First Look: The Asus ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 Brings Liquid Metal to the 4090
TAIPEI—Asus’ periodic Matrix editions of its highest-end video cards are rare birds. The last one showed its PCB face during the GeForce RTX 20 series days, and the company has maintained something of a mystique and a limited-edition ethos around them. Of course, these being elite-grade cards with a limited clientele, they're more aspirational products than practical for most buyers. You admire the Ferrari, but you buy the Ford.
If you don’t consider yourself “most buyers,” though, then it's time to get a bit impractical…and get your wallet ready for some hurt. Asus teased, just before the official opening of Computex 2023, a Matrix edition of the Nvidia flagship GeForce RTX 4090 GPU, dubbed the ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090.
Asus did not announce pricing at the outset, and the assembled press had just a few minutes to ogle and shoot the card during a trip to Asus headquarters in Taipei. So let's get down to some of those pix…
The Matrix is a liquid-cooled RTX 4090 card with the distinction of using liquid metal on the GPU die. As Asus reps explained, using liquid metal on a component that may be oriented and used in one of several different directions, depending on the installation, presents something of a challenge. (It’s safe to assume, in contrast, that a laptop employing liquid metal will predictably be used at full tilt only when it’s more or less parallel to a desk.) Liquid metal needs to be “dammed” in place to keep it from flowing out when heated (obviously a bad thing).
As a result, Asus had to implement a special adhesive barrier, visible above and below in these PCB shots, around the GPU keep the metal contained when it's in a flow state. After all, a PC might have the card installed vertically, horizontally,
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