TECH NEWS – Overclocking can go too far. Here’s proof: the story didn’t have a happy ending.
Alva Jonathan, an avid overclocker, uploaded a video to YouTube showing how he destroyed his 100-million-rupee GPU. It’s the brand new MSI RTX 5090 32G Lightning Z, the most powerful RTX 5090 ever made. It’s designed for enthusiasts who care more about breaking records than gaming. The card performs well in its default configuration and can easily maintain high clock speeds.
The GPU has 800W and 1000W operating TDP profiles, but it can be pushed even further with the 2500W XOC BIOS. This BIOS is reserved for overclockers willing to risk their GPU’s life. Alva attempted to break several records with his graphics card, but something unexpected happened. Using liquid nitrogen cooling, he aimed for the highest possible clock speed, which required applying high voltage to the GPU core.
At nearly 1 kW and 1.12 V, the GPU achieved a clock speed of 3.42 GHz – already 1 GHz higher than the reference edition’s default boost clock speed. Despite the high power consumption and voltage, the GPU kept its temperature below 10°C. However, when attempting to reach 3.5 GHz, the GPU could not maintain this speed when the temperature rose above 20°C. Maintaining a high clock speed at temperatures below 0°C was difficult. However, it achieved a performance of 3.6 GHz using GPUPI Benchmark.
The world record for Geekbench 5 Compute scores is 683,433 points at 3.5 GHz. When he tried to set more world records, something unexpected happened. When he tried the 2500W XOC BIOS, it pushed nearly 1.2V to the GPU because it was an early version. The result was a GPU core failure, as shown in the picture. A $5,000 GPU was destroyed. This damage is not covered by the warranty because removing the 2500W limit voids it.
Imagine the consequences of flashing the leaked 2500W XOC BIOS onto a non-MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z GPU. We do not recommend trying such a high-performance BIOS on a standard RTX 5090, as it is not designed for power consumption above 600W.
Source: WCCFTech
