MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X Review: Whisper Quiet, Chilled

TweakTown's Rating: 95%

The Bottom Line

MSI's new GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X is a g gorgeous, powerful, sleek dual-slot 4K 120FPS+ gaming beast that will purr along inside of your gaming PC cranking frames all day and night long.

Pros

• Wicked SUPRIM LIQUID X design!
• WHISPER QUIET, yet retains all that RTX 4090 power.
• Dual-slot design FTW.
• Amazing performance out of the box, 4K 120FPS+ gaming.

Cons

• 240mm AIO cooler takes up space in your PC.

Should you buy it?

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Introduction

The second custom GeForce RTX 4090 that I've got here is the sleek new MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X, which is a gorgeous new dual-slot RTX 4090 with an AIO cooler. It has all of the power of the GeForce RTX 4090, pumping 4K 120FPS+ gaming out at whisper-quiet levels. Like, virtually silent.

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NVIDIA already provides a fantastic baseline with its GeForce RTX 4090, powered by the Ada Lovelace GPU architecture and the new AD102-300 GPU mixed with 24GB of ultra-fast GDDR6X memory. It's the fastest graphics card on the planet, and MSI's new custom RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X is one of the best of the first fleet of custom RTX 4090s out of the gate.

ASUS has its 3.5-slot beast in the ROG Strix RTX 4090 OC Edition, but MSI goes in the opposite direction with its sleek RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X and its dual-slot design (but 240mm AIO cooler). A major caveat of the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X is that you'll need a case to handle the 240mm AIO cooler -- and a 360mm AIO cooler.

• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition Review

Why the 240mm + 360mm AIO coolers? Well, you should be mixing the RTX 4090 with an Intel Core i9-13900K "Raptor Lake" CPU or AMD Ryzen 9 7950X "Zen 4" CPU -- both of those use close to 300W of power on their own and require a 360mm AIO cooler to get the most out of them. That's a lot of AIO coolers in your system, but you do get a dual-slot RTX 4090 out of it.

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MSI has another big win in its corner: pricing... with its custom GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X graphics card costing $1750, which is just a $150 premium over NVIDIA's in-house GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition. ASUS on the other hand, commands $2000 for its flagship ROG Strix RTX 4090 OC Edition.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 pricing:

• ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 OC Edition: $1999
• MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X: $1750
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition: $1599

MSI's new liquid-cooled RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X is just as good as any other RTX 4090, but it runs cooler and quieter than virtually everything else you can buy right now. MSI, you've got something REAL nice here. I'm loving the new design, as this kinda takes over from what we'd see from an "RTX 4090 LIGHTNING Z" unless... MSI wants to make one, that is ;)

Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace + DLSS 3 + Frame Generation + Optical Flow Accelerator

Instead of repeating everything throughout the custom GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card reviews, I thought I would have a single spot to point you in the right direction.

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Here's everything you need to know about who is Ada Lovelace, the Ada Lovelace GPU architecture, as well as NVIDIA's new DLSS 3, Frame Generation + Ray Tracing that are super-advanced on the Ada Lovelace GPU architecture. DLSS 3, Frame Generation, and the Optical Flow Accelerator are all exclusive to Ada Lovelace and the new GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs.

Detailed Look

ASUS isn't the only one shipping its new custom GeForce RTX 4090 in a ridiculously huge box, with MSI joining in on the fun with its liquid-cooled GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X graphics card. The card itself is much smaller, but you wouldn't think so from the size of the box.

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MSI gives you a cool little addition to hang on your wall, or along with the boxes (that you might) collect for your PC purchases.

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MSI's new custom GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X graphics card is a fantastic-looking new RTX 4090 graphics card, with an exquisite external design that makes it one of the best-looking custom RTX 4090s so far. MSI is using an aluminum metal cover on the front here, which looks great in the flesh.

The new custom MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X graphics card features angle-beveled edges with light-gold colored polish, with an octagon-shaped fan cutout as well as an illuminated chevron next to the single fan on the front of the card.

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On the back the SUPRIM logo concept is inspired by diamond crystals and geometry, which MSI says represents the high-quality materials and construction of SUPRIM graphics cards, like the new enthusiast-class GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X graphics card.

