I asked ASUS for a statement about the liquid metal / nickel plating situation. Here is the answer: ASUS has gathered a lot of experience with liquid metal on our Highend Gaming Notebooks and we have done a lot of intense testing, so we are confident that ROG MATRIX RTX 4090 will last for many years to come. This is why we have an extended warranty (for example up to 5 years in Germany) and we will always service our customers.
After the AMD CPU saga I have some reservations about ASUS's warranty. But at least it's good that they seem to stand behind their product. The metallurgical facts kind of speak for themselves as you stated in the video. I guess time will tell that the result will be.
Sorry, but it does not seem to be correct. I have 9900K direct die with liquid metal and a copper cold plate. After a couple of months the liquid metal was slurped into the copper and my CPU temps went high. I polished the cold plate a little (the liquid metal stain remained in place) then I reapplied liquid metal and everything was back on track. I think the penetration of the liquid metal will be slower now given the boundary layer of the copper is saturated with it. You may ask: why you use a copper cold plate? Bacause I had to lap the cold plate so that it was perfectly flat. Modern WC blocks are not intended for a DD cooling and they have a bulge in the center.
considering the price of the card and the fact that the cooler costs no more than 40-50 dollars to produce they can afford to just keep replacing the block/pump every year for 5 years.
as someone with more experience using LM than id like to have, seeing bare copper like that made me want to yell out loud. what in the actual fuck is that? there is going to be SUCH a thick layer of allloy created from that LM due to inability of servicing, that i see the DIE itself fusing to the cooler in a years time. the heat cycles that GPUs have versus CPUS are HUGE. with all we know about cpu LM usage, i cant imagine a company like ASUS using BARE copper... thats wild. actually WILD ontop of making it that difficult to service.. i had this almost happen to me with an intel chip. not to mention i had to literally use 1200 grit->1600>2000grit to sand it back down to stock. all it took was 8 months after application for me to experience that with a 10900k.
My LM dried up super fast with my 10700k and copper waterblock. Once a year I had to polish and reapply to not overheat. Im actually considering the graphite sheet instead on the coming 14700k to maintain resale value of that cpu.
Strange thing is that they did got the LM 'shield' portion right but got it so-so wrong with the heatsink material. Probably the pump supplier did not want to retool for a nickel block? Also they really missed out on the memory cooling. For a card in this price class to perform about the same as a FE card in that respect is just bad. Probably the only reason why one should buy this are the looks. It performs about the same as a Strix and will have serious issues with cooling after some time. But on the other hand most AIO-GPU's already are planned obsolete as you can't really change the proprietary pump if it dies. So I would either go air or custom loop.
Probably a good reason to stick to efficient GPUs that move away from an extra 500mhz peak and also cut their TDP in HALF in the process. AKA not intel
Its just surprising to me that our Der8bauer said he did not have the pricing. ASUS is asking $4k for this and again without any plating or easy access, and a cheap engineering cooling solution for the RAM. I mean really $4000.00 for a watercooled version for of a 4090 that has only one real selling point. It looks good. Well, I guess if anyone is buying, that in itself should be punishment enough.
Utter trash for a GPU costing over €2000 - the exact idea of this is that it does not need users to take it apart and reapply liquid metal . Asus ROG tax strikes again.
I wonder what the thermal performance the sheet has vs using both. Like cryo sheet vs cryo sheet + conductonaught or something on both sides of the sheet.
This card is something that did not need to be made. This is just another card that Asus can add it's brand tax to, whilst offering realistically no additional notable performance. Buy a Founders Edition and a waterblock and have fun, will perform about the same and will look better.
I have an Asus laptop (Scar 17") and on the heatsink, the cpu side is copper, the gpu side is nickle plated (both with factory liquid metal applied). The copper side is already starting to corrode after a little over a year. I was having thermal issues with the cpu so I opened it up to check and found the corrosion. Asus just doesn't care, I won't be buying from them again, which is really annoying because I really like their bios.
liquid metal does not corrode copper. It will only "plate" it or "stain" its surface and that's it. You should be worried if that plate is aluminum, as aluminum will be corroded
Their motherboards are overpriced garbage, and I'm not sure why people give Asus the great reputation they don't deserve, but have as a premium tech maker. Asus blasted AM5 with power under EXPO settings too, so Asus have a habit of making hardware that kills your hardware.
Im building a new PC and it will play 4k at 60fps and cost less than half of this piece of shit capitalist shit-card.. Also, a homeless person died outside my window yesterday. He had been eating himself for days.. Glad he's gone and I can get back to things that matter.. 4000 USD GPUs
I would really like it to see a video comparing this to a DIY open loop setup with similar components. You could get everything through Watercool (blocks, rad, res, pump, Noctua A12-25 fans) and a 4090 TUF with a Strix BIOS flash and use conductonaut extreme on the GPU. I would be willing to bet it would perform 5° better than the matrix at a given noise level, and be >$500 cheaper.
Even if it doesn't run cooler, does it matter? $500 is $500 (although the reality is that you could build a PC for the cost of this thing, and I could have a fully-blocked 4090 like $2,500 with rad and such. So, more like $1,500). Really, the biggest win is you get to buy a 4090 from a non shit-tier company (which, let's be real: ASUS is garbage-tier at this point), which is probably the biggest win.
@@rustler08 The card does not matter, what matters more is the block, and the top performing water blocks are for the ASUS TUF and Strix (Optimus and watercool). An optimus 4090 block performs about 5-7°c better than an EK block.
umm HE DID, there laterally in the graphs. Did you even watch the video? AND NO air card is gonna get 45C at 100% load, let alone 40C like ur saying. My god man.
