Acer’s Liquid Cooled RTX 4090 – Tested!

It's been a very interesting few days taking a look at this liquid cooled RTX 4090 from Acer. While the company does now make discrete graphics cards for both Intel and AMD, getting your hands on this RTX 4090 is not quite so easy, as it's only available as part of the Predator Orion X prebuilt system. We removed it from that prebuilt, however, and tested it just like it were any other AIB card, and the results are very interesting when compared against the slew of other RTX 4090 models we tested about this time last year.

Unfortunately for Acer, the results are very interesting for all the wrong reasons. Simply put, the 4090 from the Orion X system is not very capable at all. The GPU was hotter than the six other 4090 models we've tested, with the loudest noise levels, while its memory thermals were comfortably worse than even the Nvidia Founders Edition.

When noise-normalised to 40dBa, we actually saw the GPU thermal throttle because the memory was running so hot, hitting 106C in our 30-minute stress test, and being comprehensively bettered by standard air-cooled cards like the Palit GameRock OC or ASUS TUF Gaming OC. It didn't overclock particularly well either, with in-game performance increasing by just 2-6% once we dialled in our best settings.

It's hard to pin-point exactly why the overall performance is as unimpressive as it is. We did outline a few possible contributing factors earlier in the review – including the design of the copper baseplate that contacts the GPU and memory, relatively thick thermal pads for the memory that don't seemingly make wonderful contact with the GDDR6X modules, the lack of thermal pads on the back of the PCB, alongside the fact that only two 100mm fans is unusual for a 4090, as most offer triple-fan setups.

All, or none, of those points could be part of the explanation. Part of me also wonders if a radiator this small, built into the shroud itself, simply doesn't offer enough cooling power to deal with a 450W GPU. After all, we've seen what a 4090 with an external 240mm radiator can do, and that setup offers significantly more volume as part of its cooling solution.

Perhaps then it is for the best that you can't go out and buy this GPU standalone. I do really like the idea of a liquid cooled RTX 4090 that uses an integrated pump and radiator, but the execution here simply doesn't deliver good enough results. We'll see if Acer does something similar in the future, but for now, that's about all we have to say on the matter.

If you are interested in Acer's Predator Orion X, it's available to pre-order in the UK from Currys (but with an RTX 4080, not RTX 4090), or you can read more on Acer's website HERE.

Update 15 December 2023: Since publishing this article, it has come to our attention that the Predator Orion X prebuilt system, from which we took this RTX 4090, was a late-stage engineering sample and not a finished retail product. This was unknown to us before producing this analysis and naturally the results shown must be viewed with that in mind. We will aim to get a final retail sample as soon as possible to revisit the performance. Read more on this HERE.

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Pros

• Unique design with integrated radiator and pump.
• Relatively compact for an RTX 4090.

Cons

• Runs hotter and louder than any other RTX 4090 we've tested.
• Memory thermals are particularly poor.
• The GPU thermal-throttled when noise-normalised to 40dBa, with memory temperatures hitting 106C.
• Our sample didn't overclock well.
• Relatively low-end PCB design with just 14-phases for the GPU.
• Only available as part of the Predator Orion X built, which isn't available in the UK with an RTX 4090.

KitGuru says: It's been fascinating to test this rather unique graphics card – but for all the wrong reasons. Hopefully we will see Acer continue to improve upon its designs.

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