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MSI's new GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X graphics card is cooled by a 240mm AIO radiator, so you'll need to make sure you've got the room inside of your PC for that. It might be hard with an AIO-cooled CPU, but you've been warned.

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Because MSI is liquid cooling the card, it moves the cooling side of the RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X off to the AIO cooler, meaning the card itself can be shrunken down to a thinner dual-slot RTX 4090. It looks nice and tight like this, where I'm interested to see how it'll perform inside of a mini-ITX gaming PC (as long as you can find a good enough PSU for it).

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There's no changes here to display connectivity: 1 x HDMI 2.1 connector, and 3 x DisplayPort 1.4 (all capable of 4K 120FPS+ and 8K 60FPS+). A big disappointment that NVIDIA didn't include the new DisplayPort 2.0 (DP2.0) connector here on its RTX 40 series GPUs.

Test System Specs

I've recently upgraded my major GPU test bed for 2022, but I will be upgrading again soon enough once Intel launches its new 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs and Z790 motherboards, and AMD with its upcoming Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" CPUs and X670E motherboards.

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The new upgrades include the shift to the Intel Core i9-12900K processor, ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme motherboard, 64GB of Sabrent Rocket DDR5-4800 memory, and 8TB of Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD goodness. Intel's flagship Core i9-12900K is a beast, with the Alder Lake CPU packing 8 Performance cores (P-cores) and 8 Efficient cores (E-cores) at up to 5.2GHz.

Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme

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I've got that installed into the bigger-than-life ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme motherboard, which is absolutely loaded to the brim with technologies and features that it houses everything you need. We're talking about one of the best-looking designs on a motherboard yet, PCIe 5.0 support, enthusiast-grade 10GbE networking, and oh-so-much more.

RAM: 64GB Sabrent Rocket DDR5-4800

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Sabrent helped out in a huge way by sending over 64GB of DDR5-4800 memory in the form of 4 x 16GB DDR5-4800 modules of its new Sabrent Rocket DDR5 memory. The company also helped out in an even bigger way, supplying us with a gigantic and super-fast 8TB model of its Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD.

SSD: 8TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus M.2

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We're talking about 7.5GB/sec+ (7500MB/sec) from a single M.2 SSD, along with a gigantic 8TB of capacity. The 2TB drives aren't big enough for all of our game installs for GPU testing... the 4TB is much better, but the 8TB gives us room to move into 2023 without worrying about installing multiple games that are 200GB+ in size.

Some glory shots, of course.

Displays: ASUS ROG Strix 43-inch 4K 120Hz

ASUS has been a tight partner of TweakTown for many years, with the fine folks at ASUS Australia sending over their ROG Strix XG438Q and ROG Swift PG43UQ gaming monitors for our GPU test benches. They're both capable of 4K 120Hz+ through their DisplayPort 1.4 connectivity.

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I will be upgrading these in the near future, over to some DisplayPort 2.0-capable panels and some new HDMI 2.1-enabled 4K 165Hz panels in OLED form of course...given that next-gen GPUs are right around the corner, there has been no better time to upgrade your display or TV.

I've been working on this system for a while now, but now we're stretching its legs with the newly-released PC port of Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered. Not just in 1080p or 1440p, not even in just 4K... but at 8K with a native resolution of 7680 x 4320. I've run through some of the very fastest GPU silicon on the planet.

• CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K (buy from Amazon)
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: CORSAIR iCUE H150i ELITE LCD Display (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Sabrent Rocket 64GB DDR5-4800 (4 x 16GB) (F4-3600C18Q-32GTZN) (buy from Amazon)
• SSD: Sabrent 8TB Rocket 4 Plus PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD (buy from Amazon)
• PSU: MSI MPG A1000G Gaming Power Supply 1000W (buy from Amazon)
• Case: InWin X-Frame 2.0
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro x64 (buy from Amazon)
• Display: ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ (4K 120Hz) (buy from Amazon)

Benchmarks - Synthetic

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Benchmarks - 1080p

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Benchmarks - 1440p

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Benchmarks - 4K

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Temps & Power Consumption

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MSI's custom GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X runs nice and quiet with its fans spinning at 45% (1475RPM or so) giving us GPU temperatures of around 59C under load, while GPU hotspot sits at around 70C. The entire card is using 390W or so, without any overclocking applied (more on that shortly in a follow-up article).

