A German store started selling those defective NVIDIA graphics cards everyone talked about months ago. These cards have fewer Render Output Units than they should. We first learned about these broken RTX 5090, 5080, and 5070 Ti cards back in February. Tests showed they run up to 11% slower in some games because they lack the correct number of processing units.
NVIDIA admitted the problem existed but claimed it affected very few cards—just half a percent of all they made. They told stores to replace these cards for customers. Many broken cards went back to manufacturers, but apparently not all of them. Some stores kept these cards and decided to sell them again as B-stock, which usually means slightly damaged or returned items.
One example shows up at Alternate, where they list a ZOTAC RTX 5090 SOLID OC missing eight processing units. Instead of having 176 ROPs like it should, this card has only 168. The crazy part? They charge the same price—€2,899—as the properly working version. They have another similar card at full price, plus a third with box damage for just €100 less.
These B-stock cards probably cannot be exchanged anymore, unlike when stores first sold them. European laws still let buyers return items within a certain period. NVIDIA made sure no laptop models shipped with this defect, at least. No other RTX 50 series cards with missing parts have appeared yet as B-stock, but many wonder how many faulty cards might still exist out there. Stores clearly decided against sending some back to NVIDIA when they had the chance.
NVIDIA admitted the problem existed but claimed it affected very few cards—just half a percent of all they made. They told stores to replace these cards for customers. Many broken cards went back to manufacturers, but apparently not all of them. Some stores kept these cards and decided to sell them again as B-stock, which usually means slightly damaged or returned items.
One example shows up at Alternate, where they list a ZOTAC RTX 5090 SOLID OC missing eight processing units. Instead of having 176 ROPs like it should, this card has only 168. The crazy part? They charge the same price—€2,899—as the properly working version. They have another similar card at full price, plus a third with box damage for just €100 less.
These B-stock cards probably cannot be exchanged anymore, unlike when stores first sold them. European laws still let buyers return items within a certain period. NVIDIA made sure no laptop models shipped with this defect, at least. No other RTX 50 series cards with missing parts have appeared yet as B-stock, but many wonder how many faulty cards might still exist out there. Stores clearly decided against sending some back to NVIDIA when they had the chance.
