2025 has introduced the next generation of graphics cards for PC gamers. The top two contenders, as per usual, are Nvidia and AMD (though it is worth mentioning that Intel started early with the Arc B580 in December). In any case, there was plenty of hype behind the launch of Team Green’s RTX 50 series GPUs, but the series has been met with a few problems.

The first thing to mention is the limited amount of stock and rising prices at the hands of scalpers and even directly from retailers. This has been a widespread issue across the GPU market, forcing rival AMD to ramp up production, but that didn’t stop it from netting its best first-week Radeon GPU sales in contrast to Nvidia’s lackluster launch. We asked our readers whether they are confident in buying an RTX 50 series graphics card; you can see the ongoing results of this poll below.

Most people are worried about cable melting issues

Two hardware issues disrupted the RTX 50 series launch. These are the missing ROPs fiasco – a small number of cards shipped with fewer ROPs (render output units) than advertised, hurting performance. There was also the return of cable melting issues, despite Nvidia’s efforts to prevent this from happening again.

At the time of writing, our poll reveals that fewer than 20% of respondents are confident in buying an RTX 50 series graphics card. Nearly 60% are worried about power connector overheating issues, though it’s important to note that this only affects the high-end cards, namely the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080. Just over a quarter are worried about missing ROPs, though Nvidia has since claimed this issue has been resolved.

Since running this poll, there have been a few additional issues to think about, the most prominent of which being widespread black screen issues that are affecting multiple generations of GeForce GPUs. There’s also the drop in support for 32-bit PhysX on the new 50 series cards – here’s every game that is affected.

Despite these results, we don’t expect to see Nvidia suddenly stop being popular, but it has opened up some space for the likes of AMD to regain some market share. One look at the Steam Hardware & Software Survey will tell you that Nvidia continues to dominate the video card market, especially with its xx60 tier cards.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.