We like the fact that MSI took the time to not only include two BIOS ICs on the RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC but also make it as simple as throwing a switch to activate one or the other. To be precise you can choose between ‘‘Silent’’ and “Gaming” modes. The most obvious difference between the two is one sets the power limit to 575 (silent) and the other to 600 (gaming) watts. Not as obvious, until you start pushing things, is that in addition to setting the clock boost to either 2527MHz or 2580MHz, this also changes all (four) fans’ profiles (two – one for the three 120s on the rad and the other for the 100mm on the card itself). It also modifies the pump speed profile. As such, we really like the fact that MSI has recessed this switch to make accidentally changing the position rather unlikely, to say the least.
Moving on. While we would have loved to tear this beast down two things stopped us from doing so. The first is the price… and the second is the availability. At the time of this review, the RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC’s MSRP puts it at nearly 3.6 Canuckistany dollars. Having to cough up that would have hurt (mostly our pride), but as this is the first in Canada… finding one to replace it would have been harder. We try not to screw over future reviewers whenever possible.
Thankfully, the good folks over at TechPowerUp.com did tear one down. Yes, those mad lads tore it down to the bare metal for the world to see… and the RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid SOC is even more impressive in the hardware components than it is in the looks department.
First and foremost, this is a card that is covered, quite literally, in ‘fets. To be precise there are twenty-freakin-nine separate and distinct power phases on this board. A whopping 22 are for the core, and 7 for the memory (and various other sundries).
Furthermore, we are talking 50A “Dr.MOS” MPS MP87993’ers. That is 50 Amps per phase. With 22 phases a piddly 600Watts is nothing for a 1,100Amp power sub-system. Yikes. That not only brings new meaning to the word “overkill”… it redefines the very word.
Before circling back to the water cooling portion we do have to point out that MSI has nicely recessed the 16-pin power connector by 8.5mm. That is about as much as one would want it to be recessed, lest it be impossible to see the warning yellow baked into the adapter’s plug, but at the same time helps alleviate worries over the 35mm offset distance allowed before bending said cable and only starts at the back end of the cable header. Not the front “plugs into the port” end. Of course, we could have wished MSI had recessed it and included a flip-down (or clip-on) cable support that physically ensures that this high amp cable is physically incapable of bending before it is allowed to bend. Also falling firmly into the ‘if wishes were fishes’ category we also wish MSI had doubled the number of headers. We will go over our reasoning for having concerns with the entire 16pin connector standard later in the review, but even if the standard lets one push 50A (at 12v) through a single port we would have felt a lot more comfortable if it was spread over two ports. NVIDIA does not, so we can not fault MSI for following NVIDIA’s wishes… too much… and to be fair if MSI was going to break with NVIDIA over the port we would have preferred a bunch of PCIe “8-pin” headers be used instead of two 16-pin headers.
