The Bottom Line
Introduction, Pricing & Detailed Look
The launch of the Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics card by AMD back in December 2019 saw the mid-range market open up in a big way. AMD is offering the 4GB variant of the Radeon RX 5500 XT for around $180, while the 8GB version costs upwards of $200.
Today we have the ASUS Radeon RX 5500 XT DUAL OC graphics card, which sells for $210 on Amazon. This ain't a bad deal at all, as MSI offers its Radeon RX 5500 XT GAMING X -- my review here -- for $225. The custom MSI card has a better cooler, but we'll have to see if the cooler on the ASUS Radeon RX 5500 XT DUAL OC is up for the job.
Detailed Look
ASUS has a slick box for its Radeon RX 5500 XT DUAL OC graphics card, where ASUS is really pushing its AUTO-EXTREME 'perfected automated manufacturing' on the box -- because you kinda can't not notice it, right?!
ASUS is using an 'Axial-tech fan design' for its cooler, with the two fans in question here not spinning up until the card is put under pressure. This means it's silent right up until you've jumped into a game.
We have a backplate on offer here, which protects the card from any damages that might occur going in, or out of your gaming PC.
From the top of the card, I don't understand why ASUS couldn't keep to a dual-slot design -- while there is a single 8-pin PCIe power connector at the end.
From the bottom, we can see the heat sink array and 2.5-slot design of the card.
As for display connectivity, ASUS includes 3 x DisplayPort and 1 x HDMI output.
A closer look at the 8-pin PCIe power connector.
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
We have identical performance to the competing Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics cards from the ASUS Radeon RX 5500 XT DUAL OC, where at 1080p you won't tell the difference between them.
AAA games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider buzz along at 83FPS average, while Shadow of the Tomb Raider pulls 92FPS average at 1080p. If you're into esports games like Overwatch, League of Legends, Apex Legends or others -- then you'll have an easy 100FPS+ average from games like that on the ASUS RX 5500 XT DUAL OC.
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
We have near identical performance to the rest of the custom Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics cards from the ASUS RX 5500 XT DUAL OC, where 1440p performance might drop but it's still great. We're still talking about 63FPS average in Shadow of War, and just over 60FPS average in Far Cry New Dawn, and just under 60FPS average in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
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
The ASUS Radeon RX 5500 XT DUAL OC hits 60C max under full loads, the same as the ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming graphics card. So it joins the club of one of the coolest-operating cards we've tested, while the fans don't make anywhere near as much noise as the custom ASRock offering.
When you're not gaming, ASUS doesn't have the fans spinning up so the card is completely silent.
Power Consumption
Another nice touch is that ASUS has the lowest power consumption of all of the custom Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics cards that I've tested so far: 170W for my entire Core i7-8700K test rig.
Final Thoughts
ASUS has a much cheaper Radeon RX 5500 XT on offer with its DUAL OC variant costing just $210, versus the $245 for the ASRock Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming graphics card. The ASUS performs virtually identically, and in a blind test no one would be able to pick the two apart.
If you're in the market to buy a new Navi-powered AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT then ASUS has quite the appealing card here -- and from my review, you can see it is actually the best offering among all the Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics cards. It's $10 cheaper than the MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT GAMING X, $20 cheaper than the SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 5500 XT PULSE OC, and $40 cheaper than the ASRock Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming -- but with identical gaming performance.
It has 8GB of VRAM so you're "future proof" with games that are starting to push higher VRAM requirements, like DOOM Eternal for example.
All-in-all ASUS has the best Radeon RX 5500 XT that I've reviewed so far, based on performance being identical to its competitors, thermals are equally as impressive, but ASUS wins on price. At just $210, it's the cheapest Radeon RX 5500 XT of the 4 that I've tested so far.
If you're gaming at 1080p or 1440p and don't want to spend over $250 on a graphics card, then you should definitely take a look at the ASUS Radeon RX 5500 XT DUAL OC. If you were in the market for a Radeon RX 5500 XT specifically, then you should stop what you're doing and grab one. Sure, you can't run to a store and buy one because of coronavirus COVID-19, but you can order it online.
To finish: nice work, ASUS -- this is a mid-range card and not a ROG Strix enthusiast card, and yet it still kicks ass. It's good to see. Not everyone can afford higher-end graphics cards, so offering the same performance as a competitors card at $250, but for $210 is a great deal.
Performance |
92% |
Quality |
95% |
Features |
90% |
Value |
98% |
Overall |
94% |
The best Radeon RX 5500 XT that I've tested so far, as it is cheaper than the competitors but offers the same performance. Impressive stuff from ASUS once again with the Radeon RX 5500 XT DUAL OC.
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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