What's Hot, What's Not

What's Hot

• SUPRIM LIQUID X design is gorgeous: I'm a huge fan of the design choice MSI has made with the GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X, it looks so beautiful in the flesh... and even better installed into a gaming PC with RGB lighting reflecting off of it. The attention to detail on the card is second-to-none, feels very LIGHTNING-ish, MSI.

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• Dual-slot RTX 4090 power: MSI's new GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X is a dual-slot design, compared to the 3.5-slot (at least) of the other custom GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards, the new dual-slot RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X stands out from the crowd. It might be a dual-slot card, but it still maintains all of that RTX 4090 power.
• Whisper-quiet gaming: MSI gives you all of that GeForce RTX 4090 gaming power, without having a card that is making noise... the entire fleet of RTX 4090s are pretty quiet, but MSI's new GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQIUD X is dead quiet thanks to its 240mm AIO cooler.

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• 4K 120FPS gaming: I'm a huge fan of 4K 120FPS+ gaming whether its on a big monitor or even better, a bigger OLED monitor or TV... but 4K 120FPS+ gaming is even better on the GeForce RTX 4090. MSI does it one step above, with super-cool, and super-quiet 4K 120FPS gaming with its new SUPRIM LIQUID X.
• Fantastic thermal performance: I don't think you're going to have ANY complaints about thermal performance, MSI has you thoroughly covered there with some of the best stock cooling you could hope for on the RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X graphics card.

What's Not

• 240mm AIO cooler requires room: This is something to remember, and it could turn people away from the card... especially if you've already got a 240mm or 360mm AIO cooler for your CPU inside of your case.
• No DisplayPort 2.0 connector, WTF: NVIDIA not including the new display connector moving forward -- DP2.0 -- is a huge mistake. It means anyone buying a $1500+ graphics card in the tail end of 2022 is not going to be able to use next-gen DP2.0-capable gaming monitors that we'll begin seeing debut in the coming months, probably at CES 2023 in January. WTF, NVIDIA? Even Intel's is-it-even-real Arc GPUs have a DP2.0 port.

Final Thoughts

I really wanted MSI to go all out on a new LIGHTNING Z graphics card for the GeForce RTX 4090, but the new GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X is a fantastic alternative to that. It ticks all the right boxes in terms of: RTX 4090 power, dual-slot design, 4K 120FPS+ gaming, DLSS 3, and all of that... but MSI does it in its own way with the 240mm AIO cooler.

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MSI's new custom GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X graphics card is the only watercooled RTX 4090 that I have tested so far, and the only watercooled RTX 4090 that I have received so far. It's one of the best-looking cards of the stack, with MSI putting an excruciating amount of detail into the SUPRIM LIQUID X... every single inch of this card has been hand-crafted to perfection.

The company also has the air-cooled MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X, which if you were blindfolded and the PC was covered you wouldn't tell the difference between in terms of performance if you didn't want to deal with the 240mm AIO cooler. The RTX 4090 SUPRIM X is much, much thicker, and you lose that sleek design that the RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X attracts your eyes with.

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If you are in the market for a dual-slot, AIO-cooled GeForce RTX 4090 over the air-cooled, 3.5-slot and beyond Ada Lovelace beasts out there, then the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X shouldn't be at the top of your list, it should either be in your shopping cart, on the way to your house or in your gaming PC already.

MSI has knocked it out of the park in taming the Ada Lovelace AD102-300 GPU beast, as well as the ultra-fast 24GB GDDR6X memory without busting much over 50C under gaming and benchmarking loads with its GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X graphics card.

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I'm still gushing over the look and feel of the RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X, where pictures don't do it justice. The actual feel of the material against your skin -- your fingertips when touching it -- is exquisite. I feel guilty installing this into my PC, it should be on the shelf and guarded against scratches and dust, forever.

4K 120FPS+ gaming in a dual-slot design, using far less than 450W of power, and is whisper-quiet? Winner winner, chicken dinner, MSI, and its new GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID X graphics card. This is how you do high-end GPUs!