A major drawback of the exceptionally powerful GeForce RTX 5090 is the high power demands of its large GB202 chip. Even when equipped with a premium air cooler, the card still requires robust system cooling to handle its nearly 600W heat output. However, AiO liquid cooling models can offer even better thermal performance, thanks to their larger radiators with three 120mm fans, which expel hot air directly outside the case.
Fan behavior, noise level
The fan settings and operating speeds differ between the card’s fan and the three radiator fans. Both can be adjusted in the 30-100% range, but they are controlled separately and somewhat independently.
For the card’s fan, 30% minimum means 530 RPM, while the standard radiator fans run at 1000 RPM at 30% power. At 1000 RPM they become slightly audible, and unfortunately can’t go lower, so the card is only silent when the fans are completely off.
While the card’s fan starts speeding up quickly when load begins, the radiator fans (in quiet mode) maintain a steady 1000 RPM at minimum power for a long time and only accelerate after sustained load.
From six thermal tests, I collected the fan speeds under prolonged load. These are highlighted in bold in the table – the first three measurements are quiet mode results, the next three from performance mode.
Other speed measurements are interspersed between these. Especially at the end, the values become questionable since the card seemingly can’t heat up enough to push the radiator fans to maximum speed.
This still gives you an idea of how noisy the cooler is at manual fan settings. At the lower power range regarding noise, the radiator fans dominate, while at the higher power range the card’s fan becomes louder.
| water block fan | radiator fan | noise level | ||
| 30 % | 530 rpm | 30 % | 999 rpm | 33,5 dBA |
| 40 % | 914 rpm | 30 % | 1000 rpm | 33,6 dBA |
| 44 % | 1080 rpm | 30 % | 1000 rpm | 33,9 dBA |
| 47 % | 1204 rpm | 30 % | 1001 rpm | 34,2 dBA |
| 50 % | 1328 rpm | 32 % | 1040 rpm | 35,4 dBA |
| 51 % | 1371 rpm | 32 % | 1040 rpm | 35,6 dBA |
| 52 % | 1404 rpm | 34 % | 1080 rpm | 36,4 dBA |
| 52 % | 1411 rpm | 35 % | 1099 rpm | 36,7 dBA |
| 53 % | 1452 rpm | 35 % | 1102 rpm | 37,0 dBA |
| 54 % | 1494 rpm | 38 % | 1161 rpm | 38,2 dBA |
| 54 % | 1494 rpm | 42 % | 1241 rpm | 39,6 dBA |
| 54 % | 1494 rpm | 46 % | 1320 rpm | 41,2 dBA |
| 54 % | 1494 rpm | 47 % | 1340 rpm | 41,5 dBA |
| 54 % | 1494 rpm | 48 % | 1362 rpm | 41,9 dBA |
| 56 % | 1586 rpm | 49 % | 1380 rpm | 42,4 dBA |
| 57 % | 1617 rpm | 49 % | 1379 rpm | 42,5 dBA |
| 58 % | 1660 rpm | 50 % | 1398 rpm | 43,0 dBA |
| 58 % | 1660 rpm | 51 % | 1420 rpm | 43,4 dBA |
| 59 % | 1700 rpm | 52 % | 1436 rpm | 44,0 dBA |
| 60 % | 1742 rpm | 53 % | 1458 rpm | 44,4 dBA |
| 64 % | 1908 rpm | 55 % | 1493 rpm | 45,6 dBA |
| 68 % | 2073 rpm | 58 % | 1561 rpm | 47,8 dBA |
| 72 % | 2239 rpm | 62 % | 1639 rpm | 49,2 dBA |
| 76 % | 2400 rpm | 66 % | 1720 rpm | 51,0 dBA |
| 80 % | 2569 rpm | 69 % | 1780 rpm | 52,3 dBA |
| 84 % | 2730 rpm | 72 % | 1820 rpm | 53,2 dBA |
| 88 % | 2900 rpm | 76 % | 1900 rpm | 55,5 dBA |
| 92 % | 3066 rpm | 80 % | 2040 rpm | 57,2 dBA |
| 96 % | 3233 rpm | 83 % | 2060 rpm | 58,5 dBA |
| 97 % | 3278 rpm | 84 % | 2080 rpm | 59,0 dBA |
| 98 % | 3320 rpm | 85 % | 2080 rpm | 59,2 dBA |
| 100 % | 3330 rpm | 86 % | 2120 rpm | 59,7 dBA |
| 100 % | 3330 rpm | 92 % | 2225 rpm | 60,2 dBA |
| 100 % | 3330 rpm | 96 % | 2313 rpm | 60,4 dBA |
| 100 % | 3309 rpm | 100 % | 2400 rpm | 61,0 dBA |
Cyberpunk 2077, RT Medium, 3840 × 2160 (performance)
The first set of measurements comes from the Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark with RT Medium settings at 3840 × 2160 resolution. With these settings, the GPU is fully loaded. This consists of twenty consecutive benchmark runs.
The graph always displays the final run, from which the average values for the heated card are calculated.
The GPU clock speed fluctuates between 2820 and 2857 MHz, averaging 2838 MHz.
The card’s power consumption stays slightly below the power limit. Green represents the card’s power consumption according to monitoring, while blue shows CPU power consumption (read via HWiNFO).
Dark color represents the total system power consumption measured with a UT71E multimeter.
The average GPU temperature remains below 60°C. Memory temperatures hover slightly above 70°C.
The card’s fan (light blue) runs at slightly higher RPMs. The radiator fans maintain around 1300 RPM.
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