GeForce RTX 5000: Hiccups with PCIe 5.0 - or is it the driver?
Now that the first users have received their GeForce RTX 5090 or 5080, reports of graphics dropouts are appearing.
Looks good, doesn't always run: Nvidia's RTX 5090.
(Image: Nvidia)
Graphics cards from the brand new GeForce RTX 5000 series have only been available for a few days. They are hardly available and even in official manufacturer stores they are only available at a surcharge, if at all. The comparatively few users who can already call a GeForce RTX 5090 or GeForce RTX 5080 their own are now discussing unexpected teething troubles on social media and forums.
One error that affects first-time buyers is unexpected graphics dropouts. This can result in massive stuttering in Windows or no image being displayed at all after a restart. Graphics cards currently being tested in the c't lab have not yet shown any such problems, but other publications have also encountered such problems in their tests. A workaround that in many cases improves the situation is to slow down the PCI Express interface: in most cases, the dropouts disappear if you do not allow PCIe 5.0 in the mainboard BIOS, but make do with PCIe 4.0.
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Or is it the driver?
However, it is unclear whether it is really due to PCIe: There are also reports that users of GeForce RTX 4090 suddenly have such problems – although the cards have so far run inconspicuously and basically do not speak PCIe 5.0 at all. The similarity to newer 5000 GPUs is that the same driver version is used in the event of an error, namely 572.16 from the end of January. Users of the 4000 GPUs can switch back to older drivers, but first-time 5000 buyers cannot: only version 572.16 is available for this brand-new GPU family.
Nvidia has since told US media that it is investigating the problem reports. Before changing graphics cards, the company generally recommends removing all older graphics drivers from Windows before using the new card and installing the new driver over it. Or set up the Windows installation from scratch.
Problems with past GeForce launches
Issues with the start of new GeForce generations are nothing new. At the launch of the GeForce RTX 3000 in 2020, fresh GeForce RTX 3090s were sent to kingdom come by games such as New World because the frame rates achieved in the game menu were so high. The (insufficiently dimensioned) power supply on some cards was affected.
The GeForce RTX 4090 also saw the debut of the new 12VHPWR power connector, which began to burn if its pins did not make exact contact. This could happen if the cable was pulled slightly after being attached or bent close to the connector to route it in the housing. This highly dangerous problem was not solved until 2023, when the PCI-SIG published a new specification and replaced the 12VHPWR connector type with the successor 12V-2x6. (mue)
