1 - WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

The internet is currently going a little crazy at the moment as it appears Nvidia are shipping GPUs in founder edition and AIB partner cards with missing ROPs. The internet has every right to be going a little crazy too as ultimately, missing ROPs = Missing performance.

2 - WHAT ARE NVIDIA SAYING?

Nvidia claim the issue effects less than 1% of cards which is of course a small amount, but for cards that cost £2000 or even £200, that number should really be 0%. You pay for a product, you expect it to perform as well as it says on the box, but unfortunately this is not always the case. Take the RTX 5090 for example, it should have 176 ROPs, "defective" units report 168 ROPs, this is a difference of some 4.5% which in monetary terms works out to be around £90! In benchmarks, this can equate up to real world 7.5% performance loss, again in monetary terms you get £150 less performance than you paid for!

The issue is even more widespread than just the example RTX 5090 graphics card, we know so far that it affects the already launched RTX 5080 and RTX 5070 Ti too and we would be wise to assume this may* affect newer cards due to launch in the near future such as the RTX 5070.

* - Please do not sue us Nvidia!

Thankfully here at UK Gaming Computers benchmarks and spec checks are all part of our testing when we build and test all of our systems. We are confident our testing process is one with the best in the business, as we know our testing time is longer than other options out there. It has always been of our opinion if someone can get a system out the door with less testing time then they simply are not testing the system properly. Anyway, enough of dropping hints as to why we are the highest rated gaming pc builder in the game, and lets talk what we as a system integrator are doing about it.

3 - THE SOLUTION

We understand customers are wary of this situation and rightly so, no one wants a product that is slower than advertised or paid for so we have decided to do absolutely nothing about it!**

** Now before you go grabbing those pitchforks and marching halfway across the country to our doorstep, we need to explain a little something. As we mentioned, each and every system we build has to undertake what we know is an industry leading quality control testing process to ensure everything is as it should be in the first place, typically this takes 2-3 working days and can take much longer depending on the complexity and specification of the build, we don't care if you need the system yesterday, your PC must pass this process with flying colours otherwise it doesn't go out the door.

As a result of this, we are and have always been checking hardware specs and benchmarks of our systems since our inception in 2009, way before all this Nvidia fiasco kicked off, meaning if a GPU or other component in your UKGC PC does not meet specification then it is replaced with a component that secures you the promised specification and performance.

Ultimately we have to maintain our brand standard and we are not where we are in the market by being sloppy with our testing process, the last thing we want is a disgruntled customer because we haven’t done our job properly. Yes it does take us a little longer, and yes it does take a little longer before we can ship you one of our PCs (unless its a next day PC where this testing has already taken place - shameless plug anyone?) but we already guarantee if you are paying for an advertised specification you will get that advertised specification.