The MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G LIGHTNING Z marked the return of the company’s well-known “Lightning” GPU series, built for extreme overclocking. Its comeback was a big one, just like its price of over $5,000 and its very limited supply, meaning you can only buy one if you win a raffle for one of the few units available.
This exclusive GPU is clearly a model that professional overclockers will not get bored testing, and it seems that one of them got a bit too excited with it — perhaps a little too much.
Extreme Overclocking Pushes the Card to Its Limits
The overclocker “Alva Jonathan” carried out extreme overclocking on his MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G LIGHTNING Z in an attempt to break several world records, using liquid nitrogen for cooling. With this type of extreme cooling, the MSI card was able to reach 1,000 MHz above its stock frequency, hitting 3.42 GHz, along with a voltage of 1.12V and an astonishing 1,000 W of power draw.
When using a modified 2,500W BIOS, the GPU of the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G LIGHTNING Z reached its limit and exploded.
The problem came when he tried to go beyond the 3.6 GHz he had already achieved. With a modified BIOS that allowed no less than 2,500W of power delivery at 1.2V, the GPU of his brand-new RTX 5090 simply gave up and exploded.
Damage caused by extreme overclocking and these kinds of modifications is not covered by the warranty. It’s definitely a fast way to lose $5,000.
