Asus ROG Strix RX 5500 XT O8G Gaming Review: Premium Card, but Worth the Price?

Premium features for a premium price

By Joe Shields
last updated
Asus ROG Strix 1500 XT O8G Gaming
(Image: © Asus)

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The Asus ROG Strix RX 5500 XT O8G Gaming proved to be a competent card for 1080p ultra across most titles in our test suite. The large heatsink and axial fans kept the card cool and quiet throughout testing, even during longer gaming sessions. In fact, it was coolest running RX 5500 XT we’ve tested. That's thanks largely to the 2.9-slot cooling solution.

With the premium options comes a higher price compared to the other AMD RX 5500 XT’s tested. The Asus O8G Gaming is priced at $229.99 (opens in new tab) with the Gigabyte Gaming OC at $219.99 (opens in new tab), the ASRock Phantom Gaming at $199.99 (opens in new tab) and the slower Sapphire Pulse 4GB the least expensive at $179.99 (opens in new tab). The $10 premium over the Gigabyte card isn’t much, considering the effective cooling solution, additional fan header, dual BIOS option and tasteful RGB lighting. However, some may opt for the ASRock card for $30 less to save some money and get effectively the same performance. For budget and mid-range graphics cards, it's difficult to justify paying 10-15% more for the same performance.

(Image credit: Asus)

Performance difference between the Asus 5500 XT O8G Gaming and both the Gigabyte Gaming OC and ASRock Phantom Gaming were negligible in most cases. Select titles may show more than a few percent difference, but that is a two-way street leading to a virtual tie in overall performance. Expanding the scope to include the Zotac GTX 1650 Super ($159.99 (opens in new tab)) and Zotac GTX 1660 Amp ($239.99 (opens in new tab)), things become even muddier. The GTX 1650 Super is around 3% slower, and the GTX 1660 Amp is almost 7% faster for $10 more. Either GPU is also viable for 1080p gaming, though the GTX 1660 Super at $230 still wins our pick as the best graphics card for the mid-range segment.

In the end, the Asus ROG Strix RX 5500 XT O8G Gaming is a solid graphics card for 1080p ultra and 1080p medium gaming. Users will benefit from the larger cooler temperature-wise but need to make sure their case can support the full-size card. The ASRock Phantom Gaming D is less expensive, has similar performance and is a smaller card that may fit into a more compact chassis. Overall, the Asus ROG Strix RX 5500 XT is a good option for those looking for a superior cooling solution while not sacrificing performance.

MORE: Best Graphics Cards

MORE: Desktop GPU Performance Hierarchy Table

MORE: All Graphics Content

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
  • King_V
    Is it weird that we're getting to a place where, with both Nvidia and AMD, that the low-end cards are starting to draw the same or slightly more power than the cards in the next tier up?
    Reply
  • larkspur
    The GTX 1650 Super is around 3% slower
    For $230 it's only ~3% faster than a ~$160 1650 Super...
    and close to 7% slower than the comparably priced Zotac GTX 1660 Amp
    You can actually get a 1660 Super for the same price as this card, lol. Excuse my personification of Captain Obvious but unless there is a significant price drop I'd strongly recommend not buying this card!
    Reply
  • King_V
    Just did a quick check on PCPartPicker.com, and least expensive of:
    4GB RX 5500 XT models start at $163.98
    8GB RX 5500 XT models start at $183.98
    1650 Super is $159.99 (Zotac Twin fan, though the next two at $164 and $165 are single-fan models)
    1660 is $179.99 (admittedly, a single-fan EVGA model)
    1660 Super is $225.99 (and 4 other models are $229.99)Honestly, that particular EVGA 1660 makes just about any 1650 Super or RX 5500 XT a really tough sell.

    We live in weird times when it comes to budget level GPUs.
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    King_V said:
    Just did a quick check on PCPartPicker.com, and least expensive of:
    4GB RX 5500 XT models start at $163.98
    8GB RX 5500 XT models start at $183.98
    1650 Super is $159.99 (Zotac Twin fan, though the next two at $164 and $165 are single-fan models)
    1660 is $179.99 (admittedly, a single-fan EVGA model)
    1660 Super is $225.99 (and 4 other models are $229.99)Honestly, that particular EVGA 1660 makes just about any 1650 Super or RX 5500 XT a really tough sell.

    We live in weird times when it comes to budget level GPUs.
    Seriously, the new budget GPUs are very hard to recommend on any level right now. 1660 / 1660 Super and the old RX 570 / 580 make for weird rankings.
    Reply
  • King_V
    JarredWaltonGPU said:
    Seriously, the new budget GPUs are very hard to recommend on any level right now. 1660 / 1660 Super and the old RX 570 / 580 make for weird rankings.

