The Bottom Line
Introduction, Pricing & Detailed Look
ASRock entered the custom Radeon graphics card market with its Phantom Gaming series of cards back with the Polaris-based Radeon RX 500 series, and has been steadily introducing new members to that Phantom Gaming series since.
Fast forward to today and the Navi GPU architecture, we have AMD's new Radeon RX 5700 series and Radeon RX 5600 series both launching, with ASRock deploying Phantom Gaming variants of both of those series of cards -- and now, the lower-end Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics card.
I've already checked out the SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 5500 XT PULSE OC (with 4GB of VRAM) and the MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT GAMING X (with 8GB of VRAM), but today we're looking at ASRock's entry with the Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming -- which like the MSI GAMING X variant, has 8GB of framebuffer.
AMD's new Navi range of graphics cards have PCIe 4.0 support, something I plan to test out after this wave of Radeon RX 5500 XT reviews. Inside, the Radeon RX 5500 XT uses the Navi 14 GPU on the 7nm node, which packs 22 RDNA compute units, 1408 stream processors, 88 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and 8GB of GDDR6 memory at 14Gbps on a 128-bit memory bus.
ASRock provides its Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming series graphics cards with factory overclocks on the GPU, cranking the GPU clocks up to 1737MHz Game Clock, and 1845MHz boost.
Detailed Look
The packaging isn't that flash, I don't think this would attract eyes to the shelves/online -- but thankfully the card looks good in the flesh.
ASRock goes for a cheaper-looking style with its Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming series graphics card, with its dual-fan cooler and stylish backplate. It doesn't look super-expensive, but it's not a cheap looking card by any means. I actually dig the simplicity ASRock has gone with here on the Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming graphics card.
The two fans ASRock is using on the Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming series graphics card drop down to 0dB under low loads, offering some silence between those gaming sessions.
The company has use d a thermal pad on the back of the card to help with thermal efficiency, so it's not just a fancy looking backplate -- but rather a functional, stylish backplate.
The ASRock Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming series graphics card from the top, where we can see it is a nice and thin dual-slot card with the 'Phantom Gaming' branding at the top between the fans.
Once again from the bottom, where we can see some of that heat pipe goodness peaking through.
You will need just a single 8-pin PCIe power connector to get the ASRock Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming graphics card up and running.
We have 3 x DisplayPort 1.4 and a single 1 x HDMI 2.0 connector on the card.
It wouldn't be a new graphics card without some RGB lighting, with ASRock using ARGB LEDs with Polychrome SYNC meaning you can get your RGB lighting synced on a supported ASRock motherboard.
Test System Specs & Synthetic Benchmarks
GPU Test Rig Specs
Welcome to the latest revision of our GPU test bed, with our system being upgraded from the Intel Core i7-7700K to the Core i7-8700K. The CPU is cooled by the Corsair H115i PRO cooler, with the 8700K overclocked to 5GHz. We've stayed with GIGABYTE for our motherboard with their awesome Z370 AORUS Gaming 7.
We approached our friends at HyperX for a kit of their kick ass HyperX Predator DDR4-2933MHz RAM (HX429C15PB3AK4/32), with 2 x 8GB sticks for a total of 16GB DDR4-2933. The RAM stands out through every minute of our testing as it has beautiful RGB lights giving the system a slick look while benchmarking our lives away, while the Z370 AORUS Gaming 7 motherboard joins in with its own array of RGB lighting.
Anthony's Test System Specifications
- Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z370 AORUS Gaming 7 (buy from Amazon)
- CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K @ 5GHz (buy from Amazon)
- Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H115i PRO (buy from Amazon)
- Memory: 16GB (2x8GB) HyperX Predator DDR4-2933 (buy from Amazon)
- SSD: 1TB Toshiba OCZ RD400 NVMe M.2 (buy from Amazon)
- SSD: 512GB Toshiba OCZ RD400 NVMe M.2 (buy from Amazon)
- Power Supply: InWin 1065W
- Case: InWin X-Frame
- OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (buy from Amazon)
Additional Images
3DMark Fire Strike - 1080p
3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.
3DMark Fire Strike - 1440p
3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.
3DMark Fire Strike - 4K
3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.
3DMark TimeSpy
3DMark TimeSpy Extreme
Heaven - 1080p
Heaven is an intensive GPU benchmark that really pushes your silicon to its limits. It's another favorite of ours as it has some great scaling for multi-GPU testing, and it's great for getting your GPU to 100% for power and noise testing.
Heaven - 1440p
Heaven - 4K
Game Benchmarks - 1080p
1080p Benchmarks
Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.
You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.
Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.
Far Cry New Dawn was developed by Ubisoft, and is powered the Dunia Engine, an engine that has been modified over the years for Far Cry and last used in Far Cry 5. Dunia Engine itself was a modified version of CRYENGINE, scaling incredibly well on all sorts of hardware.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.