10:29 - "But, why is this surface not nickel plated?" - Same reason ASUS decided to use an aluminium block on the Z690 Formula, and not make this clear in any of their documentation - it's cheaper.
Going cheap on your flagship product doesn't make sense. It makes more sense to go all out. Whatever it costs you to build, just mark up the price. It's already about 2 grand. A few more dollars won'r put off the buyer.
I had LM on a bare copper GTX 1080 waterblock. The LM alloy'd with the copper after less than 2 years and the block became basically unusable because it now has an impression of the GPU die on it in solid metal.
Yeah, let's keep to doing it ourselves. These company made products are not to be trusted. They have the money and the knowledge to build it perfect - and in this niche market there is no other way - and yet they just deliver a subpar product at high price for no good reason. If you're going to do it - do it right.
Exactly, this thing is over 3000 dolllars and a complete gimmick. The AIO pump can fail or the liquid metal can evaporate over time rendering it useless. I would rather do a full custom ek water cool build for my pc for around 800 dollars and get way better performance not just on my GPU but on my processor as well that lasts forever.
Unless they're binning the vram, these won't overclock any better than the other, much cheaper, 4090 gpus available on the market currently. It's neat though.
Overclocking does jack for PUs nowadays since they come turned up from factory. Undervolting might get you better temps/efficiency but that's about it. You are definitely right
I recently got a 980ti Strix OC. Just the factory OC on it increases performance by 15% and then you can get more with manual OC. It’s sad how little an OC does these days.
Asus tried to sell me a refurbished 980 Ti for over 1300$ when mine died 1 month out of warranty. So given the liquid metal on copper problem, this is a big nope for me.
Great video honestly. Some information missing regarding the pump: - it runs at a constant speed and can’t be tweaked - idle pump noise can be heard when the case is closed, and for me it’s still plenty loud - it doesn’t seem to improve over time
In perhaps a little over a year, Nvidia is likely to release a 5090 which absolutely blows this card out of the water for like 1200-1600 USD less than this insanely expensive custom model. More importantly, even a 4090 that's like 300 over MSRP absolutely blows this out of the water in terms of price vs. performance, and will still come with an excellent cooler. Even some of the models near MSRP are very good. This is the definition of a luxury product.
As always Roman, excellent review.. I like the results, but not sure it warrants the price over my Founders 4090 but I definitely feel you are your team are experts in the LM arena and I have seen enough of your reviews and others warnings to know this card will suffer some cooling loss down the road and the not advisable home replacement of the LM is a deal breaker I think.
not really. Gamers Nexus have done testing on this, and ther is no significant loss of thermal conductivity or physical integrity in a copper IHS or cold plate that has absorbed some gallium-based TIM. The downside is that it can dry up and need re-application over time.
I've had it fuse to a NH D14 nickel plating after a few years, the IHS nickel plating was not affected. Intel's nickel plating is higher quality, I now only use it under the IHS.
Here in Denmark it is around 2900 dollars excluding taxes, including taxes it is around 3600-3700 dollars. A regular RTX 4090 is between 1800 to 2400 dollars including taxes.
Looks like GPUz was complaining about voltage issues during test ? If card is pushed to it's limit, it should have 100%tdp jumping over at times. Let me know if this thing breaks by the way
I'm not gonna lie, some of these AIO cards look so good. Would love for them to come with G1/4 ports and no pump/coolant so they can be added to some open loop builds.
If all you care about is looks, that might be cool, but the actual cooling block on this doesn't look like it's very good. Then again, I have seen people do worse with custom blocks, but that's more likely a matter of flow rate, radiator area, and ambient temp.
I've found that coil whine varies significantly card to card, and even more so based on what power that card is getting. for instance I had a lot of whine on my 6900, but I got a pure sign wave UPS and now I get almost none.
Why is the card so thick? 3 slot card when the pump is 2 slots thick? What's going on? What's going on with the stock memory clock and 80*c memory? Is the thickness of the thermal pads the reason for this? It seems like every prebuilt AIO card released recently has just been big with a marginal cooling performance gain over a 3 fan cooler of the same footprint. Was the FURY X really the best AIO cooler design card ever made? Small, 2 slots, with a single 120mm radiator, and it could easily cool 300watts of GPU, VRM, and memory.
So this is an 4090 Aorus extreme waterforce with a bit thicker radiator and more coil whine + worse reliability because of LM. Sad considering this is significantly more expensive than that card. Also this is common knowledge but still worth mentioning: Do not fall to the "binned chip" snake oil, the tiny lower power consumption difference is easily attributed to usual silicon variance plus in this particular case was the result of 10C lower temps. This was the last card i was waiting to confirm my final conclusion for this generation. 1. Best Aircooled: Strix OC. Best 4090 overall-( First wave had terrible coilwhine) 2. Best Liquid cooled: Strix OC LC 240. Has slightly better core temps at the cost of memory/vrm temps. (I would stick to the Aircooled version). 3. Best Budget/Value: Gigabyte Gaming OC. Great card overall with no drawbacks worth mentioning. (For money no object i would still prefer the Strix due to better materials) 4. Best "I use a pc case the size of a closet" : Aorus Master. This beast rivals the temps of the watercooled cards but does look a bit ugly and is huge.
u wrong, GDDR5 very hot@@LawrenceTimme can road to max 110 and shutdown after - normal can going to be 90 - 103 and with VRM, if u make VRM more cooling = more life time, lower error. It's same like PSU, can hot but cooling always better, the problem is money.
