So I managed to get a MSI RTX 5090 Gaming Trio OC from the MSI website directly. Was a dumb bundle with a $200 power supply that I don’t need, but I’ll just sell the PSU or use it in another build. My initial impressions grade: A-.

Ordering process and delivery.

I just randomly checked the MSI shop website and saw it available so total impulse buy. Took less than a week to get to me. (I'm in Washington and was shipped from California.)

The box had “MSI” branding on it which was kinda stupid IMHO (invites thieves), but alas, it was in the box. Driver just left it on my porch even though he should have got my signature. Box was heavily taped, but the two boxes (PSU and Card) were haphazardly put in a large box so they could shake around. Didn’t think it was a great job of packing, but the card is fine.

First Observation.

@#$@#$@, it is HUGE. Like a substantial amount bigger than the 5080.

The Rig and Installation

Installed on a MSI Z790 ACE motherboard with a water cooled i9-14900KF and 64 GB of RAM. Just air cooling the 5090 for now. Used a vertical riser cable but used a PCie 4 riser instead of 5. Heard there were some issues with using PCIe 5 risers so didn’t risk it as a negligible performance hit. So a “on its side” mount with the fans facing the front of the case. Run a 3 monitor set-up, the main being a 45" 240Hz OLED at 3440 x 1440. 2nd monitor an old ultrawide LG and the third is a tiny hardware monitoring screen that is part of my case.

Booted up the machine and worked out the box. I immediately checked my ROPs with GPU-Z and all there. Loaded up the Nvidia app and had the latest driver, but also installed the hotfix that was released earlier today (was hoping it fixed my Monster Hunter Wilds issue with the 5080 - more on that later…).

Idles at 38C to 53C (using Riva Tuner and AIDA 64 for hardware monitoring). Like the MSI 5080 fans don’t come on until under load. Under load it actually runs cooler than the 5080.  I have never exceeded 65C while playing DCS, MSFS 2024, Civ VII or Monster Hunter Wilds. Impressive cooling.

MSFS 2024 Performance.

Ummmm…wow.

So with the 5080, MSFS 2024 ran “alright” butt honestly a little disappointing. Suffered from stuttering and such in career mode sometimes, or in heavily congested areas. 80% of the time pleased, but had to dial back some graphic settings and still dealt with 99% VRAM usage and related issues. The 32 RAM makes a HUGE difference it seems.

I “optimized” the 5090 for MSFS in the Nvida app, which basically made it ultra and high everything.

Once I hit the menu, everything was noticeably crisper and faster. Loading into the plane from the “free flight” worked, whereas before about 10% of the time it would hang.

Once the plane showed up the sim ran well with no stuttering. Started out at KRNT and flew over Seattle to Vancouver, BC, which is usually a little choppy as a a lot going on and traffic. Sim ran as smooth as ever, over 60 FPS on the ground and over 140 FPS at 10,000 feet. Track IR was smooth, the sim ran great. With the 5080 I’d sometimes get 10 FPS on taxi in busy airports. 5080 was fine at altitude generally, but sometimes would still dip in the 20s-30s.

Definitely saw much larger power draws on the 5090. The 5080 would draw usually 125W to at most 250W. The 5090 a different beast, and saw 240-390W pretty consistently. Temps were pretty much the same as the 5080 though runs a little cooler. I think the MSI Gaming Trio is pretty quiet as well. I did notice that my motherboard and memory got a few Celsius warmer, likely due to the massive size and warm air coming out of the card, but well below pain thresholds.

Then took the G2 helicopter and flew around recently updated Denver. Again, the rig purred like a kitten and was just easy on the 5090. Generally stable at low altitude and basically smooth sailing at less than 2,000 feet. Landed on a helicopter pad at a hospital in downtown Denver.

I still get that wonky sound and stutter issues from time to time, but not as bad as with the 5080.  Just seems to be a VRAM issues and clearly the 32 GB helps. I'm thinking it is more of an MSFS problem instead of a Nvidia problem.

Other Games…

The 5090 handles DCS with ease, though in fairness the 5080 handled it well too.

My one major disappointment is Monster Hunter Wilds crashed while I was playing on the 5090. This is not new, as the latest driver from Nvidia did something and my 5080 also crashed MHW (a well documented issue on reddit). Works flawlessly for MSFS, but really annoyed that Nvidia messed up the MHW compatibility (or Capcom). I guess the only thing is it was better. The graphics were leaps and bounds better than what the 5080 put out which is impressive (yes, it is noticeable), but when I used the latest drivers the game would crash within 30 seconds of getting in the game with the 5080.

I thought I was in the clear with the newest hotfix and the 5090. Ran around the Gathering Hub, ran some errands, no issues. But did a multiplayer hunt and about 13 minutes in the game crashed. So better, but still annoyed.  I rolled back to the March driver and no crashes in MSW.  I'll just need to wait for a patch that works for MHW.

Conclusion

So is it worth the money? Well depends. For me, probably yes, as I pretty much fly something 5 days a week (DCS or MSFS) and I’m an avid gamer who will put thousands of hours in the card over a 5 year period. The price is still obscene, but I guess I look at it that for the thousands of hours of use, it will probably cost me less than $.50 cents an hours, So no regrets.

As for the power cord issues, I of course used the cord that came with my PSU and the GPU and properly seated so I don’t anticipate any issues. 

Happy to answer any questions.

Edited May 9, 20251 yr by WolverineHusky

 hotfix that was released earlier today ?

It looks like demand has finally dropped or supply has increased.  I actually manage to get a new PNY 5090 Triple Fan OC card for below MSRP $1899 (yes, US price).  I was hesitant given all the issues with the 50 series cards, but I managed to find a water cooling block (Alphacool Core Geforce RTX 5090 EPIC-X) for the PNY 5090 from ModMyMods for $237.

$1899 is the same price I paid for my 4090 which is now sold.  So the upgrade was only $500 including water block.

Interested to see how it does against my AMD 9070XT OC undervolted to 3400Mhz.