MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G SUPRIM LIQUID SOC Review

MSI Powers Up RTX 5090 Cooling and Performance

If you are reading this review you might be interested in buying the fastest gaming GPU on the planet, but it seems that availability won’t improve any time soon. NVIDIA’s latest Founders Edition design is quite an achievement, but it feels like only a handful of people will ever be able to get one – and even if you could, your case needs to be able to exhaust a lot of warm air (since the FE dumps all of that heat inside the enclosure).

While availability has become the biggest story with this launch, MSI at least has you covered on cooling front with this card, since the liquid cooled nature of their SUPRIM LIQUID SOC model not only makes the card itself much smaller than most partner designs, but allows for the user to decide where the warm air will go. Of course you will have to find space to integrate a 360 mm radiator into your build.

Oh, and there’s another aspect to this design: MSI’s 600-watt mode with potentially even higher performance from the new flagship GPU.

Features of the GeForce RTX 5090 32G SUPRIM LIQUID SOC (via MSI):

• SUPERIOR HYBRID COOLING – SUPRIM LIQUID’s innovative Hybrid design uses both air cooling with STORMFORCE Fan and liquid cooling to effectively manage heat from the GPU and VRAM.
• Advanced Performance Pump – A premium design for optimal flow, delivering automotive-grade coolant to ensure the SUPRIM LIQUID stays cool and performs efficiently.
• Patented Water Block Design – The patented water block features a special waterway layout and CNC-machined copper base that cools the GPU and VRAM, helping to lower temperatures.
• 360 mm Aluminum Radiator – The 360 mm aluminum radiator ensures efficient cooling, while the STORMFORCE fans enhance airflow and simplifies cable management for a tidy installation.
• STORMFORCE FAN – Seven fan blades, claw texturing, and a circular arc are designed for optimal airflow with minimal noise.
• Micro-Fin Copper Base – A copper base with fine micro-fins immersed in the liquid stream effectively transfers heat away from the VRAM and GPU.
• Durable Tubing with Scratch-proof Cover – Braided PVC tubes resist permeation and stay flexible, while the scratch-proof cover enhances durability during SUPRIM LIQUID installation.
• Metal Backplate – A reinforcing metal backplate with airflow vents and thermal pads enhances cooling.
• MSI Center – The exclusive MSI Center software lets you monitor, tweak and optimize MSI products in real-time

The SUPRIM LIQUID SOC Card

Quoting MSI’s official measurements, you are looking at 6.54 lbs of graphics here, with the card itself measuring (when viewed vertically) 11.02 inches long, 5.83 inches high, and 2.01 inches thick. The attached radiator (with fans) is 15.51 inches long, 7.63 wide, and 2.17 inches, and offers a total tube length of 11.02 inches.

Everything about this closed-loop GPU setup is impressive, and this is the first time I’ve been able to test a product like this since way back in 2019 with the RTX 2080 SUPER FTW3 HYBRID from EVGA. A triple-fan radiator certainly seems up to the task of cooling NVIDIA’s latest flagship, and I’m curious about noise levels under load, as well.

The only aspect of the design that I could find to criticize was purely aesthetic – the mesh covering the hoses was wavy out of the box and stayed that way during testing. It seems to be slightly oversized compared to the hoses. That’s it.

Performance Testing

I tested the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G SUPRIM LIQUID SOC the only way that made sense to me: with the “Gaming” mode activated. So, what can an RTX 5090 do with a 600-watt power limit and massive thermal headroom from a closed-loop cooler?

First, we will look at the results (always the average of three separate runs) from 3DMark:

The MSI card offers a 3.91% increase over the Founders Edition in Time Spy Extreme, a 5.54% increase in Speed Way, and a 4.01% increase in Steel Nomad. These results represent an average improvement of 4.49% over the Founders Edition.

Next we will look at results from three games, each run with their maximum detail settings, ray tracing enabled, and no DLSS or any other image scaling. Here is a breakdown of settings used for each test:

• Cyberpunk 2077: 3x benchmark runs at 3440×1440, RT Ultra preset, no DLSS or other scaling (RT Overdrive mode could have been used, but path tracing with no DLSS isn’t a very realistic scenario)
• Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition: 3x benchmark runs at 3440×1440, Extreme preset, no DLSS or other scaling
• The Talos Principle 2: 3x Grasslands benchmark runs at 3440×1440, TAAO, Native, no DLSS or other scaling

In Cyberpunk 2077 we see a 3.11% increase in average FPS with the MSI card over Founders Edition, a 3.35% increase in Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, and a 4.28% increase in The Talos Principle 2. The average increase from the MSI card in these three benchmarks was 3.58%.

In short, out of the box (and with the BIOS switched to “Gaming”) the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G SUPRIM LIQUID SOC was between 3.5% and 4.5% faster than NVIDIA’s Founders Edition with all else being equal. Now, what about power consumption and thermals?

Make sure your power supply is up to the challenge, because this card exceeds 600 watts pretty frequently when switched to the “Gaming” mode. Still, thermals were outstanding – over 10 C cooler than the Founders Edition card.

As the stress test begins the card remains in a passive cooling mode, and we see an immediate rise to 60 C before the fans on the card and radiator begin to spin up. After this initial spike, temps normalize to an apparent target of 50 C. I was already impressed by the ~63 C temps I observed from the Founders Edition card in a shorter test, but 50 C in a 20-minute sustained test like this is extremely impressive. And it did this at just 30% fan speed!

As to noise levels, I was not able to capture card noise accurately during the above thermal test due to the noise from the CPU cooler, but I did some controlled testing later with the CPU cooler fans disabled. Using Afterburner to manually set the fan speeds, and with my SPL meter positioned just 12 inches from the SUPRIM LIQUID SOC, equidistant between card and radiator, I noted the following:

• Idle (passive): 0 dBA
• 30% fans: (lowest default setting, as tested): 34.9 dBA
• 50% fans: 38.1 dBA
• 75% fans: 46.8 dBA
• 100% fans: 51.3 dBA

I don’t think even 50% fan speed would ever be necessary unless you are overclocking, as the card was exceptionally cool at just the lowest 30% default speed for both card and radiator. It was possible to hear the pump at this lower speed on the open test bed, but it was no louder than my usual CPU AiO pump and would be be mitigated by installation in a case.

Final Thoughts

MSI has created a very impressive version of an already impressive GPU, and the option of cranking things to 600 watts while staying insanely cool (50 C under sustained load!) is the best kind of ridiculous. But this comes at a price, as the MSRP of the SUPRIM LIQUID SOC is $2799 USD (including a 10% increase due to tariffs).

If you can find one of these, and you are prepared to spend some serious money on it, you won’t be disappointed. To make a German car analogy, this is like the AMG or M version of the GeForce RTX 5090. It costs more, but it has the added performance to back it up.