ASUS ROG RTX 5090 Astral Review
Up Close
Up Close
Maybe we didn’t notice it before. We could’ve sworn when ASUS swapped the red and black of the ROG colour scheme the red went on the outside of the box. Here it’s a white outside, with just red on the ROG Eye logo. Going back we see the Astral box has always looked this way. Funny what things you notice. Must be the smell of Computex fresh in our nostrils. Still the box is gigantic, as it would be to fit the card in. As always ASUS have done us proud around the back with a full list of feature highlights and specifications.
If you read our RTX 5080 Astral review then the design of this RTX 5090 card will be very familiar. It has all the current ASUS hallmarks. Triple fan, lots of chrome edging, even the ASUS headquarters coordinates. A feature we’re more used to seeing on their motherboards.
The back doesn’t really give away quite how thick this card is. Any thicker we’d expect it to be running for the presidency. Often around the back of cards we see fans to help airflow. The Astral shows how much it sits at the peak of the ASUS ROG range. That chrome band just gives it an air of expense we don’t often get. Nice.
This angle really shows off that four slot cooler. So many heat pipes. So many fins. It’s an absolute beast. Should you equate weight and solidity as measures of something’s worth then the RTX 5090 Astral deserves every pound of it’s asking price.
Girthy
The full side view backs up what we said above. As you would expect from an ASUS ROG product the attention to detail is excellent. Nothing is slightly wobbly or misaligned. That heatsink could be used to beat a whale to death. It’s ginormous and robust. We like the ability to plug fans in to the card, letting it draw more cool air into your case if necessary.
Lastly at the back we have the now familiar Stainless Steel backplate ASUS use on their premium products. You also get an extra HDMI output when compared to the majority of Nvidia cards that usually one have one alongside the three DisplayPort outputs.
