Nvidia’s replacement driver addresses the fan bug that forced last week’s recall, though some users are reporting a new problem with clock speeds on overclocked cards.
Less than a week after pulling its GeForce Game Ready Driver 595.59 due to a critical fan monitoring bug, Nvidia has released version 595.71 WHQL as the official replacement. The new driver shipped on March 2 and is available now through the Nvidia App and the company’s direct download page. Here’s what we know so far.
What went wrong with 595.59
The original driver was released on February 26 ahead of Resident Evil Requiem’s launch. Within hours, reports began surfacing that hardware monitoring tools were failing to detect GPU fans correctly, and in some cases fans were not spinning at all after the driver update. Nvidia pulled the download the same day and issued guidance to roll back to the previous stable release, 591.86 WHQL from January 27.
It’s worth noting that the fan issue was serious enough to constitute a potential hardware risk, not just a software inconvenience. A GPU running under load without fan activity can hit damaging temperatures quickly. That severity likely explains how fast Nvidia moved to pull the driver.
What 595.71 adds and fixes
The replacement driver carries everything that 595.59 was intended to deliver. Primary additions include:
Day-one support for Resident Evil Requiem, Capcom’s latest entry in the franchise, with DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation and DLSS Ray Reconstruction support for the game’s path tracing mode. The game launched to strong reception and this driver delivers the optimized experience Nvidia had promised at launch.
Game Ready support for Bungie’s Marathon, which launches this week. The game supports DLSS Super Resolution and Nvidia Reflex.
Game-specific bug fixes covering Total War: Three Kingdoms, Call of Duty Modern Warfare (2019), and Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age.
The fan monitoring regression that caused the original recall is confirmed fixed in this release.
New reports: clock speed and voltage issues on some cards
The timing is interesting, given that reports of a separate problem began appearing within 24 hours of 595.71’s release. Several users, including hardware content creator Bang4BuckPC Gamer, have reported that the driver appears to be capping core clock speeds and voltage on overclocked graphics cards, resulting in measurable performance drops.
Early reports suggest affected cards are running below their expected boost clocks and voltage targets, with some users seeing frame rate drops of up to 16% in benchmarks compared to the previous stable driver. The issue appears most visible on overclocked RTX 5090 cards, though reports span multiple GPU models.
Nvidia has not yet commented on this specific issue as of the time of publication. It is not yet clear whether this is an intentional change, a regression introduced while fixing the fan bug, or a configuration problem affecting a subset of hardware.
(Take that with appropriate skepticism for now: early reports after a major driver release are often a mix of genuine bugs, user error, and isolated hardware interactions. The picture should be clearer within the next few days.)
A timeline of the R595 driver cycle
The pace of events over the past week is unusual even by the standards of game-launch driver cycles:
February 26: Nvidia releases 595.59 WHQL with Resident Evil Requiem support. Fan monitoring issues reported within hours. Nvidia pulls the download and recommends rolling back to 591.86.
March 2: Nvidia releases 595.71 WHQL. Fan bug fixed. Day-one game support delivered. New reports of clock and voltage throttling begin appearing on overclocked systems.
Two problematic driver releases in one week is not a pattern users are accustomed to seeing from Nvidia, whose driver stability record has been generally strong in recent years. Whether the clock speed behavior in 595.71 constitutes a confirmed regression or something more limited remains to be established.
What this means for you
If you skipped 595.59 and stayed on 591.86, you have two options right now. Install 595.71 for the game optimizations and the fix, but monitor your GPU’s performance and clock behavior. Alternatively, wait a few days while the reports around the clock speed issue are better understood.
If you are not running an overclocked card, the clock behavior reports may not apply to your setup. Most reports of the issue have come from users pushing GPUs beyond factory specifications. Stock-clocked cards appear unaffected based on current information.
If you already installed 595.71 and are seeing lower-than-expected performance, rolling back to 591.86 through Device Manager or the Nvidia App is the straightforward option until the situation is clearer.
Resident Evil Requiem players who need the DLSS 4 optimizations and were waiting for the recalled driver situation to resolve can now install 595.71 for the intended experience. Just be aware of the ongoing reports and keep an eye on your monitoring software.
PERFRIG will update this article if Nvidia addresses the clock speed reports or releases additional guidance.
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