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Category: RTX 50

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  • Nvidia’s graphics drivers are in worst shape than we thought

    Nvidia might be one of the world’s most valuable companies (less valuable after the recent tariff-inspired drops) but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have problems. In the graphics cards space, this once-keystone-component of its business has turned into an absolute quagmire of failures following the launch of the RTX 50 series of GPUs and we’re only just starting to see how bad it’s gotten.

    And we’re not even talking about the missing ROPs, the burned out power cables, or the ridiculous pricing. Nvidia’s drivers are an absolute mess and they’re causing crashes, black screens, and freezes in a number of games and with a wide range of Nvidia GPUs.

    Innocent black screens

    The 16-pin power connector on the Zotac RTx 5070 Ti Amp Extreme Infinity along with a BIOS button and custom RGB lighting control header

    The first news of Nvidia’s driver issues started shortly after the end-of-January launch of the RTX 5090 and 5080. Along with the cards being borderline unavailable due to limited supply and scalped pricing, there were a few instances of the new cards crashing to a black screen during normal operation.

    That’s unfortunate for a new generation of GPUs, but not entirely unheard of. A couple of new driver releases later and the problem seemed mostly cleared up. Certainly Nvidia claimed as such. And yet while the reports of new RTX 50 GPUs having black-screen driver issues reduced, we started to hear from older Nvidia graphics card owners more often. They claimed to be left out of Nvidia’s push for better driver stability, as problems seemed to increase after the driver updates, leading to some developers recommending gamers downgrade their drivers to older versions.

    Upon further investigation there appeared to be some software-related issue with enabling some of Nvidia’s AI-powered features, like DLSS 4 and frame generation. Some gamers found that avoiding these features helped them dodge the black screens too. But considering these are some of Nvidia’s flagship graphics features, simply avoiding them is hardly ideal.

    Deeper dives reveal steeper issues

    Fans on the RTX 5080.

    As Nvidia contended with the new hotness in the AMD RX 9070 XT and its ongoing supply issues pushing the more affordable RTX 5060-series graphics launches back a few more weeks, some Nvidia owners and media organizations have been digging deeper into the issues that Nvidia’s drivers are causing, and the results aren’t pretty.

    GamersNexus collated reports from affected users and tried its best to replicate the issues. It found that many of them continue to exist in a range of games, with and without Nvidia’s bespoke features. Host Steve Burke even went so far as to call this Nvidia’s worst new-generation of graphics cards he’d ever seen. Some of us heartily agree.

    Get It Together, NVIDIA | Terrible GPU Driver Stability

    Some of the cited issues include:

    • Crashes in Star Wars Outlaws when attempting to “Resume” a game.
    • Hard crashes in Marvel Rivals when enabling frame generation, despite that game being used to market the new feature.
    • Crashes in Cyberpunk 2077 when merely trying to load a previous save.
    • Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark crash outs.
    • High refresh rates and multi-monitor setups were particularly problematic.
    • Waking from sleep could also cause crashes to black screens.

    In some cases GamersNexus found that rolling back to older drivers can help the issues, especially with older Nvidia RTX 30 and 40 series GPUs. In others, disabling all Nvidia graphics driver features could also help. That includes G-Sync, frame generation, DLSS, and Nvidia Reflex. Other suggested fixes include swapping to a different monitor output, using HDMI or DisplayPort instead (or vice versa), and lowering your monitor’s refresh rate.

    What now?

    AMD CEO Lisa Su holding an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU
    I know one person who’s been enjoying these Nvidia driver issues… AMD

    If you have an Nvidia RTX 50-series graphics card, the first thing you should do is check for problems. Find out if you have missing ROPs, potentially compromised power cables, or driver issues. If you do, get a refund and wait for Nvidia to sort itself out. If everything is fine, keep your fingers crossed. You might be one of the lucky ones.

    If you have an older Nvidia graphics card and you have encountered anything like these issues, rolling back your driver to one released before the launch of the RTX 50 series seems like the safest plan for now. Additional fixes worth trying include lowering your monitor’s refresh rate and turning off any Nvidia-related features.

    It’s also worth keeping an eye out on Nvidia’s driver updates. While team green has so far released five separate driver fixes for this particular issue, it is getting a lot of heat for the fact it’s not solved yet, so expect a continually expedited driver release schedule. If we keep the pressure up, we might be able to get this fixed in the next month or so.

    If you’d rather get off the Nvidia train, though, AMD’s latest GPUs are a good alternative. The RX 9070 XT is a killer 4K and 1440p graphics card, while the RX 9070 isn’t’ far behind and you can even mod the BIOS to make it faster. Driver issue’s aren’t non-existent, but they’re nothing like the Nvidia issues. That’s a hell of an about face from just a few years ago, where AMD was known for its problematic drivers.

