ASUS ROG Strix Gets Wet And Wild With A Liquid-Cooled GeForce RTX 4090
There are no two ways about it—NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 is a beastly graphics card and, price be damned, the fastest option for gamers. Flip on ray tracing and the performance gap widens even further. It's also a power-hungry graphics card that can get a little toasty under the collar. To help keep those temps in check, ASUS is giving the GeForce RTX 4090 the liquid cooling treatment.
ASUS is actually introducing two variants with a full-coverage cold plate spanning both the GPU die and the memory. They include the ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090 and ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090 OC Edition.
As the model names imply, the latter is the factory overclocked variant. According to the product pages, the OC model boasts a 2,610MHz boost clock in default mode and a 2.640MHz clock in OC mode, versus NVIDIA's 2,520MHz reference clock. As for the non-OC variant, it sticks with the reference clock in default mode, but there's also an OC mode that nudges the boost clock to 2,550MHz.
If these cards look familiar, it's because ASUS retained the same liquid cooler that it employed on LC variants of the previous generation GeForce RTX 3090 Ti and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. It's essentially a hybrid cooler combining an all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooing design with a blower-style cooler.
The liquid cooling portion consists of 240mm radiator with dual 120mm ARGB fans and 560mm long mesh tubing. ASUS says the fans are optimized for both high airflow and static pressure to operate at peak efficiency. These cards also come with dual FanConnect PWM headers to power two additional case fans.
As for the air-cooled portion, blower-style coolers have a bit of a negative reputation for being noisy. However, ASUS claims it is "extremely quiet" as it's only being tasked with cooling the power deliver components rather than the entire card.
ASUS has not yet revealed pricing for the ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090 and ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090 OC Edition. As point of reference, however, Amazon stocks the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 for $1,929.99 and the ROG Strix GeForce RTXX 4090 OC Edition for $1,995. Expect the liquid cooled models to land somewhere north of those price points.
