MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Supreme Liquid X 24G review – IGN
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition has been available for a few weeks now, and today we’re looking forward to another third-party custom variant of Nvidia’s high-end graphics card: the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Supreme Liquid X 24G. Unlike the also massive custom 4090 from Gigabyte we reviewed earlier, the Suprim Liquid X features an onboard AIO liquid cooler. This gives it a unique advantage – or disadvantage – when trying to fit into tight cases compared to the bulky air coolers found on most other RTX 4090 cards.
MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Supreme Liquid X 24G – Design and features
Like the main Founders Edition, the Suprim Liquid X features 16,384 CUDA cores, but with a boost clock increase of 2.62MHz, compared to the FE’s 2.52MHz. The notable difference is the integrated liquid cooler that slims the primary graphics card unit down to a slim, two-slot design, measuring 11 by 5.5 by 1.69 inches (280 by 140 by 43 mm), compared to 11.9 by 5.4 by 2.4 inches (304 by 137). x 61 mm) on the Founders Edition.
Of course, this does not take into account the connected radiator and a pair of 120mm fans. This means you’ll have a lot more room to fit the card in a wider variety of cases than the larger 3-slot 4090s (we had to swap cases to fit a Gigabyte card, for example)—but you’ll also need a spot to mount the cooler, including the 10.7 x fans. 4.7 x 2.1 in (274 x 121 x 55 mm). Most cases have at least one spot to mount the cooler, but if that spot is already occupied by the AIO CPU, you may have a problem.
Besides the AIO cooler, which attaches to the main card via a pair of 17-inch braided PVC tubes, there is a single 95mm 5.0 Torx fan on the card itself. Next to this fan is a small RGB-lit chevron, while the Suprim logo on top, and a geometric design on the back panel, also light up.
In addition to its cooler design, the Suprim Liquid X carries the same DisplayPort 1.4a 1x HDMI 2.1 outputs as most RTX 4090 cards, and is powered by the same 16-pin 12VHPWR connector. Finally, there’s a BIOS switch in the PCB that changes between gaming and silent mode, for more performance or less noise, respectively. All of our tests were conducted with Gaming set.
MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Supreme Liquid X 24G – Performance
My main question regarding the Suprim X Liquid performance comparison was how much the liquid cooling solution could improve performance over the air coolers on the Founders Edition and most other dedicated cards. It turns out: not that much.
Starting with our synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 4090 Suprim X Liquid matches the Founders Edition in 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra, though both cards fall a bit short of the Gigabyte Gaming OC, which leads by a thousand points on the pair.
Then, in Unigine Heaven, the Gigabyte card again took the lead at 1080p and 1440p, yet the MSI and Founders Edition cards took the lead at 4K, with the pair landing near identical scores of 2838 and 2842, respectively.
In ray tracing synthetics, the three 4090 cards again land within a few points of each other, though this time Suprim Liquid X wins all three tests, though by an admittedly small margin.
Moving on to our gaming benchmarks, which are run at the highest graphics preset available, with ray tracing and DLSS enabled where possible, the story is much the same. All three 4090 cards are within a few FPS of each other, give or take depending on the game and the accuracy tested.
Looking at just a few more 4K games, we again see the 4090 card’s three swap strikes. This is pretty much as expected, as AIB cards only carry minor factory overclocking, with their main difference being in their cooling solution.
With that in mind, I took a look at the temperatures during the benchmark, and that was the one area where MSI took a strong lead. The RTX 4090 Founders Edition peaked at 64.7C during benchmarking, while the Gigabyte Gaming OC topped out at 62C. Meanwhile, the MSI Supreme Liquid X maintained a cool 55°C while under load. That’s quite a difference in temperature, which indicates that there’s more headroom available if you want to overclock the card even further and squeeze in some extra performance.
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