NVIDIA's RTX 5000 GPU launch isn't finished disappointing the Team Green faithful. The RTX 5070, NVIDIA's delayed mid-range "Blackwell" GPU, is expected to launch on March 5, and a small bit of performance info has leaked out as reviewers are busy testing the GPUs.
The news comes from Videocardz, which spotted a Geekbench metric involving the RTX 5070, an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and an X870E motherboard. Geekbench is but a small part of the full picture, but it gives an idea of what to expect from the final piece of NVIDIA's initial RTX 5000 launch run.
The RTX 5070 scored 187,414 using OpenCL and 188,712 using Vulkan in Geekbench 6. Looking at average scores for the RTX 5070 Ti (which are published on Geekbench's website), the RTX 5070 appears to offer about 20% less performance than its Ti sibling.
As mentioned, this is far from a complete look at what the RTX 5070 can offer in terms of real-world gameplay performance, but it's not sitting well with NVIDIA's supporters.
NVIDIA's launch issues deepen with missing ROPs
As was discovered over the weekend and reported on by Tom's Hardware, some of NVIDIA's RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5070 Ti GPUs are missing ROPs.
ROPs — also known as Render Output Units or Raster Operations Pipeline — are critical to a GPU's performance, and they're not something you should see fluctuate between different cards from different manufacturers as they're a part of the actual GPU chip. It suggests a problem with the actual GB202 and GB203 NVIDIA chips used in the new Blackwell cards.
👉 Read our NVIDIA RTX 5090 Founders Edition review
With users spotting up to 8 absent ROPs in their GPUs, it's not an insignificant issue. Tom's Hardware received an answer from an NVIDIA representative on the subject:
We have identified a rare issue affecting less than 0.5% (half a percent) of GeForce RTX 5090 / 5090D and 5070 Ti GPUs, which have one fewer ROP than specified. The average graphical performance impact is 4%, with no impact on AI and Compute workloads. Affected consumers can contact the board manufacturer for a replacement. The production anomaly has been corrected.
NVIDIA's answer to Tom's Hardware suggests that GPUs only have one missing ROP, but that's clearly not the case for all users. Some have demonstrated a higher number.
NVIDIA fessed up to the issue immediately and has offered a clear way for affected customers to exchange their faulty cards. However, this will only serve to deepen stock shortages that are already severe.
Now, with the RTX 5070's leaked performance, people are piling on with some seriously funny quotes. One NVIDIA subreddit user joked, "So it's like a 5070 Ti with 8 missing ROPs." Can't argue with that.
👉 Read our NVIDIA RTX 5080 Founders Edition review
It's expected that the RTX 5070 will have lesser performance than its RTX 5070 Ti sibling, but I don't think anyone was expecting a 20% difference. We'll have to wait for full reviews to get a better idea of the situation, but those CES promises of RTX 4090 performance from the $549 RTX 5070 aren't holding up well.
Mix this news with melting power cables, high prices, faulty NVIDIA drivers, lack of availability, and dropped 32-bit PhysX support (am I missing anything?) and you can see why NVIDIA is receiving so much flak.
Can AMD save the GPU market with RDNA 4?
AMD's decision to delay the official announcement and launch of its new RDNA 4 GPUs keeps looking better. It's done practically nothing save for teasing launch dates, allowing NVIDIA to harm itself entirely on its own.
AMD is expected to finally reveal its Radeon RX 9000 GPUs on February 28, and they should finally launch to the public in early March.
The wait is almost over. Join us on February 28 at 8 AM EST for the reveal of the next-gen @AMD Radeon RX 9000 Series. Get ready to make it yours when it hits shelves in early March. RSVP by subscribing to the AMD YouTube channel: https://t.co/4rkVxeoDIaFebruary 13, 2025
AMD still has plenty of opportunity to muck up its unveil and launch. If it hopes to succeed — even ignoring all of NVIDIA's current issues — there must be stock to buy, competitive pricing, and solid performance to compete with NVIDIA's mid-range GPUs.
As reported by Videocardz, AMD is targeting a 42% performance uplift in its Radeon RX 9070 XT compared to the last-gen RX 7900 GRE. That should place it above the RTX 5070, though some Geekbench performance leaks suggest otherwise.
Like the 5070 Ti, Radeon RX 9070 XT Geekbench results have also appeared. The GPU hits 179,178 in OpenCL and 177,395 in Vulkan, both scores lower than those seen in the RTX 5070 leak.
There's ultimately too much left up in the air to confirm anything. Once final Radeon drivers are in place and AMD has officially unveiled its new GPUs, we'll all have a much better idea of what the PC gaming landscape will look like for the next couple of years.
Until then, I can only hope that NVIDIA gets its act together and AMD comes out with some true competition.
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