1080p Benchmark Performance Thoughts
At 1080p, we have the new ASRock Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming graphics card beating out the MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT GAMING X. In every single test it is equaling or out-performing the MSI variant, all while offering stellar 1080p performance for the money, in a nice small package.
There's some great performance here in the ASRock Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming, where you'll be soaring over 100-120FPS average in esports games like Apex Legends and Overwatch at 1080p if you dial down some of those detail levels.
Game Benchmarks - 1440p
1440p Benchmarks
Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.
You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.
Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.
Far Cry New Dawn was developed by Ubisoft, and is powered the Dunia Engine, an engine that has been modified over the years for Far Cry and last used in Far Cry 5. Dunia Engine itself was a modified version of CRYENGINE, scaling incredibly well on all sorts of hardware.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.
1440p Benchmark Performance Thoughts
The same equal-or-better performance than the MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming graphics card is here, with the ASRock Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming kicking ass once again at 2560 x 1440. It's not just 1080p where performance is impressive with the more mid-range Radeon RX 5500 XT.
The 8GB of RAM will give it some of that magical "future-proofing" that I hate to even refer to, but 8GB of framebuffer is definitely better than 4GB. Would you pay more for it? For esports games no, for AAA games -- maybe. That comes down to the games you're playing, and how much VRAM they consume (and of course, how much you want to spend on a graphics card).
Game Benchmarks - 4K
4K Benchmarks
Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.
You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.
Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.
Far Cry New Dawn was developed by Ubisoft, and is powered the Dunia Engine, an engine that has been modified over the years for Far Cry and last used in Far Cry 5. Dunia Engine itself was a modified version of CRYENGINE, scaling incredibly well on all sorts of hardware.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.
4K Benchmark Performance Thoughts
Please don't buy this graphics card for 4K gaming -- but if you do, you'll enjoy around 30FPS with some tweaked settings in some AAA games. In esports games, 4K shouldn't be a problem at all if you are wanting to hit up to around 60FPS average with low in-game visual settings in something like Apex Legends or Overwatch.
Temp, Power & Final Thoughts
Temperatures
ASRock takes care of the temperatures of its Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming graphics card easily, but it does so by putting some negative points in another area: noise. Sure, the 0dB silent operation is good when the card isn't under any heavy loads, but when it is the card is definitely one of the loudest Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics cards I've tested so far.
This isn't so much of a problem because the ASRock Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming graphics card is silent under low loads, so you can be watching TV shows or movies on Netflix, videos on YouTube, or listening to music and your graphics card will be silent. Once you dive into a game, you will traditionally have speakers or a headset on -- and won't hear the noise from the graphics card.
But seriously -- 60C under load is pretty damn amazing. It is the coolest-operating Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics card by far, and one of the coolest graphics cards I've ever tested. Kudos on that, ASRock -- that's pretty cool, pun intended.
Power Consumption
We are looking at identical power consumption to the MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT GAMING X -- with my entire Intel Core i7-8700K rig using 190W of power in total.
Final Thoughts
Another day, another custom Radeon RX 5500 XT to test -- what ASRock does differently here to the competition isn't much, it has a good-looking card that is priced inside of the sub $250 market powered by RDNA goodness from AMD.
There's no huge leap in performance between what ASRock has here with its Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming, and MSI's custom Radeon RX 5500 XT GAMING X -- both models offering virtually identical performance, as well as coming in the larger 8GB framebuffer model.
As I said in my review for the MSI card, I wouldn't buy the ASRock card just because it has 8GB of VRAM. You won't need that for the most part, and while there are some instances where the Radeon RX 5500 XT with 8GB is faster than the 4GB variant, it is a $30-$50 difference.
If there's one thing to nitpick that I'd like ASRock to look into for their next card -- is that the backplate should cover the entire card, without the heat sink overlapped at the end. Alternatively, does the heat sink need to be that big? I would prefer a thicker card if it meant it was more of a 'Nano' or 'Mini' offering, especially as there's no multi-GPU use going on here with the Radeon RX 5500 XT.
Performance |
92% |
Quality |
95% |
Features |
90% |
Value |
90% |
Overall |
92% |
ASRock has a kick ass Radeon RX 5500 XT with its Phantom Gaming variant, the coolest-operating RX 5500 XT of them all. Impressive performance in a small package: an all-round win for ASRock with Navi and the Radeon RX 5500 XT.
What's in Anthony's PC?
- CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K
- MOTHERBOARD: GIGABYTE Z690 AERO-G
- RAM: Corsair 32GB DDR4-3200
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 24GB
- SSD: Sabrent 4TB Rocket 4 Plus
- OS: Windows 11 Pro
- CASE: Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL
- PSU: ASUS ROG Strix 850W
- KEYBOARD: Logitech G915 Wireless
- MOUSE: Logitech G502X Wireless
- MONITOR: LG C3 48-inch OLED TV 4K 120Hz
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