I can attest to liquid metal migrating into copper surfaces over time and temps rising. I have been using liquid metal for years on all my stuff and I learned very early on to get nickle plated copper.
Ive been using liquid metal on my copper water block for 6 years now. Ive reapplied LM twice now. The temps never dropped, I was just curious and wanted to see if there was any damage. None warranting any sort of attention.
So, that's anecdotal. It's not that I don't believe you, but maybe you're just wrong. It's physics and everyone knows this is a thing. Statistically, you are an anomaly so I would 100% make sure to double check if your are using true liquid metal and if that copper is indeed not nickel-plated. Once again, physics don't lie. Something's gotta give.
@@cldpt LMAO. I'm using thermal grizzly as a matter of fact. Yes it's liquid metal. Yes its a copper block. Yes it's been 6 years. As a matter of fact it's been a bit longer. I got my intel 7700k on the day it was released. The reason this company choose to use copper is because its a none issue. This is facts my friend. I don't know about you. But I don't make it a habit to talk about shit that isn't real. If It didn't happen. Why would I say it did?
@@cldpt Also here's a news flash for you. I actually have 2 of these computers going, setup in identical fashion. So I must be a super anomaly right? :) lol
@@Silentjackll I've done LM on copper and had it be fine for over 2 years. I don't understand where all the people who think their LM is failing are coming from, they say it dries out? maybe those people are the ones using 'fake liquid metal' but I didn't even know there was such a thing. seems to me LM just discolours the copper but still works fine. its the minority who have problems.
@@cldpt 'Once again, physics don't lie. Something's gotta give.' LM forms an alloy with the copper but does not corrode it or ruin it. don't know where you get your info.
I can't see how a card as high end as this and costing as much be limited by something so silly like the core voltage, you could build a whole system with a 4090, waterblock it and still get about the same performance for the same cost as this one item
They say it will perform for five years, but you say it will need redone after one year. They may know something you don't. A secret ingredient, perhaps.
my 1st 4090 FE was able to bench, with voltage max out) at 3105mhz on the core it was insane, with default voltage 3000Mhz was stable and I could even bench at 3030Mhz. But memory overclocking was seriously bad. And despite being careful and doing very few benches, and playing actually most of the time heavily undervolted (2670Mhz at 0.9v) it eventually died for unknown reason within a month or 2 of use. Nvidia replaced it, and my new 4090 FE, doesn't overclock nearly as much as, I can barely reach 3000Mhz with voltage maxed out however the memory overclocking is twice better, overall giving even more performances.
I had a 4090 Strix LC OC and it lasted only 3 hours before I had to RMA it. Asus was able to swap it out for a regular Strix and I just went water cooling with ek blocks. Matrix would be nice for those looking for something different and haven't gotten around to owning a 4090 yet. Hoping it last for those who buy it because Asus really makes the best designed GPUs.
Would be even nicer if they routed the 12WHPWR connector out from the side where the tubes come out. Unfortunately it still sticks out from the middle which means you have to use some sort of adapter to get a clean look. Also since the fan wires are sleeved with the tubes that means fan replacement is going to be difficult.
In my ASUS G533 the liquid metal looked terrible after 2 years. I noticed uneven core heating, during RMA on-site repair, when guy cracked the cooling it was looking like there was a totally dry spot on the cpu. For sure it was not like that after the purchase, because then the temps were awesome. Also there was no sign that the LM was applied on the heatsink side. Calling them experts in the liquid metal because they produce thousands of notebooks is an overstatment after what I saw inside mine. LM in notebooks is just a marketing and a method, to get away with smaller radiators inside the case. Of course it gives much better temps, but it has to be monitored and serviced, which is nowhere mentioned and after warranty user will have to risk reapplication.
Thanks for this review! Really interesting! I was wondering if it would be possible, maybe with a little modding, to screw a couple of fittings and use this card in a custom loop. What would you say?
This thing cost USD$4400 in my country. Its literally a "just because we can do it" type of product, i can't anyone willing to spend that amount for a 4090 when you can buy a whole system with a Ryzen 9/i9 with a 4090 and still have almost $1000 to spare
At 3200 USD (6300 AUD prices in Australia) and the very limited gains it offers. This card is only for those who are in that particular measuring contest. Also for the cost of a whole gaming rig, id expect warraties in the decade long ballpark for the cost. 5 years germany, and only 3 years Australia, its not worth the risk.
The loud ticking noise will probably start sooner or later in that pump as well. I had two Asus 3090 ti Lc which the pump failed after a while. It sounds like it’s the same type of pump in this video. I rather wait for the 4090 ti if it’s cooling or just the 5090 next fall
Nice, but for the size and parts used (cost), I thought this would be 3ghz out of the box. I would also have thought that coil whine would have been the best due to them switching out the noisy inductors they have been using.
@@lucasrem Right now, the Aorus Master. After the new bios update it's my second fav performance-wise (Strix is better, but most have terrible coil whine). The Master coil whine is the same as Zotac, PNY, and some others. It's there, but it's way less than the Strix. To me, the Matrix is just if you have the cash or really...really need it. It's a bit late to be paying this price for a 4090, and as pointed out, Asus picked a bad plate to use, so the card will only be great for a few years. When you come to sell it, the person buying might know their tech stuff and be put off.
4090 is coming up to 1 year old, which means the 4090 has been Nvidia's most powerful GPU for 1 year too. I'm just wondering if this is a record, as a GPU doesn't normally hold the record of king of the hill for long.
