It was an exciting weekend for graphics card overclockers as several worked on one-upping each other in breaking world records with the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Lightning Z. MSI dropped a hint of the returning flagship card on its social media page last week, but scores for it began appearing in 3DMark Time Spy before the card was officially announced. A trio of overclockers was already hard at work to see who could get the highest score and settings for the new king of GPUs, with one such run getting 53,207 points.
I heard that there will be a thunderstorm tomorrow… 😏
— MSI Gaming (@msigaming) January 5, 2026
Stay tuned⚡#MSIxCES2026 pic.twitter.com/qU2meUD6kR
As reported by VideoCardz (1, 2), OCer’s Littleboy, Lucky_nOOb, and Tsaik each push the card to its limits using a 2,500W XOC BIOS. The end result enabled a nearly 3.75 GHz core clock, combined with memory at 1750 MHz (36 Gbps) paired with an Intel Core i9-14900K and 48 GB DDR5 4000 MT/s memory.
UNLIMITED. PAWAH. pic.twitter.com/fwatQFFmRO
— Alva Jonathan (@Luckyn00bOc) January 4, 2026
The MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Lightning Z is said to utilize a 40-phase power delivery design and also features two 12V-2×6 connectors. Cooling was done using exotic means, presumably liquid nitrogen; however, a new image from MSI for a CES press release shows the card will have some sort of liquid cooling solution included. Meanwhile, the overclockers have provided numerous photos of their setups, but here are two giving a clear view of the PCB. Memory remains unchanged from the current RTX 5090 configuration with 32 GB GDDR7.
CES Press Release:
“Co-developed with NVIDIA, this ultimate flagship graphics card is engineered for unmatched performance and rock-solid stability, even at extreme power and clock speeds. MSI’s breakthrough dual-connector design delivers up to 1600W to a reinforced high-power PCB and premium VRM, unlocking exceptional compute density and overclocking headroom. To sustain this load, our next-generation exclusive liquid-cooling architecture employs an integrated full-contact cold plate beneath the block, extending coverage across the GPU, memory, and all high-power stages. A next-generation pump optimizes flow dynamics, feeding MSI’s patented hybrid-density radiator with zoned fin spacing for superior heat exchange. A silent, high-pressure axial fan with newly designed aerodynamic blades further boosts static pressure at low noise. The world’s first full-surface display enables real-time system visualization and personalization, while a dedicated mobile app lets users monitor and customize overclocking presets on the go. Together, this power delivery and thermal design provide sustained performance beyond RTX 5090-class expectations.”
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →MSI has a key note scheduled for 2pm ET/11am PT at their CES room today... Might be related?
Yep, this and a bunch of monitor-related stuff, the amount of different things I saw on the weekend got confusing after a bit.
Man talk about a halo product. You need two dedicated power supplies to feed that beast of a card and potentially a 3rd for the rest of the system. And maybe even commercial power to feed those! Yeesh... Im pretty confidant my home power wouldn't cut it without some creative solutions. Dividing my office power between two or three breakers for one.... maybe a power bank for one side of the power... or a generator.
Well, the default BIOS is only . . . 1600W -oofta still!
How are only two connectors going to support anything more than 1200W?
Well, there is the PCIe but I know that still doesn't make up the different. Could be that the special BIOS allowed them to pull more, just like how that ASUS ROG BIOS does for their special 5090, I think that one allows something like 800 or 900 over the one connector.
J2c has been pulling 1k+ over a 12vhp.
I remember back in the good ole days. Silicon lottery was a thing. Getting the best CPU that can overclock.
Now it's a connector lottery. Getting a connector built within' the right tolerances that doesn't melt.
Sad but true.
For my builds I even went so far as to put a case fan nearby the GPU connector to help keep its temps down. Truly ridiculous.
It aint heat that kills those connectors.
I can't wait to see what MSI charges for this card......$6K??
I mean technically it is, but a case fan isn't going to change much either way.
If you could cryo-cool the connectors then it would be fine. It would lower the resistance to a point where it wouldn't melt anymore.
but again, a case fan isn't getting those kind of temps haha
but it's a BTF card that should also use the back connector, he bypassed it since he does not have such a mobo on hand also it drew around 760 watt iirc.
Look at the asus xoc card he did with ln2 oc.
aah, I was talking about the matrix card he just got, apologies
At this rate though, I'm pretty doubtful that NV is going to launch anything next round which will hook me again. They'd better get a handle on the power consumption and connector before I buy another flagship card. I'm undervolting both of mine and they're doing great but I've also tested OCing them and the FPS gains were just not worth the risks, noise, temps, or power draw. I've said it many times, the 5090 GPU is a beast when undervolted but when they push insane power through it, it becomes more of a literal hot mess.
All these folks going crazy with upping the powah need to provide more than just the 3Mark, etc, benchmarks show some gaming results because I am at least more curios for those even if I don't think it's worth it. Meanwhile if NV is going to start making 1000W+ cards to achieve the same results, all the more reason I'm done with them and will be looking at other alternatives for my gaming needs.