Msi's Monstrous 1000 W Watercooled Rtx 5090 Has Been Designed To

Still, if you're going all in on an RTX 5090, why not turn everything up to 11?

There's something to be said for throwing moderation out the window and going all in on excess. MSI seems to agree, as it's just taken the wraps off the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G Lightning Z, a truly monstrous, water cooled, 8-inch screen emblazoned GPU that makes the regular RTX 5090 look downright pedestrian.

It's been designed to 'completely ignore the concepts of balance in favour of extremes', according to the launch presentation I just attended, and boy howdy has MSI refused to do things by halves. Well, we are in Vegas, after all.

For a start, there's an 8-inch display mounted to the card itself, which has eschewed a regular air cooler for an external 360 mm radiator with a three fan cooling arrangement. It's fed by a newly-designed pump that MSI says delivers 71% increased flow over previous GPU pump iterations, which is in turn attached to a full copper, full cover cold plate arrangement designed to keep things frosty. With a carbon fibre plate on the back, naturally.

And frosty it'll need to be, as this beast is built to draw huge amounts of power. It's fed by dual 16-pin power connectors and 40-phase VRMs, with a dual BIOS system which allows the "extreme" variant to draw up to 1000 W.

For reference, the regular RTX 5090 has a TGP of 575 W, so this PSU-worrying ubercard is capable of nearly doubling the already-eye-watering demands of an FE model. MSI recommends a 1600 W PSU, and I really doubt it's kidding.

There's also a 2500 W+ BIOS for "extreme overclockers" only, which I imagine is reserved for those types with a spare canister of liquid nitrogen hanging around. Those of us that use the regular modes, however, will be treated to a top stock boost clock of 2,775 MHz, around 365 MHz more than most RTX 5090s.

Should you wish to push the card further (and let's face it, there wouldn't be much point buying it if you didn't), intrepid overclockers will be able to tweak it to its maximum potential via the Lightning Hub web app, or with an app on your phone. The truly enthusiastic will also be able to adjust the voltages with some handy dedicated multimeter "V-check" connections.

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Oh, and you can switch the BIOS between the 1000 W and 800 W versions with an included keyring. It looks like a lightning bolt, and... well, I can't help but feel it's a bit tacky. Still,

Source: PC Gamer