A comeback years in the making, MSI has finally revealed its GeForce RTX 5090 Lightning Z at CES 2026. The brand describes this graphics card as “most powerful, meticulously crafted, and technically advanced” in its history, and its easy to see why.
Flash as the world-first 8in GPU display is by itself, it’s the engineering beneath it that has me in nothing short of absolute awe. MSI has built this monster to withstand mind-blowingly large 1,000W load without blinking an eye, made possible through dual 12V-2×6 power connectors. For context, the default TDP for a GeForce RTX 5090 is only 575W.
MSI is able to accomplish this feat through some impressive engineering. Look underneath the screen and you’ll find a custom PCB with a 40 phase power design, complete with the world’s first full-coper, full-cover cold plate. This setup all works in tandem with a high-pressure pump, cooling the GPU, VRAM, and MOSFETs. Every corner of this card is cool in every sense of the word.
Water cooling naturally necessitates a radiator, and MSI has crafted something special here too. The Lightning Z boasts a patented hybrid-fin design, with dense and sparse sections, which improves thermal efficiency through controlled hot-cold exchange zones. Then there’s the custom Lightning fan, whose design caters specifically to this cooling apparatus.
Out of the box, the Lightning Z runs with a 2,730MHz boost clock that rises to 2,775MHz with MSI Center in play. That’s a solid 323-368MHz above GeForce RTX 5090 reference frequencies, the latter rise more than doubling the 173MHz uplift you’ll find on MSI’s now-second-best card in this regard, the GeForce RTX 5090 Suprim.
Impressive as this stock performance is, no one is buying the Lightning Z for those default frequencies. This card’s already broken 17 world records, including most if not all of the 3DMark suite, Geekbench 5 and 6, as well as GPUPI. I won’t dwell on the specifics here as Fahd’s put together another piece covering these mind-boggling results in more detail, featuring the card’s absolutely bonkers 2500W BIOS, which I highly recommend reading.
As if the design and performance of the Lightning Z weren’t alluring enough, MSI has decided to make this a limited edition graphics card. The company is only manufacturing 1,300 units globally, so if you fancy one for your system then you’ll need to act fast.
You’ll be able to purchase the Lightning Z come February 2026. For those wondering how much the graphics card will cost, if you’re having to ask, then you’re probably not the target customer. Expect to pay a pretty penny for this pixel pusher.
Were money no object, the Lightning Z would be my top choice for a GeForce RTX 5090. I’ll readily admit I wouldn’t even use the card to its full potential, but it’s difficult not to want this truly unique and awesome piece of engineering. Consider this my thunderous applause.
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