency has encountered – suggests the issue isn’t affecting many Blackwell GPUs in any respect. Nonetheless, clearly it is a very restricted pattern, and we should be cautious about studying an excessive amount of into the discovering.

Or it could possibly be the case that Corsair didn’t get all that many RTX 5000 GPUs by means of from Nvidia – theoretically a provide of a few hundred would see one defective board. However as I mentioned, there’s not a lot level attempting to make an excessive amount of out of this, save for that it seemingly backs up what Nvidia has claimed: that it is a ‘uncommon’ concern.

To deal with one other level that’s come up right here, on some on-line boards, I’ve seen one thing of a fuss about PC builders not testing these Nvidia GPUs and selecting up on the ROP depend being poor, however I don’t suppose that’s fully truthful. By which I imply it’s cheap to imagine {that a} video card supplied by Nvidia, or certainly AMD or Intel, lives as much as the {hardware} spec. Ought to you really want to examine that each one cores, or rendering pipelines, or different {hardware}, are current? I’d argue not, although on the identical time, given this incident, it’s now maybe prudent to take action – precisely as Corsair has.

Actually, although, a GPU, or CPU, or any PC element, shouldn’t ship from the manufacturing strains with some hardware-level fault current that impairs the expertise for the top consumer (albeit not massively in some circumstances, however nonetheless – these Blackwell GPUs all price some huge cash).

This is a matter that the chip maker – Nvidia – ought to’ve picked up on throughout QA testing, or certainly the board maker (Nvidia’s companions who take mentioned chips, and make their graphics playing cards with them). A GPU with a glitch like this shouldn’t be reaching a PC builder (or customers instantly) within the first place.

At any price, when you have bought a PC from Corsair, the corporate notes it affords “lifetime tech help” and you might be clearly free to examine any Nvidia Blackwell graphics card to see if it has ROPs lacking.

You are able to do that with CPU-Z Validator now – as we defined in a current article, it is going to actively warn you in its newest model, which is helpful – or as Corsair suggests you should use GPU-Z. The latter course of is straightforward: simply obtain and set up GPU-Z, run the app, and go to the ‘Graphics Card’ tab the place you may see the ROP depend (it’s the seventh line down on the left-hand aspect). If it has 8 fewer ROPs than the official spec, the GPU in query has this {hardware} fault, sadly.

Fairly why the Nvidia App doesn’t warn you in the identical proactive method CPU-Z does, I’m unsure, as this would appear like an apparent transfer for Workforce Inexperienced to have made by now (provided that this drawback has been recognized about for the very best a part of two weeks at this level).

Through Tom’s {Hardware}

• I actually wished to love the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, nevertheless it broke my coronary heart and it should not have to interrupt yours, too
• Lastly, some excellent news about Nvidia’s new GPUs: RTX 5090 inventory ranges rumored to surge in a month or so
• The place to purchase an Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti – your finest bets for getting the upper-mid-range GPU