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The MSI RTX 4090 Suprim Liquid X boldly chooses to live and die by its use of liquid cooling. If you're a fan of all-in-one coolers, or if you prefer a smaller card with an attached radiator over a huge chonker like the Asus 4090 ROG Strix — or really just about any of the air-cooled 4090 cards — this might be the 4090 you're looking for.
By the same token, true liquid-cooling enthusiasts might prefer a custom cooling setup. That way, you end up with a single pump, reservoir, and radiator instead of needing to find room for a second radiator — assuming you've also got a liquid-cooled CPU. Considering both AMD and Intel CPUs that would be appropriate for use with an RTX 4090 all recommend at least a 240mm radiator, adding a second AIO for the graphics card means you'll need a rather large case, at which point we have to ask whether the MSI AIO even makes sense.
Nearly all of the performance characteristics from the MSI card show it to be equal to Nvidia's Founders Edition — equal to but not better. The Asus ROG Strix managed a slightly higher overclock on the GPU core, and a substantially higher GDDR6X overclock likely due to the silicon lottery. But then it also costs quite a bit more.
MSI's pricing at least isn't too odious, as far as RTX 4090 cards go — at least not after MSI dropped back to $1,749 after initially raising the MSRP by $185. $150 extra for a premium liquid-cooled graphics card is typical of what we've seen in the past, especially on top-shelf GPUs like the 4090. That's assuming you can find a card for that price, however. Right now virtually all 4090 cards are sold out or severely overpriced.
The MSI Store on Amazon for example shows four different models, starting at $2,425 for the Gaming Trio and going up to $2,998 for the Suprim Liquid X. Welcome to scalper pricing, courtesy of Amazon's third-party marketplace! Hopefully such price gouging proves to be short-lived. The RTX 4090 currently sits uncontested as the fastest GPU for gaming and (some) professional uses, but once other options like the upcoming RTX 4080 and AMD's RDNA 3 GPUs arrive, perhaps prices will return to MSRP.
Both of those should arrive within the next month. Both will almost certainly sell out quickly at launch, but of course all the gamers who already managed to snag an RTX 4090 won't be looking to buy a second lower-tier 4080. Scalpers on the other hand… well, we can only hope demand isn't so high that scalpers can continue to flip cards for a profit. The only way to win that game is to simply refuse to play.
Overall, the MSI RTX 4090 Suprim Liquid X is an elegant looking option for anyone who wants a liquid-cooled card and has room for it in their PC build. That's a pretty specific market niche, so if you don't fit into that box, take a look at the other RTX 4090 cards instead. They're proving to be just as capable, in both speed and cooling performance.
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