3090 released in 2020, 3090 Ti came in March 2022. No record being set here. If anything, I could see this item being authorized by Nvidia because they're likely releasing a refresh sooner rather than later due to poor sales in general. Asus didn't need a halo product - they already had the best 3090 and lost its largest Nvidia AIBP competitor globally (EVGA). This product is more in line with Nvidia's interest than Asus. I can really see a 4090 Ti coming either before or immediately after new year
I wish you could have separated the waterblock from the pump. I want to see if the pump and block are directly connected or if there is an intermediate plate on the pumphead.
My 4090 Waterforce AIO gets 135fps in GT1 overclocked, has the same mem temps and slightly higher core temps but keeps it still in the 50-60 range. All this for 2k, instead of 3.2k 😄
Clearly more economical, better longer-term options, with the same clock speeds if not better with tuning...yeah this niche of the market is due for a shake up.
Looked Hardware Unboxed video first, when i saw no nickle plating i thought WTF?! And then i see yours video and you mentioned the same thing that i thought about. Steve also tested it with CryoSheet and it was only 2C hotter, there is no reason to risk with LM anymore.
With the gallium on copper, surely it won’t just be a re-application of the Liquid Metal compound, and actually require replacement of the entire copper plate when the gallium alloys with it?
A piece of me wants this... But the cost, and when I heard about the Liquid metal, I thought well I'll have to Crack open later in a few years. Then again, PS5 Uses Liqiud Metal!.
I asked ASUS for a statement about the liquid metal / nickel plating situation. Here is the answer:
ASUS has gathered a lot of experience with liquid metal on our Highend Gaming Notebooks and we have done a lot of intense testing, so we are confident that ROG MATRIX RTX 4090 will last for many years to come. This is why we have an extended warranty (for example up to 5 years in Germany) and we will always service our customers.
After the AMD CPU saga I have some reservations about ASUS's warranty. But at least it's good that they seem to stand behind their product. The metallurgical facts kind of speak for themselves as you stated in the video. I guess time will tell that the result will be.
Sorry, but it does not seem to be correct. I have 9900K direct die with liquid metal and a copper cold plate. After a couple of months the liquid metal was slurped into the copper and my CPU temps went high. I polished the cold plate a little (the liquid metal stain remained in place) then I reapplied liquid metal and everything was back on track. I think the penetration of the liquid metal will be slower now given the boundary layer of the copper is saturated with it.
You may ask: why you use a copper cold plate? Bacause I had to lap the cold plate so that it was perfectly flat. Modern WC blocks are not intended for a DD cooling and they have a bulge in the center.
considering the price of the card and the fact that the cooler costs no more than 40-50 dollars to produce they can afford to just keep replacing the block/pump every year for 5 years.
so thats a joke, right?
if they stand behind that warranty in good faith, it doesn't really matter to the customer if the product fails
100% exactly the same as my 4090 Aorus Xtreme. What a surprise. Same hose/tube, same block & design.
why you should use the RTX 4090 card ?
play games ?
Mum, i need that RTX 4030 now, games only !
@@lucasrem bcs i see games as an art. I appreciate every graphics & technology out there
@@MDXZFRno need to reply to that troll my friend. Enjoy your card and let there be salt😂
Like why not@@lucasrem
as someone with more experience using LM than id like to have, seeing bare copper like that made me want to yell out loud. what in the actual fuck is that? there is going to be SUCH a thick layer of allloy created from that LM due to inability of servicing, that i see the DIE itself fusing to the cooler in a years time. the heat cycles that GPUs have versus CPUS are HUGE. with all we know about cpu LM usage, i cant imagine a company like ASUS using BARE copper... thats wild. actually WILD ontop of making it that difficult to service.. i had this almost happen to me with an intel chip. not to mention i had to literally use 1200 grit->1600>2000grit to sand it back down to stock. all it took was 8 months after application for me to experience that with a 10900k.
Not really suprising considering that asus had plated aluminium in their Z690 formula VRM blocks.
My LM dried up super fast with my 10700k and copper waterblock. Once a year I had to polish and reapply to not overheat. Im actually considering the graphite sheet instead on the coming 14700k to maintain resale value of that cpu.
Strange thing is that they did got the LM 'shield' portion right but got it so-so wrong with the heatsink material. Probably the pump supplier did not want to retool for a nickel block? Also they really missed out on the memory cooling. For a card in this price class to perform about the same as a FE card in that respect is just bad. Probably the only reason why one should buy this are the looks. It performs about the same as a Strix and will have serious issues with cooling after some time. But on the other hand most AIO-GPU's already are planned obsolete as you can't really change the proprietary pump if it dies. So I would either go air or custom loop.
Probably a good reason to stick to efficient GPUs that move away from an extra 500mhz peak and also cut their TDP in HALF in the process. AKA not intel
Its just surprising to me that our Der8bauer said he did not have the pricing. ASUS is asking $4k for this and again without any plating or easy access, and a cheap engineering cooling solution for the RAM. I mean really $4000.00 for a watercooled version for of a 4090 that has only one real selling point. It looks good. Well, I guess if anyone is buying, that in itself should be punishment enough.
the lack of nickel plating is planned obsolescence.
If that's true, we're facing a new drama.
The probability that in about 6 months to a year it will be surpassed by something else too 😂
To my eyes, they made the card so cool, it's like they intended it to be an expensively amazing paperweight after a year or two.
