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MSI Revives Lightning With RTX 5090 Flagship Rated for 1,600W and Liquid Cooling

MSI says the co-developed design targets extreme overclocking.

Overview

  • A CES Innovation Awards listing confirms the RTX 5090 Lightning as an MSI–NVIDIA co-developed card with an official capability to support up to 1,600W, a next-generation integrated AIO cooler, a full-surface LCD, and dual high-current power connectors.
  • Leaked board photos and reporting show an extreme roughly 40‑phase VRM layout with additional phases near the power inputs, underscoring the card’s focus on heavy power delivery.
  • Extreme overclockers using OCER test samples have posted world‑leading results on 3DMark and HWBot, pushing core clocks to about 3.74–3.75 GHz and GDDR7 to roughly 36 Gbps under LN2.
  • An XOC BIOS circulating with the OCER units exposes power limits up to around 2,500W, far above the card’s official rating, and these results rely on non‑retail hardware and exotic cooling.
  • PCWorld reports MSI plans a limited run of about 1,300 units with availability targeted for February, with pricing unannounced.