Published: May 29, 2025 | Source: ASUS | Author: Tom Logan

ASUS ROG RTX 5090 Astral Review

Conclusion

When we reviewed the liquid cooled ASUS ROG RTX 5090 Astral we were blown away by how much faster it was than the other RTX 5090’s we’ve reviewed. We know that better cooling equals higher clock speeds, but the LC really went above and beyond.

Taking off the liquid cooling means that this air-cooled version of the Astral is more affordable. It doesn’t mean that it’s easier to fit into your case though. Yes you haven’t got to find room for a radiator, but four slots? Blimey. It’s a monster. A behemoth. We’ve seen a few RTX 5090 cards and we don’t fully understand why the Astral needs such a humungous lump on it. That giant cooler is doing a splendid job though. As you could see from our testing it’s pretty much the quickest of the air-cooled cards. Not that any RTX 5090 is exactly slow.

That’s pretty much the entirety of the tale of the tape. As with any ASUS Republic of Gamers product you expect excellence. The Astral brings a robust build quality and understated aesthetic that characterises such high end hardware. It also is blisteringly quick. Given that this is the fabled Nvidia RTX 5090, and a ROG version of it, we’d expect nothing less. It’s cool. It’s quiet. You could sleep a family of four in the box.

All the talk with the 5000 series of Nvidia cards has been based around price and availability. We’re not going to pretend that a flagship ROG card will solve either of those difficulties. But if you happen to have the readies, and can find one, you can be sure that the ROG Astral delivers all you can hope and more. An easy winner of our OC3D Performance Award.