Utter trash for a GPU costing over €2000 - the exact idea of this is that it does not need users to take it apart and reapply liquid metal . Asus ROG tax strikes again.
The copper will eat the LM
nom nom nom nom 😋
It not being nickel-plated is unacceptable. F - -
Funnily enough, the most impressive thing for me from the reviews of this card is the insane performance of Kryosheet. Now I have to give it a try.
I wonder what the thermal performance the sheet has vs using both. Like cryo sheet vs cryo sheet + conductonaught or something on both sides of the sheet.
This card is something that did not need to be made.
This is just another card that Asus can add it's brand tax to, whilst offering realistically no additional notable performance.
Buy a Founders Edition and a waterblock and have fun, will perform about the same and will look better.
and more safe, I can see many problem with this card
I have an Asus laptop (Scar 17") and on the heatsink, the cpu side is copper, the gpu side is nickle plated (both with factory liquid metal applied). The copper side is already starting to corrode after a little over a year. I was having thermal issues with the cpu so I opened it up to check and found the corrosion. Asus just doesn't care, I won't be buying from them again, which is really annoying because I really like their bios.
The copper isn't corroded, it's an amalgamation of copper and lm. Add some more lm on CPU and you should be golden.
liquid metal does not corrode copper. It will only "plate" it or "stain" its surface and that's it. You should be worried if that plate is aluminum, as aluminum will be corroded
Their motherboards are overpriced garbage, and I'm not sure why people give Asus the great reputation they don't deserve, but have as a premium tech maker. Asus blasted AM5 with power under EXPO settings too, so Asus have a habit of making hardware that kills your hardware.
@@stevenwest1494 the reputation came from a long while ago when their stuff was top notch.
Im building a new PC and it will play 4k at 60fps and cost less than half of this piece of shit capitalist shit-card.. Also, a homeless person died outside my window yesterday. He had been eating himself for days.. Glad he's gone and I can get back to things that matter.. 4000 USD GPUs
Insane pricing for 2% improvement ! Nice
To be fair 4090's already cost the same as a literal house in the US so I mean.
the cost isn't just for the performance lol
@@BradleyGibbs Last I checked it wasn't sold as art objects.
And don't forget it'll also get worse in a year. So by that point the regular aircooled cards will be better.
@@BradleyGibbs "just for the performance" implies there is a difference with a poor peasant's 4090.
I would really like it to see a video comparing this to a DIY open loop setup with similar components. You could get everything through Watercool (blocks, rad, res, pump, Noctua A12-25 fans) and a 4090 TUF with a Strix BIOS flash and use conductonaut extreme on the GPU. I would be willing to bet it would perform 5° better than the matrix at a given noise level, and be >$500 cheaper.
Even if it doesn't run cooler, does it matter? $500 is $500 (although the reality is that you could build a PC for the cost of this thing, and I could have a fully-blocked 4090 like $2,500 with rad and such. So, more like $1,500). Really, the biggest win is you get to buy a 4090 from a non shit-tier company (which, let's be real: ASUS is garbage-tier at this point), which is probably the biggest win.
@@rustler08 The card does not matter, what matters more is the block, and the top performing water blocks are for the ASUS TUF and Strix (Optimus and watercool). An optimus 4090 block performs about 5-7°c better than an EK block.
umm HE DID, there laterally in the graphs. Did you even watch the video? AND NO air card is gonna get 45C at 100% load, let alone 40C like ur saying. My god man.
@@dragonsyph2557 Perhaps you don't understand the meaning of "similar"
10:29 - "But, why is this surface not nickel plated?" - Same reason ASUS decided to use an aluminium block on the Z690 Formula, and not make this clear in any of their documentation - it's cheaper.
Also planned obsolescence
Going cheap on your flagship product doesn't make sense. It makes more sense to go all out. Whatever it costs you to build, just mark up the price. It's already about 2 grand. A few more dollars won'r put off the buyer.
DerBauer calling Asus :
"I find your lack of nickel plating... Disturbing"
I had LM on a bare copper GTX 1080 waterblock. The LM alloy'd with the copper after less than 2 years and the block became basically unusable because it now has an impression of the GPU die on it in solid metal.
try applying more LM, should soften the old dried LM.
bruh that sucks so hard! I was looking forward buying this card, but when it's such a big problem it's too risky for this price... :/
Hub did a look at it and he mentioned the price was USD $4000. Wild.
Would you like a second gaming PC or 2%
It won't be that high. That's not even in the ballpark with the founders edition, and you know the founders edition is binned and well made.
Yeah, let's keep to doing it ourselves. These company made products are not to be trusted. They have the money and the knowledge to build it perfect - and in this niche market there is no other way - and yet they just deliver a subpar product at high price for no good reason. If you're going to do it - do it right.
they dropped rare weapon, delete cancelled
Exactly, this thing is over 3000 dolllars and a complete gimmick. The AIO pump can fail or the liquid metal can evaporate over time rendering it useless. I would rather do a full custom ek water cool build for my pc for around 800 dollars and get way better performance not just on my GPU but on my processor as well that lasts forever.
You're talking business!👍👍👍
@@chrisroyer4598 metal does not 'evaporate', unless maybe you live on venus or something.
Unless they're binning the vram, these won't overclock any better than the other, much cheaper, 4090 gpus available on the market currently. It's neat though.
Over clocking a GPU today doesnt yield the. Same results it use to.
Exactly. I think it will undervolt and run cooler and greener but the price really makes that irrelevant.
