Defective Zotac RTX 5090 GPUs Sold at Near-Full Price by German Retailer

Alternate lists GPUs with missing ROPs as B-stock without significant discounts, sparking transparency and pricing concerns.

German retailer Alternate is selling Zotac RTX 5090 GPUs with 168 ROPs instead of the standard 176 for €2,899, nearly the price of fully functional units.
The missing ROPs reduce performance by up to 11% in some scenarios, particularly in high-resolution gaming and professional workloads.
Alternate briefly removed the defective GPUs from its website but later relisted them, omitting details about the missing ROPs in the new listing.
These GPUs are sold without standard warranties, though EU consumer protection laws guarantee return and refund rights.
Ongoing GPU stock shortages and high demand for RTX 5090 units are driving up prices, even for defective products, while Nvidia has yet to comment on this issue.