Looks and feels as special as a $5090 GPU should be (yes, that’s the price)
Dual 12V-2x6 connectors make you wonder why every RTX 5090 isn’t built like this
The MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z unleashes a surprising amount of extra performance from Nvidia’s highest-end gaming GPU, thanks to dual power connectors and much higher power limits than the RTX 5090 Founders Edition. We’d go so far as to call it the best RTX 5090 yet made. But as a limited edition of 1300 with an insane (and cheeky) $5090 price tag, only the most demanding gamers and overclockers need apply.
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A year after its launch, the GeForce RTX 5090 remains the ne plus ultra of gaming graphics performance. I’m still astounded every time I get to game on one thanks to its jaw-dropping performance at 4K and beyond.
Nvidia’s thermal engineers achieved an amazing feat with the RTX 5090 Founders Edition card, dissipating 575W in a dual-slot, air-cooled form factor that’s still reasonably quiet. But that eye-popping TGP has taken the current capacity of a single 12V-2x6 power connector to its limit, making heavy overclocking dicey in the face of frequent cable and connector meltdowns. And with only a couple of exceptions, even the biggest, baddest partner 5090s are limited to the same single-connector design.
At a CES without any new consumer graphics card launches, I was thrilled to see MSI take the wraps off its RTX 5090 Lightning Z, a wildly ambitious board design that removes most practical limits to achieving maximum performance from the RTX 5090’s GB202 GPU.
This card has not one, but two 12V-2x6 power connectors, one of the only RTX 5090s ever to be so equipped. MSI routes all that power through a 3oz copper PCB and a 40-phase VRM that’s likely total overkill for anybody not engaging in extreme overclocking. But for those who are, this card already has XOC pedigree, with a claimed 19 world records across various benchmarks and leaderboards.
MSI even goes so far as to emblazon “Built to be Perfect” on the RTX 5090 Lightning Z’s packaging. That sets an incredibly (one might even say impossibly) high bar for this card to clear, especially given the $5090.99 price tag through MSI's online store. When you’re asking more than 2.5x the MSRP of a standard RTX 5090, you’re walking on an extremely high wire.
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
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