Overclocking does jack for PUs nowadays since they come turned up from factory. Undervolting might get you better temps/efficiency but that's about it. You are definitely right
I recently got a 980ti Strix OC. Just the factory OC on it increases performance by 15% and then you can get more with manual OC. It’s sad how little an OC does these days.
Very important discovery about the copper-LM interface!! Wow they are just planning for this card to eventually fail....
Asus tried to sell me a refurbished 980 Ti for over 1300$ when mine died 1 month out of warranty. So given the liquid metal on copper problem, this is a big nope for me.
I don't know why but the moment i read the title i assumed it'd be an EVGA gpu. So sad to realize they exist no more 😔
EVGA is the Card brand by Nvidia themselves, outsourced now.
Nvidia is still alive in 2023 !
6:00 "You think this is your table, but it's really mine."
Great video honestly. Some information missing regarding the pump:
- it runs at a constant speed and can’t be tweaked
- idle pump noise can be heard when the case is closed, and for me it’s still plenty loud
- it doesn’t seem to improve over time
that memory temp was very high on this card, can't believe people were giving MSI so much crap for their mem temps on their AIO, its about the same
MSI is garbage too.
no nickel plating = FAIL
In perhaps a little over a year, Nvidia is likely to release a 5090 which absolutely blows this card out of the water for like 1200-1600 USD less than this insanely expensive custom model. More importantly, even a 4090 that's like 300 over MSRP absolutely blows this out of the water in terms of price vs. performance, and will still come with an excellent cooler. Even some of the models near MSRP are very good.
This is the definition of a luxury product.
new cards are gonna come out in lat 2025, so nope, more like 2 years
6:00 The cat 😍
dang i wish they make modular version of this to attach to your custom loop
I wish I could buy one... damn it's beautiful.
As always Roman, excellent review.. I like the results, but not sure it warrants the price over my Founders 4090 but I definitely feel you are your team are experts in the LM arena and I have seen enough of your reviews and others warnings to know this card will suffer some cooling loss down the road and the not advisable home replacement of the LM is a deal breaker I think.
Gallium on copper is a pretty big oversight
not really. Gamers Nexus have done testing on this, and ther is no significant loss of thermal conductivity or physical integrity in a copper IHS or cold plate that has absorbed some gallium-based TIM. The downside is that it can dry up and need re-application over time.
Gallium doesn't erode copper, it'll diffuse into the copper so you'll eventually need to reapply
Wrong
I've had it fuse to a NH D14 nickel plating after a few years, the IHS nickel plating was not affected. Intel's nickel plating is higher quality, I now only use it under the IHS.
thx always for the power consumption emphasis
Here in Denmark it is around 2900 dollars excluding taxes, including taxes it is around 3600-3700 dollars. A regular RTX 4090 is between 1800 to 2400 dollars including taxes.
Looks like GPUz was complaining about voltage issues during test ?
If card is pushed to it's limit, it should have 100%tdp jumping over at times.
Let me know if this thing breaks by the way
The aesthetic is so fascinating. It's like a caged in beast.
Lots of youtubers getting their hands on this $3200 piece of machinery.
If it's really $3,200, you can build a custom loop for a normal Strix, have better temps, and still be almost $1,000 under budget.
its 3999
@@rci-tf2zc Misinformation.
Brave man or very calm cat with that tail and kitty right there. Mine would start knocking everything around.
I'm not gonna lie, some of these AIO cards look so good. Would love for them to come with G1/4 ports and no pump/coolant so they can be added to some open loop builds.
If all you care about is looks, that might be cool, but the actual cooling block on this doesn't look like it's very good. Then again, I have seen people do worse with custom blocks, but that's more likely a matter of flow rate, radiator area, and ambient temp.
You need the radiator and pump on the RTX card ?
Thank you for the coil whine test 👏
I've found that coil whine varies significantly card to card, and even more so based on what power that card is getting. for instance I had a lot of whine on my 6900, but I got a pure sign wave UPS and now I get almost none.
Asus, the greatest snakeoil salesmen
Why is the card so thick? 3 slot card when the pump is 2 slots thick? What's going on?
What's going on with the stock memory clock and 80*c memory? Is the thickness of the thermal pads the reason for this?
It seems like every prebuilt AIO card released recently has just been big with a marginal cooling performance gain over a 3 fan cooler of the same footprint. Was the FURY X really the best AIO cooler design card ever made? Small, 2 slots, with a single 120mm radiator, and it could easily cool 300watts of GPU, VRM, and memory.
I immediately subscribed when I saw the marmalade cat
your favorite youtubers favorite youtuber.
It's neat to see a cat channel that also discusses the latest graphics cards. =^.^=
I'm eager to hear about this amazing product
That is such a beautiful looking card
4000 grand for this. Holy moly. Matrix Platinum naming making a comeback.
Thanks for your insights and investigation
I smell another asus class action law suit....
It's $4000 USD according to Hardware Unboxed
Founder Editions still look the best and are also the most conservative with card sizes.
So this is an 4090 Aorus extreme waterforce with a bit thicker radiator and more coil whine + worse reliability because of LM.
Sad considering this is significantly more expensive than that card.
Also this is common knowledge but still worth mentioning:
Do not fall to the "binned chip" snake oil, the tiny lower power consumption difference is easily attributed to usual silicon variance plus in this particular case was the result of 10C lower temps.
This was the last card i was waiting to confirm my final conclusion for this generation.
1. Best Aircooled:
Strix OC.
Best 4090 overall-( First wave had terrible coilwhine)
2. Best Liquid cooled:
Strix OC LC 240.
