Defective GPUs May Have Leaked Into GeForce RTX 50 Series Laptops — Now They Won’t Be Released on Time

According to German publication Heise, laptop manufacturers are working hard to thoroughly test new models with GeForce RTX 50-series graphics before they are shipped to customers. The check was reportedly initiated by Nvidia itself. The company fears that the mobile GPUs could have been manufactured on the same production lines as the defective desktop versions, which were found to have non-functioning rasterization units (ROPs).

Image source: VideoCardz

Last month, Nvidia officially admitted that 0.5% of the released GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards were defective – some of their rasterization units did not work. Later it became known that a similar manufacturing defect affected RTX 5080 chips. Although the problem is not widespread, many complaints about such graphics cards have already appeared online.

As Heise notes, employees of laptop manufacturers are now forced to work overtime to eliminate the possibility of defects in mobile versions of Nvidia graphics processors.

«We have learned from several manufacturers that they are currently working in emergency mode to avoid a repeat of the situation with desktop GPUs. Nvidia has commissioned an inspection of already assembled laptops with GeForce RTX 50-series graphics, paying special attention to the number of ROPs in the video chips. A shortage of them can lead to significant losses in 3D performance,” Heise reports.

RTX 50-series laptops from various manufacturers were announced at CES 2025 earlier this year. They were originally scheduled to hit the market in March, but due to additional testing, shipments have been delayed to April. It is unclear whether manufacturers will be able to release the planned volumes of devices on time. The delay could affect not only Nvidia, but also other market participants, including Intel and AMD.

It is also reported that laptop makers have only recently received the final vBIOS versions for the new GPUs, which could mean that mass production of devices with RTX 50-series graphics has not even begun yet.