Powerful New Raijintek Morpheus GPU Cooler Can't Tame RTX 4090 After All
The passive GPU cooler still isn't capable enough for the Nvidia flagship, even with fans.
Cooling specialist Raijintek has released its highly-anticipated new Morpheus 8069 fanless cooler for high-end graphics cards. Official specs suggest the cooler can be used with the best of the last-gen graphics cards, but despite its prior marketing, the new cooler doesn’t work with the newest high-end cards from either AMD (Radeon RX 7000 series) or Nvidia (GeForce RTX 40 series).
FanlessTech spotted the new passive cooling appendage in stock and available in Europe for €170 including VAT, which is €138 before VAT, equivalent to $150 in the US. The site asserts that the Morpheus 8069 will be available globally in the coming weeks.
We last reported on the Raijintek Morpheus 8069 in its pre-launch teaser stages. Now the product is fully detailed on the firm’s official product pages, and there appear to have been a few spec changes. Previously we understood it could be used with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards, as was indicated by the product promo slide below, though it would perhaps have needed one or two fans strapped on. However, Raijintek rules out RTX 4090 (450W TDP) compatibility in this final shipping release version.
According to the official product pages, the Morpheus 8069 is only compatible with the following GPUs; AMD Radeon RX 6700 / 6800 / 6900 / XT and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 / 3090 / Ti.
Some specs don’t mention RX 6700 as compatible, but others do. Also, it is interesting to see no mention of any refresh models, like the RX 6950 XT. Moreover, the company doesn’t seem to be able to decide whether the Morpheus 8069 is good enough to cool a 360W or 400W GPU. However, this disparity may reference the passive-to-active cooling necessary crossover zone. Or in other words, it may be feasible to use the Morpheus 8069 without the optional 2x 120mm fans up until 360W.
Some may be disappointed that this newest version of the Raijintek Morpheus isn’t listed as compatible with any latest-gen GPUs. With previous information suggesting it would be an option for RTX 4090 owners, green team followers could be forgiven for being particularly disappointed. On the other hand, Nvidia’s 450W flagship would always have been a challenge and require the optional twin fan install to be worthwhile, so perhaps it isn’t such a loss.
The finalized confirmed specs of the Raijintek Morpheus 8069 are as follows:
- 400W cooling capacity
- 12x 6mm copper heatpipes
- 129x aluminum fins
- Mirror polished CPU contact base
- Fully black coated components
- Heat sinks provided for contact with memory and VRMs
- Support for up to 2x 120mm fans for active cooling boost
- 254×110×44mm
- 595g weight, heatsink only
The European retailer already selling the Morpheus 8069 suggests buying the device alongside a pair of Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM chromax.black fans, and adding some Noctua NT-H2 thermal paste to the order. Raijintek is, of course, pitching the use of its own fan designs, should your system need them to aid with GPU cooling.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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ManDaddio I feel like this title here was clickbait.Reply
Anyway, why would anyone think that a 4090 can be passively cooled without fans?
But speaking from experience I can say that the 4090 coolers that are on the gpus at present a pretty darn good.
With all the rage talk last year before the 4090 was released I'm impressed with the 4090 in general.
The Zotac 4090 that I have doesn't even kick on the fans until I think after 45 degrees Celsius. Maybe even closer to 50. That's pretty amazing for a card that powerful.
Noise is not even an issue with my 4090. Even the Zotac that people keep saying has such a terrible whining noise.
It does get noisy when you ramp up the fans to like 60 or 70% but that's never going to ever happen unless I force it to. -
hotaru251 $150 for a 3rd party cooler....i mean at that point might as well just do a small gpu loop for a bit more.Reply -
watzupken Nothing surprising really. The RTX 4090 cooler mostly uses vapor chamber to soak up and distribute heat quickly to the heatpipes and heat sinks, which should be around 2.5 slots thick. The Morpheus GPU cooler uses a conventional copper base plate, and is also slimmer. The good thing is that one can add some fairly powerful 120mm fans which can help boost the cooling performance.Reply -
bit_user Reply
Exactly. When I saw this thing, my first reaction was: where's the vapor chamber?watzupken said:Nothing surprising really. The RTX 4090 cooler mostly uses vapor chamber to soak up and distribute heat quickly to the heatpipes and heat sinks,
And if you made the vapor chamber big enough, you shouldn't even need heat pipes, but I guess that would require a blower-type fan (assuming active cooling). -
Fates_Demise ReplyManDaddio said:I feel like this title here was clickbait.
Anyway, why would anyone think that a 4090 can be passively cooled without fans?
But speaking from experience I can say that the 4090 coolers that are on the gpus at present a pretty darn good.
With all the rage talk last year before the 4090 was released I'm impressed with the 4090 in general.
The Zotac 4090 that I have doesn't even kick on the fans until I think after 45 degrees Celsius. Maybe even closer to 50. That's pretty amazing for a card that powerful.
Noise is not even an issue with my 4090. Even the Zotac that people keep saying has such a terrible whining noise.
It does get noisy when you ramp up the fans to like 60 or 70% but that's never going to ever happen unless I force it to.
Because it is possible to passively cool one without fans. Go look at some of the heatsink cases where the entire side is a gpu heatsink. If you make a heatsink large enough they can cool very high temps. -
Friesiansam What is the point? You buy a 4090 already fitted with a competent cooler. You then spend around £200 on this cooler plus fans then, if you are lucky, it might work as well as the cooler you are replacing.Reply
Don't bother, save your money. -
Amdlova Why spend money in raditors if you can attach this on your case put a waterblock on it and cool your entire system :)Reply -
bit_user Reply
When refurbishing a used GPU with flaky fans, is it easy to replace just the fan motors? If not, that's when I could see going for an aftermarket GPU cooler.eklipz330 said:what a stupid product. Just spend more on a better aib.