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$5,000 RTX 5090 Lightning Z gets killed in extreme overclocking attempt, thermal shock cracks the GPU core — MSI's 2,500-Watt XOC BIOS pushed too high a voltage to the core

Source

Tom's Hardware

Published

Feb 16, 2026

TL;DR

AI Generated

MSI's $5,000 RTX 5090 Lightning Z GPU, designed for extreme overclocking, met its demise during a record-breaking attempt due to thermal shock that cracked the GPU core. Overclocker Alva Jonathan pushed the card to its limits with a 2,500W XOC BIOS, resulting in excessive voltage that caused the damage. Despite achieving impressive performance numbers, including breaking world records, the GPU ultimately failed. Jonathan plans to continue testing with remaining samples, exploring more stable BIOS options and improved cooling solutions.

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$5,000 RTX 5090 Lightning Z gets killed in extreme overclocking attempt, thermal shock cracks the GPU core — MSI's 2,500-Watt XOC BIOS pushed too high a voltage to the core

TL;DR

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$5,000 RTX 5090 Lightning Z gets killed in extreme overclocking attempt, thermal shock cracks the GPU core — MSI's 2,500-Watt XOC BIOS pushed too high a voltage to the core

TL;DR

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Unreleased RTX 3050 Ti engineering sample appears in photos and benchmarks — the RTX 3060 alternative that never happened

Intel will reportedly upgrade its Wildcat Lake refresh to an 8-core config next year, leak claims — top-end silicon tipped to feature 4 P-cores and 4 LP-E cores as part of 'Core 400' series

Nvidia is reportedly still planning fabled RTX 50 Super series for 2026, leak claims — lineup could now include a potential 'RTX 5060 Super' with 12GB of VRAM