Has slightly better core temps at the cost of memory/vrm temps. (I would stick to the Aircooled version).
3. Best Budget/Value:
Gigabyte Gaming OC.
Great card overall with no drawbacks worth mentioning.
(For money no object i would still prefer the Strix due to better materials)
4. Best "I use a pc case the size of a closet" : Aorus Master.
This beast rivals the temps of the watercooled cards but does look a bit ugly and is huge.
"Fastest GPU ever!" literally performs the same as any other 4090
Literally doesnt.
Literally does. voltage is hard locked by Nvidia with the 40 series.@@thegoblinwholaughs1137
@@thegoblinwholaughs1137 not noticeable in crab game 🥵
@@nathanfaith1341 it's still alive?
Hardware Unboxed said in their review that the price is 4000 USD! Witch is ridiculous you can buy two 4090's for that price!
Kinda unfortunate that the VRM was not cooled sufficiently. The closed design also limits any form of cooling from case fans.
The VRM. Doesn't even need cooling, it's completely op and could probably run passive with no heatsink or airflow for 100 years
u wrong, GDDR5 very hot@@LawrenceTimme can road to max 110 and shutdown after - normal can going to be 90 - 103
and with VRM, if u make VRM more cooling = more life time, lower error. It's same like PSU, can hot but cooling always better, the problem is money.
if u have cooled = 10 years, if u dont have = 5 years.@@LawrenceTimme you can search about Arrhenius for more info
personally i can't agree that it looks good, and fitting it in a case seems like a nightmare
I can attest to liquid metal migrating into copper surfaces over time and temps rising. I have been using liquid metal for years on all my stuff and I learned very early on to get nickle plated copper.
Nowadays, GPUs are so expensive, that in the future, if someone offers to exchange a 5090 for your car, it wouldn't feel strange.
Ive been using liquid metal on my copper water block for 6 years now. Ive reapplied LM twice now. The temps never dropped, I was just curious and wanted to see if there was any damage. None warranting any sort of attention.
So, that's anecdotal. It's not that I don't believe you, but maybe you're just wrong. It's physics and everyone knows this is a thing. Statistically, you are an anomaly so I would 100% make sure to double check if your are using true liquid metal and if that copper is indeed not nickel-plated.
Once again, physics don't lie. Something's gotta give.
@@cldpt LMAO. I'm using thermal grizzly as a matter of fact. Yes it's liquid metal. Yes its a copper block. Yes it's been 6 years. As a matter of fact it's been a bit longer. I got my intel 7700k on the day it was released. The reason this company choose to use copper is because its a none issue. This is facts my friend. I don't know about you. But I don't make it a habit to talk about shit that isn't real. If It didn't happen. Why would I say it did?
@@cldpt Also here's a news flash for you. I actually have 2 of these computers going, setup in identical fashion. So I must be a super anomaly right? :) lol
@@Silentjackll I've done LM on copper and had it be fine for over 2 years. I don't understand where all the people who think their LM is failing are coming from, they say it dries out? maybe those people are the ones using 'fake liquid metal' but I didn't even know there was such a thing. seems to me LM just discolours the copper but still works fine. its the minority who have problems.
@@cldpt 'Once again, physics don't lie. Something's gotta give.'
LM forms an alloy with the copper but does not corrode it or ruin it. don't know where you get your info.
I can't see how a card as high end as this and costing as much be limited by something so silly like the core voltage, you could build a whole system with a 4090, waterblock it and still get about the same performance for the same cost as this one item
According to HUB, the MSRP is $4000 USD.
It is listed for $3,199 on Asus's US site. Don't see a price in euro on the European site.
Steve from HWU said 4k USD. Guess he was wrong. Not saying it's any better though.
@@Simon_Denmark or they changed it.. considering both video's were posted the same day they've probably been sitting on these video's for a bit.
@@Simon_Denmark He's wrong. Its 3200.
@@BasedF-15Pilot That’s what I meant with ”guess he was wrong”.
its 3999
They say it will perform for five years, but you say it will need redone after one year. They may know something you don't. A secret ingredient, perhaps.
my 1st 4090 FE was able to bench, with voltage max out) at 3105mhz on the core it was insane, with default voltage 3000Mhz was stable and I could even bench at 3030Mhz. But memory overclocking was seriously bad. And despite being careful and doing very few benches, and playing actually most of the time heavily undervolted (2670Mhz at 0.9v) it eventually died for unknown reason within a month or 2 of use.
Nvidia replaced it, and my new 4090 FE, doesn't overclock nearly as much as, I can barely reach 3000Mhz with voltage maxed out however the memory overclocking is twice better, overall giving even more performances.
I had a 4090 Strix LC OC and it lasted only 3 hours before I had to RMA it. Asus was able to swap it out for a regular Strix and I just went water cooling with ek blocks. Matrix would be nice for those looking for something different and haven't gotten around to owning a 4090 yet. Hoping it last for those who buy it because Asus really makes the best designed GPUs.
We need to see this video again in 2024 or 2025, when the liquid metal prophecy is finally fulfilled ☝
that price for plastic case and maybe 2% improvement? not to mention non nickel plated copper surface,
GARBAGE BRAND
This might be my new second fav GPU by looks. (First one is the white rog 4090)
Would be even nicer if they routed the 12WHPWR connector out from the side where the tubes come out. Unfortunately it still sticks out from the middle which means you have to use some sort of adapter to get a clean look. Also since the fan wires are sleeved with the tubes that means fan replacement is going to be difficult.
