This new single-slot RTX 5090 is tiny, but needs custom cooling

Graphics cards have gotten really freakin’ big… so big, in fact, that one of the most interesting things about the new RTX 50 series is that some of the reference cards can fit in “just” two PCI expansion slots. But the newest versions of the RTX 5080 and 5090 are tiny and considered small even for single-slot cards. Unfortunately, to shrink those super-powered GPUs down, you’ll need a custom liquid cooling loop.

VideoCardz reports that the Inno3D RTX 5090 iChill Frostbite Pro is just 223mm long, 134mm high, and 20mm thick. (That’s 8.8 x 5.3 x 0.79 inches for those of you who insist on measurements that were outdated two centuries ago.) It’s about a third of the size of the Nvidia Founder’s Edition version of the card, which is already pretty darn small for a modern GPU. An RTX 5080 version is also available and it’s just 187mm x 110mm. Check out that sleek carbon fiber back plate!

But if you’ve been building gaming PCs for a while, you know what’s coming next: both cards use custom-made water cooling blocks, and in order to install one you’ll need to build a custom loop system connected to a radiator, reservoir, and pump. And if you’re doing that anyway, odds are pretty good that you’ll add in a block for your CPU at the very least, with some pretty ridiculous hardware on top of everything. Inno3D says you’ll need a minimum of a kilowatt power supply to handle the 5090 and all its extras, and I’d be surprised if something like this ever goes into a desktop cheaper than $4,000 USD.

Not that we know how much the GPU will actually cost, since there’s still no price for the card despite early listings pointing to availability in the near future. I’d say that if you’ve had to check your bank account balance at all this year, you might as well keep dreaming. For the sake of comparison, you can check out MSI’s liquid-cooled RTX 5090, which isn’t anywhere near as sleek but comes with an AIO cooler so you don’t need to build your own.