As the battle of the GPUs commences for this generation, it seems that AMD is already ahead in one important area – and it is one that has been on everyone's minds and in the headlines in recent days.

Raster Operating Units, or ROPs, have been causing a lot of discussion and controversy recently. This is mostly due to reports that ROPs have been mysteriously missing in action from several of Nvidia's new high-end cards. Some GPUs, including the RTX 5090, 5080, and 5070 Ti, have been reported as arriving with missing ROPs.

RX 9070 series and RTX 5080 ROPs compared

The Nvidia GeForce 5080, for instance, is meant to come equipped with 112 ROPs, though some users received cards that only reported 104. You can check if your RTX 50 series GPU is missing ROPs quite easily – luckily, our review unit for the RTX 5080 was operating at full power.

However, AMD's newly announced Radeon RX 9070 comes equipped with 128 ROPs. This is more than an RTX 5080, even with a full serving of ROPs. The RX 9070 XT also has 128 ROPs. This number puts it much higher than its direct rival, the RTX 5070 Ti, which only has 96.

Some reports indicated that the missing ROPs could affect performance by as much as 11% in the RTX 5070 Ti. However, Nvidia's own figures suggested only a 4% performance impact. Even so, the difference between 96 ROPs in the 5070 Ti and 128 ROPs in the RX 9070 series could prove to be significant as the two cards are pitted against one another.

This difference is unlikely to be the knockout blow that brings down Nvidia, but with Raster Operating Units on everyone's minds due to Nvidia's issues, it might prove to be more impactful than we first thought.

About the Author

Rebecca Hills-Duty

Writing and journalism experience at VRFocus, UploadVR, The Escapist, HTC, PC Gamer, Tech Radar+ and Dexerto. Can sometimes be found playing with retro tech.