In my ASUS G533 the liquid metal looked terrible after 2 years. I noticed uneven core heating, during RMA on-site repair, when guy cracked the cooling it was looking like there was a totally dry spot on the cpu. For sure it was not like that after the purchase, because then the temps were awesome. Also there was no sign that the LM was applied on the heatsink side. Calling them experts in the liquid metal because they produce thousands of notebooks is an overstatment after what I saw inside mine. LM in notebooks is just a marketing and a method, to get away with smaller radiators inside the case. Of course it gives much better temps, but it has to be monitored and serviced, which is nowhere mentioned and after warranty user will have to risk reapplication.
Thanks for this review! Really interesting!
I was wondering if it would be possible, maybe with a little modding, to screw a couple of fittings and use this card in a custom loop. What would you say?
This thing cost USD$4400 in my country. Its literally a "just because we can do it" type of product, i can't anyone willing to spend that amount for a 4090 when you can buy a whole system with a Ryzen 9/i9 with a 4090 and still have almost $1000 to spare
You forgot about the attempt Linus made when overvolting the 4090 strix
Lmfao I just checked the price..... $3200 exactly double the FE 4090. What a joke.
$4000. From HUB video. Talk about big margins for ASUS on this one.
founders + waterblock = win
At 3200 USD (6300 AUD prices in Australia) and the very limited gains it offers. This card is only for those who are in that particular measuring contest. Also for the cost of a whole gaming rig, id expect warraties in the decade long ballpark for the cost. 5 years germany, and only 3 years Australia, its not worth the risk.
Would have been interesting to compare to the MSI Suprim.
The loud ticking noise will probably start sooner or later in that pump as well. I had two Asus 3090 ti Lc which the pump failed after a while. It sounds like it’s the same type of pump in this video. I rather wait for the 4090 ti if it’s cooling or just the 5090 next fall
Nice, but for the size and parts used (cost), I thought this would be 3ghz out of the box. I would also have thought that coil whine would have been the best due to them switching out the noisy inductors they have been using.
mrmr gaming,
What GPU u use now, coil whine ?
Who needs these ASUS products, why not buy the RTX 5080 ? Go cheap ?
@@lucasrem Right now, the Aorus Master. After the new bios update it's my second fav performance-wise (Strix is better, but most have terrible coil whine). The Master coil whine is the same as Zotac, PNY, and some others. It's there, but it's way less than the Strix.
To me, the Matrix is just if you have the cash or really...really need it. It's a bit late to be paying this price for a 4090, and as pointed out, Asus picked a bad plate to use, so the card will only be great for a few years. When you come to sell it, the person buying might know their tech stuff and be put off.
The lack of nickel and the absurdly complex disassembly is 100% planned obsolescence by ASUS.
4090 is coming up to 1 year old, which means the 4090 has been Nvidia's most powerful GPU for 1 year too. I'm just wondering if this is a record, as a GPU doesn't normally hold the record of king of the hill for long.
the 1080ti would like a word hhehe
3090 released in 2020, 3090 Ti came in March 2022. No record being set here. If anything, I could see this item being authorized by Nvidia because they're likely releasing a refresh sooner rather than later due to poor sales in general. Asus didn't need a halo product - they already had the best 3090 and lost its largest Nvidia AIBP competitor globally (EVGA). This product is more in line with Nvidia's interest than Asus. I can really see a 4090 Ti coming either before or immediately after new year
From what you've said... its going to be an RMA nightmare by September of next year. Or even earlier.
I wish you could have separated the waterblock from the pump. I want to see if the pump and block are directly connected or if there is an intermediate plate on the pumphead.
Any update on the Thermal Grizzly Direct Die 13th Gen water block?
It makes me curious as to why Asus told Hardware Unboxed the price "£4000 dollars" but not the most respected and knowledgeable reviewer.
The memory temps are terrible. If you use LM on the Strix and use max fan speed, it would be the better card.
Hardware Unboxed confirmed, these are 4,000 USD, each....
My 4090 Waterforce AIO gets 135fps in GT1 overclocked, has the same mem temps and slightly higher core temps but keeps it still in the 50-60 range. All this for 2k, instead of 3.2k 😄
Clearly more economical, better longer-term options, with the same clock speeds if not better with tuning...yeah this niche of the market is due for a shake up.
Verdict: Cat (Chic?) is partially impressed.
OOOFF
Looked Hardware Unboxed video first, when i saw no nickle plating i thought WTF?! And then i see yours video and you mentioned the same thing that i thought about. Steve also tested it with CryoSheet and it was only 2C hotter, there is no reason to risk with LM anymore.
I'd like to see a dual 140mm air-cooled 4090.
MARS 5090 cards, SLi cards ?
@@lucasrem cool
Why is not nickel plated and memory as hot as FE? Gotta add some planned obsolescence.
I love the inset diamonds
The fastest gpu ever! RIGHHHT! Till next year when another one will be even faster. And this one will be so called old news
With the gallium on copper, surely it won’t just be a re-application of the Liquid Metal compound, and actually require replacement of the entire copper plate when the gallium alloys with it?
Of course they sent you a choice copy! They knew who they were sending it to, the review didn’t count! Go and buy it like all the good hard workers!!!
A piece of me wants this... But the cost, and when I heard about the Liquid metal, I thought well I'll have to Crack open later in a few years. Then again, PS5 Uses Liqiud Metal!.
I prefer the Honeywell Stuff more. Almost as good as Liquid Metal. But lasts much longer with less complications.
Planned obsolescence at highest tier, yey.