    Especially given some of the price dips we see in the RX 570, and more recently the RX 580 (that Gigabyte deal for $134.99 was nuts!)
    Reply
  • larkspur
    King_V said:
    Especially given some of the price dips we see in the RX 570, and more recently the RX 580 (that Gigabyte deal for $134.99 was nuts!)
    Yes I got that RX 580 8gb from Newegg's Ebay store (thanks again Avram!) for $139 including tax shipped (ebay very nicely had a $5 off coupon). I was in the sub-$180 market and wasn't fully sold on a 1650 super. Very happy with the card.
    Reply
  • King_V
    larkspur said:
    Yes I got that RX 580 8gb from Newegg's Ebay store (thanks again Avram!) for $139 including tax shipped (ebay very nicely had a $5 off coupon). I was in the sub-$180 market and wasn't fully sold on a 1650 super. Very happy with the card.
    I'd missed it . . and did NOT NEED IT, but, if it hadn't sold out by the time I saw the offer, I would've been hard pressed to resist. That whole "well, I did have a budget machine idea in mind that I totally don't need anyway..." kind of thing.
    Reply
  • dawgfan6
    King_V said:
    Just did a quick check on PCPartPicker.com, and least expensive of:
    4GB RX 5500 XT models start at $163.98
    8GB RX 5500 XT models start at $183.98
    1650 Super is $159.99 (Zotac Twin fan, though the next two at $164 and $165 are single-fan models)
    1660 is $179.99 (admittedly, a single-fan EVGA model)
    1660 Super is $225.99 (and 4 other models are $229.99)Honestly, that particular EVGA 1660 makes just about any 1650 Super or RX 5500 XT a really tough sell.

    We live in weird times when it comes to budget level GPUs.
    I agree, although based on past experience of AMD cards gradually gaining performance on competing nvidia cards with driver updates, etc, I wouldn't be surprised if the 5500XT 8gb gradually gains on and passes the GTX 1660, and eventually becomes competitive with the GTX 1660 super.

    The GTX1060 was once 5% or so faster than the RX480/580, but now it's 4-5% slower. Even since the launch of the 5500XT, it seems like it's benchmarks have slowly crept up on the RX590 and GTX1660. It's a bit of a hard sell at MSRP, but $179 for an 8GB 5500XT would be pretty competitive.
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    dawgfan6 said:
    I agree, although based on past experience of AMD cards gradually gaining performance on competing nvidia cards with driver updates, etc, I wouldn't be surprised if the 5500XT 8gb gradually gains on and passes the GTX 1660, and eventually becomes competitive with the GTX 1660 super.

    The GTX1060 was once 5% or so faster than the RX480/580, but now it's 4-5% slower. Even since the launch of the 5500XT, it seems like it's benchmarks have slowly crept up on the RX590 and GTX1660. It's a bit of a hard sell at MSRP, but $179 for an 8GB 5500XT would be pretty competitive.
    This is one of those conspiracy theories that I've never seen 'proven' to any reasonable degree. I just did a bunch of retesting for the updated GPU hierarchy. The RX 580 8GB is about 7% faster than a GTX 1060 6GB (though that's using a factory OC 580 against a reference 1060 6GB). Digging back into my old articles, I find this:
    https://www.pcgamer.com/radeon-rx-580-review/
    In that review, the 580 and 1060 were tied at 1080p ultra, 580 was 1% faster at 1080p medium, tied at 1440p ultra, and 580 was 2% faster at 4K ultra. That was with both cards being factory overclocked, though -- which is usually about a 5% difference. So, three years later, the overall rating of the two GPUs appears to still be within 2%.

    I can point to things that have gone the other way as well. 570 4GB vs. 1060 3GB, here's the RX 590 review. GTX 1060 3GB was 11% faster at 1080p medium, 3% faster at 1080p ultra, 2% slower at 1440p ultra, and 15% slower at 4K ultra. My latest data (albeit with different games): 1060 3GB is 10% faster overall, including 4K results. Or if you want, 9% faster at 1080p medium, 8% faster at 1080p ultra, 9% faster at 1440p ultra, and 10% faster at 4K ultra. So the AMD GPU got comparatively worse at ultra settings, despite having 33% more VRAM.

    Overall, though, nearly all of the data I've accumulated suggests that the long-term change in performance from both companies, after driver and game updates, is less than 5% -- and probably less than 3%. Individual cases vary, but if you look at a larger swath of games and settings things are pretty consistent.
    Reply
  • larkspur
    JarredWaltonGPU said:
    Overall, though, nearly all of the data I've accumulated suggests that the long-term change in performance from both companies, after driver and game updates, is less than 5% -- and probably less than 3%. Individual cases vary, but if you look at a larger swath of games and settings things are pretty consistent.
    Very interesting, thank you. I'm guessing this theory goes back to the HD 7970 and 670/680/760/770 days? I seem to recall the early GCN chips having some significant driver-related performance improvements, no? I read your old RX 580 review... takeaway:
    Jarred doesn't play games, he runs benchmarks. If you want to know about the inner workings of CPUs, GPUs, or SSDs, he's your man. He subsists off a steady diet of crunchy silicon chips and may actually be a robot.
    LOL! :ROFLMAO:
    Reply