ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D Review: Inexpensive, Well-performing

Inexpensive, cool running and performs well

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ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D
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Beginning with the 1080p ultra results, the ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D averaged 71.9 fps across all titles. At these settings, all but three titles—Metro: Exodus (37.7 fps), The Division 2 (57.9 fps) and Borderlands 3 (42.9 fps)—are able to average at least 60 fps and provide a smooth gaming experience. All of AMD’s RX 5500 XT cards are capable 1080p ultra video cards, though some games will need to reduce settings to reach 60 fps.

Looking at the other RX 5500 XT cards in this review, the ASRock card is just as fast as the other 8GB variants—all averaging over 71 fps with the Asus O8G Gaming averaging 71.7 fps and the Gigabyte 71.3 fps. The Sapphire Pulse RX 5500 XT 4GB is well behind at 63 fps (or 13% slower) because some titles showed a severe performance drop due to the 4GB memory and PCIe 3.0 x8 configuration.

If we include the two Nvidia based GPUs, our ASRock review card is almost 4% faster than the much less expensive Zotac GTX 1650 Super (69.3 fps average), and over 6% slower than the slightly more expensive Zotac GTX 1660 Amp (76.6 average). Since these Turing based video cards do not support ray tracing or DLSS, the decision between some of these cards will come down to price, performance (both thermal and fps) and card features.

The Divison 2

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Borderlands 3

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Gears of War 5

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Strange Brigade

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider

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Far Cry 5

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Metro: Exodus

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Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

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Forza Horizon 4

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Battlefield V

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Joe Shields
Joe Shields
Motherboard Reviewer

Joe Shields is a Freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US. He reviews motherboards.

12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • NightHawkRMX
    What's with the pulse 5500xt being so far behind the other models? It runs at the same clocks according to your test but performs worse.
    Reply
  • EndEffeKt_24
    NightHawkRMX said:
    What's with the pulse 5500xt being so far behind the other models? It runs at the same clocks according to your test but performs worse.
    Its the only 4GB model and the test uses ultra settings.
    Reply
  • NightHawkRMX
    EndEffeKt_24 said:
    Its the only 4GB model and the test uses ultra settings.
    Somehow overlooked that. Thanks
    Reply
  • King_V
    The table on the first page of the review, with the specs for the 4 cards has the wrong information for the Asus ROG Strix 5600 XT for memory capacity, bus, and bandwidth.
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    King_V said:
    The table on the first page of the review, with the specs for the 4 cards has the wrong information for the Asus ROG Strix 5600 XT for memory capacity, bus, and bandwidth.
    Sorry, I've corrected this. It was the name: it's supposed to be the Asus ROG Strix RX 5500 XT O8G Gaming (not the Asus ROG Strix RX 5600 XT O8G Gaming, which isn't even a real product given there aren't 8GB 5600 XT cards). The specs were correct, the name was not.
    Reply
  • King_V
    LOL, I didn't even look fully at the name, I just zoomed in on 5600XT and, when I got to the memory specs, my brain did the record-scratching noise and said "wait, what??"
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    King_V said:
    LOL, I didn't even look fully at the name, I just zoomed in on 5600XT and, when I got to the memory specs, my brain did the record-scratching noise and said "wait, what??"
    I actually googled the name for the Asus specs page and got the 5600 XT O6G page. I started editing, and thought, "How did we get these specs SO WRONG!?" Then I realized it was actually the product name that was an error. I was about to redo the whole table, thinking I was somehow looking at the 5600 XT review (which I edited a few weeks back). LOL
    Reply
  • King_V
    Sort of reminds me of when the RTX cards first came out. It got really funny trying to remember whether to type RTX, RX, or GTX...
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    King_V said:
    Sort of reminds me of when the RTX cards first came out. It got really funny trying to remember whether to type RTX, RX, or GTX...
    It's still bad! Muscle memory for typing is a harsh mistress. I've had some very odd 'typos' crop up over the years, including just stupid stuff like writing "their" instead of "there" or "they're". Like, I know the difference, but sometimes in my brain I think "they're" and my fingers receive "their" and I look like an idiot. I have typed GTX 2080 more times than I can count, though now it's starting to go the other way -- I've typed RTX 1660 quite a few times now.
    Reply
  • King_V
    JarredWaltonGPU said:
    It's still bad! Muscle memory for typing is a harsh mistress. I've had some very odd 'typos' crop up over the years, including just stupid stuff like writing "their" instead of "there" or "they're". Like, I know the difference, but sometimes in my brain I think "they're" and my fingers receive "their" and I look like an idiot. I have typed GTX 2080 more times than I can count, though now it's starting to go the other way -- I've typed RTX 1660 quite a few times now.

    That happens to me a lot as well - oh, on a cellphone, I can blame it on autocorrect. But I know EXACTLY what you mean! My brain says ONE version of their/they're/there, and my hands just on their own type one of the others out. And I'm someone who generally cringes when I see other people mix those up, so it's particularly strange and embarrassing for me!
    Reply