  • Would you pay less for a defective GPU?

    The graphics card market is an absolute mess at the moment. Stock issues persist despite Nvidia’s early claims that it would solve early issues with the 50-series, and AMD has promised to get its exceedingly popular RX 9000-series GPUs back in stock as soon as possible. That’s meant pricing is even more ridiculous than ever, with top cards going for hundreds or even thousands of dollars more than they should, and last-generation options priced just as crazily.

    But there are alternatives. Alongside buying older and second-hand cards, there’s a new brand of GPU available at discounted prices for anyone willing to take a loss on maximum performance: Defective GPUs.

    Would you be willing to accept a sub-standard graphics card if it meant buying it at a discount?

    How defective are we talking?

    CPu-Z
    Doc/TB

    Have you been keeping up with Nvidia’s various scandals around its RTX 5000 graphics cards? You’ve be forgiven if you haven’t, because there have been a lot. From melting GPU cables, to stock issues, black-screen driver crashes, and borderline-misinformation in the product launches, Nvidia also had to contend with a not-insignificant number of its new cards shipping out with fewer ROPs than intended. These components in the rendering pipeline handle anti-aliasing and other rasterization processes and can have a significant effect on performance. In some instances, cards with missing ROPs were over 10% slower than their full-ROP-equipped counterparts.

    So you really don’t want one of these cards if you’re trying to buy a new RTX 50 GPU. But would you pay less for one?

    German retailer Alternate has started offering ROP-compromised RTX 5090s as a standalone product, with less warranty, but at the same price (for now). The Zotac RTX 5090 Solid OC with juts 168 of its intended 174 ROPs enabled, is listed at 2,900 euros. That’s the same price as the full ROP version, which only really makes this an attractive buy in any sense if the stock is non-existent. Which it is, but eesh, a discount of some kind might be nice.

    It is rated as having all accessories and will ship in the original packaging with no material damage, only potential cosmetic wear. That and the missing ROPs. It doesn’t have the standard warranty, but there is a return and refund period guaranteed by EU law which gives buyers some protection.

    This isn’t as new as it sounds

    AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D.
    A screenshot from mryeester’s review of the 5600X3D. mryeester / YouTube

    While it might seem a bit off to be selling what is effectively defective hardware that Nvidia should just replace, it’s telling that this retailer would rather just try to sell it. Perhaps it would take too long to get a replacement sent through.

    This particular situation might be caused by Nvidia’s mess up, it’s not that out of character for retailers to do this. The card is currently listed as “B-stock,” but that’s not so distinct from selling open box or other returned items. The only real difference here is it’s not sold at a discount, like it should be. I guess that’s what you get when demand is just this high.

    Slightly-cut-down hardware is also sold by major manufacturers all the time. Indeed, that’s often how second-tier graphics cards are made throughout a range. A die comes off the fabrication line with some defective cores, so they’re turned off and the CPU or GPU is sold as a lower-tier version.

    AMD even did limited runs of this with the 5600X3D and eventually, the 5700X3D. They were slightly defective 5800X3Ds that ended up being great value buys for those who grabbed them.

    How much would you pay for a cut-back card?

    Zotac 5090 with missing ROPs.
    Zotac

    There’s no denying that there is demand for graphics cards of all kinds, be they the latest and greatest, good options from last-generation, or just any GPU you can find. Because it really is tough out there at the moment. Good luck finding almost anything under $400 that isn’t half a decade old or so-entry-level it’s not even worth it.

    So these ROP-less cards will probably sell. And indeed, if they work well enough but just not as well as they should, then they’re effectively an equivalent to the 5090D that Nvidia sells in China, or some kind of 5080 Super.

    The question really becomes what would you be willing to pay for it?

    Considering the lost ROPs in a 5090 isn’t as dramatic in say a 5080, or 5070 Ti, where the standard number of ROPs is lower (and therefore the loss is larger, percentage wise), then the price cut shouldn’t be as extreme as we’d suggest for those more affordable cards. But still, close to 3,000 euros for a card that’s not as good as it should be feels like a serious stretch.

    These cards are overpriced enough as it is. If they’re defective, the price should at least be below MSRP. Right?

  • When the AI hype dies, I hope Nvidia pivots back to gaming

    Nvidia doesn’t seem to care about gaming much anymore. From its lacklustre Blackwell RTX 50 launch, to its stock price booming as its H100s were used in all manner or AI training, to hyperbolic marketing that suggests we should just take our fake frames and be happy about it. Nvidia’s clearly more of an AI company these days. But I hope that doesn’t last.

