MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC Review: Fast, Frigid Blackwell

	MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid: Estimated MSRP $2,199 – 2,499 The MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC straps a powerful 360mm AiO liquid cooler to NVIDIA’s latest GPU for killer performance and quiet operation.
	Powerful Liquid Cooler Cool And Quiet Operation Increased Clocks And Power Limit Full Feautured Great Performance	Price Premium 2.7 Slots + 360mm Radiator High Power Consumption

The embargo was lifted on NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition yesterday. If you haven’t read our coverage of the current king of consumer GPUs already, you should do so right now – spoiler: it was the fastest GPU we’ve tested to date, and it sports a plethora of bleeding edge technology. If you want to know exactly what makes the Blackwell-based GPU at the heart of the GeForce RTX 5090 tick, this deep dive into the architecture is where you should start. To quickly summarize, NVIDIA’s latest RTX 50 GPUs support new RTX Neural Rendering, RTX Mega Geometry, and DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Generations technologies, and feature a built-in AI Management Processor, and updated media engine with additional encoders and the ability to accelerate 4:2:2 transcoding.

Today the veil is lifted on GeForce RTX 5090s from NVIDIA’s board partners, and we have what may be the most interesting and powerful model out there, the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC. There are some concessions to make to install one of these bad boys in your chassis, due to its 360mm radiator, but in the end it’s cooler, quieter and faster than a Founders Edition card. Check it out…

MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid Specifications

Technically speaking, the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC doesn’t stray far from any other GeForce RTX 5090, in terms of features and specifications. All of the main technologies supported by the Blackwell architecture are present, and it features the same 32GB 28 Gbps GDDR7 memory configuration, though the out-of-box clocks and power target on this card are somewhat higher than NVIDIA’s reference specs.

The MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC can actually operate in two different modes. There is a dual-BIOS switch on the top edge of the card that gives users the ability to choose between “Gaming” and “Silent” modes (which boost up to 2,580MHz or 2,527MHz, respectively), and if you install the MSI Center app, additional boost modes are also available. However, during real world gaming sessions, all of these modes performed similarly, and it’s only the fan speed curve that’s somewhat tamer in Silent mode. Even then, the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC is super-quiet in Gaming mode and the GPU runs exceptionally cool – there’s really no reason to run in Quiet mode in our opinion. Without MSI Center installed, we routinely saw boost clocks higher than the rated specs anyway. As thorough as it is that MSI provides users some choice regarding clocks and cooling, the overall experience isn’t much different between the modes being offered, because the cooler is so powerful and quiet on this card.

The MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC card measures 280 x 148 x 51 mm and the 360mm radiator and fan assembly are 394 x 121 x 55 mm. The sleeved tubing is 11.2 mm in diameter and is about 280mm in length (or just shy of a foot). And the tubing is surprisingly flexible and accommodating.

All told, the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC card itself is not much different in terms of size and girth than a Founders Edition, but the radiator will require mounting in a chassis that has the space for it. That said, just about any modern enthusiast-class chassis should have the necessary space for a 360mm radiator; many higher-end chassis can handle two 360mm radiators.

In terms of actually setting it all up, there’s nothing special required – the AIO cooler and card are all powered by the slot and 16-pin 12VHPWR power connector. Additional power feeds or fan connections are not needed. Like NVIDIA, MSI also included a 4 x 8-pin PCIe power adapter with the card, that’s kind of unruly, but the latest power supplies with PCIe 5 connectors are coming.

The liquid-cooler consists of a micro-fin copper base and black, aluminum radiator. Three 120mm fans are preinstalled on the radiator and there is an additional fan on the card, along with some heatsinks to help cool the VRM. All told, this cooling assembly works great for the RTX 5090. The fans spin down completely when idle or under a light load, and even when fully loaded for long durations, the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC remains cool and quiet. As you’ll see a little later, temperatures on this card are far lower than NVIDIA’s Founder’s Edition.

The design of the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC features lots of silver, textured / brushed aluminum and sharp angles. There’s a full aluminum backplate on-board that adds rigidity and aids in cooling, and configurable lighting shines through one side of the fan shroud and through the Suprim logo on top and a diamond-shape cutout at the rear. It’s a good-looking setup overall, in our opinion.

Outputs on the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC are identical to other RTX 5090s (triple DisplayPorts and a single HDMI port), though the case bracket has ventilation, whereas the Founders Edition does not. NVIDIA’s Founders Edition is also a true two-slot design, while the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC requires only 2.7 slots. All of the other air-cooled OEM GeForce RTX 5090s we’ve seen, however, require three slots or more.

With all of that out of the way, what do you say we see how this card performs?