Overclocking Failure: RTX 5090 Lightning Z a Victim of Liquid Nitrogen

An overclocker attempted to push an MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z graphics card to its limits using liquid nitrogen for cooling. The experiment ended with irreversible damage to the GPU.

Details of the Disaster

The card, an MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z, was subjected to a 2500W XOC (eXtreme OverClocking) BIOS, designed to deliver higher voltages to the GPU core. However, the combination of extremely low temperatures due to liquid nitrogen and the high voltage caused a thermal shock that led to physical fracture of the GPU core, rendering the card unusable.

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