    This is the company that brought us iconic gaming graphics cards, like the 1080 Ti and the ludicrous 4090. It popularized dynamic upscaling with DLSS, and helped make raytracing kind-of viable. But it’s been very clear for a number of years that gaming is not Nvidia’s major focus, and indeed this past one, makes it feel like an afterthought.

    I really hope if and when the AI hype dies down, or the bubble bursts, that Nvidia returns to its roots and makes some great gaming hardware again.

    Humble pie kills hubris

    Four Nvidia H100 HPC GPUs side by side.
    Nvidia’s H100 GPUs have been incredibly profitable for the company. Geekerwan / Geekerwan

    If gaming became a bigger focus for Nvidia again, it would have take it more seriously. That would mean coming to terms with some of the negative habits it’s cultivated in recent years. Instead of taking the gaming market for granted, it would need to be more aggressive with its pricing, making more of its higher-end graphics cards more affordable.

    That might even mean it stopped undercutting its board partners with overbuilt Founders Editions, so they can be more creative with their designs without sky-rocketing the price. Maybe Nvidia could sweet talk EVGA to come back too? How fun would it be see KINGPIN cards make a comeback?

    It would have to start putting more than 8GB of VRAM on its most affordable graphics cards, too.

    If there’s one thing I wish it would do, though, it’s be more honest about its products. Jensen Huang confidently stating that the RTX 5070 would offer RTX 4090 performance (“with AI”) is as close to an outright lie you can get without actually doing so — it’s not even faster than the 4070 Super all the time. It could stop using misleadingly labelled graphs and show real frames per second against its own cards, and the competition. It could highlight native performance, like AMD did during its recent RX 9070 XT debut.

    I still love the stupid halo cards

    I am a staunch critic of Nvidia’s predatory, monopolistic practices. Its price increases in recent generations have been laughable, and the RTX 50 launch has been downright insulting. But I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t love the ridiculousness of its Titan-esque halo cards. The RTX 1080 Ti, the RTX 3090 Ti, the RTX 4090. Less so the RTX 5090, but still, it’s bonkers. Look how tiny the actual PCB is. Look at how the power connectors are melting again because these graphics cards are so ridiculous.

    Kingpin products on a shelf, including EVGA graphics cards and motherboards.
    EVGA Kingpin GPUs were some of the most bonkers designs ever. Vince Lucido/Kingpin

    They’re the fastest cards there’s even been at the time of their release. The lizard part of my brain that just likes to see the numbers go up loves what the hardware can do, and the jaded tech journalist side of me adores the unique ways they pushed the boundaries of what’s possible.

    I’d love it if graphics cards were more competitive, and I’d love to see AMD take a shot at the top spot again even if it doesn’t make much financial sense. But I also want to see Nvidia do crazy Nvidia stuff. Just make a 1,000W GPU that needs its own power supply already. Why not?

    Get more gamers onboard

    If Nvidia took gaming more seriously, it could make some of its best features more applicable to more people. As it stands, some of its flagship gaming features, like DLSS and raytracing, are effectively paywall locked behind the highest-end graphics cards. Even almost seven years on from the debut of these new features with the RTX 20 series, and no one I know uses raytracing outside of those with the most high-end graphics cards.

    And how many people do you know who have an XX90 class card? I work in this industry and I only know a couple.

    DLSS at the very least should be just as usable on an XX60 card as it is on an XX90. The whole point of the high-end card is that it has the local rendering power to do what the lower-end cards can’t. Giving it more Tensor cores so that it can DLSS even harder than the cards that actually need the help is backwards.

    The same goes for raytracing. The 5090 has all the power it needs to drive high frame rates in most games. Giving it almost four times the RT cores of the 5070 just seems unfair. The 5070 is the card that needs that extra help tracing those paths. Sure, make the future 6090 faster in all senses than every other card, but couldn’t we have it so that turning on raytracing on low-end cards doesn’t mean making major sacrifices?

    Come back to the fold

    Nvidia really botched the RTX 50 series, and the RTX 40-series wasn’t that impressive either. But its tanking reputation doesn’t have to continue to slide — if it starts treating gamers as more than an afterthought. The AI boom won’t last forever, and though Nvidia’s datacenter business will certainly remain a more profitable part of it than consumer hardware, the gaming market will always be an important component in its system.

    If Nvidia wants to see off new competition from AMD and Intel, and the ever-greater-encroachment from ARM, it needs to rethink its approach: Fairer pricing, more competitive mid-range options with democratised features, would be a great start.

    That doesn’t mean ditching the crazy designs and over the top GPUs that push the boundaries of what’s possible — I want to see more of that, not less — but that can be folded into a more cohesive strategy that understands what gamers actually want and need: Affordable GPUs that let them enjoy a more customized, performative experience than consoles and handhelds.

    If Nvidia wants to keep being the best, it needs to act like it still cares.