NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 laptops are now expected to see a production delay, as suppliers are now being "extra careful" to avoid consumers witnessing another "missing ROP" type problem.
NVIDIA Is Reportedly Being Cautious About The Launch of RTX 50 Laptops, To Avoid Problems Like Missing ROPs
Update [3/7/25] - NVIDIA has confirmed with The Verge that the GeForce RTX 50 Laptop GPUs are not affected by any missing ROPs issue. As such, the previous report seems to be inaccurate, and we shouldn't expect any major delays in production or a potential recall.
Did we just go from “no other GPUs are affected” to ‘“some laptop GPUs” are also affected?
The answer was “Nope.”
Just to triple-check, the “nope” means that no laptop GPUs are affected by the missing ROP issue, yes?
“Correct, no further issues,” says Berraondo.
Team Green's consumer GPUs for this year are not on par with what we expected from them, not in terms of performance, but their supply chain availability and after-sales performance. We have discussed extensively the "missing ROP" fiasco with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs, which has brought in a performance drop of up to 11% in some cases, and now, according to the German media outlet Heise, it is claimed that the missing ROP problem does exist with NVIDIA's RTX 50 laptop GPUs; however, they are being catered to.
The source claims that after discussing supply chain matters with several manufacturers, it is evident that laptops with NVIDIA's RTX 50 GPUs will see a delay in retail launch, given that Team Green has instructed them to be extra cautious with the quality assurance (QA) stages. The testing procedure has become much more robust, which means that manufacturers will need to implement additional measures to ensure a smooth launch, which translates into the retail launch being pushed ahead.
Speaking of retail availability, the outlet claims that manufacturers have received the final vBIOS for the laptop GPUs recently and that mass production will start in early March. In light of this, it is predicted that these devices will debut on the retail channels in April and might extend up to May, depending upon regional availability. NVIDIA started to take pre-orders of RTX 50 laptop GPUs at the end of February, and consumers were expected to get their units in March, which means that a delay of one month is anticipated.
While the delay isn't appreciated at all, it is safe for NVIDIA to ensure that the launch goes steady instead of messing up like the desktop GPU launch. But from the consumer perspective, expecting such mess-ups from a firm like NVIDIA is certainly not in the books, and this only means that consumer trust will deteriorate in the longer run.
