ASRock Radeon RX 580 Phantom Gaming X OC 8GB

Introduction

ASRock Inc. is established in 2002, specialized in the field of motherboards. ASRock strives to build up its own brand. With the 3C design concept, “Creativity, Consideration, Cost-effectiveness”, the company explores the limit of motherboards manufacturing while paying attention on the eco issue at the same time, developing products with the consideration of eco-friendly concept.

Official product link:

https://www.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/AMD/Phantom%20Gaming%20X%20Radeon%20RX580%208G%20OC/

Packaging and accessories

The RX580 Phantom Gaming OC 8GB is packaged in a cardboard box that features the black and red color combination of the Phantom line of products.
The front side of the box features abstract graphics of the Phantom Gaming branding, including the two tone logo as well as the name of the graphics card.

The sides of the box follow the main design elements of the front, with the logo of the series placed in the middle and accompanied by the model name of the graphics card.

The back side of the box has an in-depth description of the graphics card and its main features as well as the included software for overclocking and monitoring. On the right side there is a diagram of the cooling system used as well as the ports available. The left side has the basic specifications of the graphics card as well as the minimum requirements for using it.

Accessories

The graphics card is accompanied by the following accessories:
– 1x User Manual
– 1x Driver Support CD

Specifications

Model: AMD Radeon RX 580
Graphics Processor: Ellesmere
Transistors: 5700M
Shader Units: 2304
Interface: PCI Express x16 3.0
Memory Size: 8 GB
Memory Type: GDDR5
Memory Interface: 256 bit
Memory Clock Speed (MHz): 2000 MHz
Core Clock Speed: 1257 MHz
DVI Connectors: 1
HDMI Connectors: 1
Display Port: 3 (version 1.4) Max Resolution: 7680 x 4320
DirectX Version Support: 12
OpenGL Version Support: 4.5
Multi-GPU Technology: CrossFire
Dimension: 278.81 x 126.78 x 41.91mm
Power Connectors: 1x 8-Pin

Visual inspection

ASRock recently entered the graphics card market offering a wide range of the latest AMD graphics cards. The RX580 Phantom Gaming X OC 8GB has a factory overclock of 1380MHz for the core which can be increased to 1435MHz using ASRock’s software and Overclocking profile. The overall design of the graphics card is minimalist with an all-black shroud and silver accents across the length of the cooling system and fan assembly. The RX580 Phantom Gaming X has the following dimensions: 278.81 x 126.78 x 41.91mm.

The cooling system that equips the RX580 Phantom Gaming X OC has a dual slot form factor and a dual fan setup. The heatsink uses three heatpipes that vary in diameter, two have an outer diameter of 6mm and the middle one measures 8mm in diameter. The heatpipes make contact with a copper plate that makes the actual contact with the graphics chip.

The active cooling is achieved by two 85mm fans that use a double ball bearing design and are rated at 100,000 hours of usage, the manufacturer behind these fans is Firstd. On the rotor hub there is applied the Phantom Gaming logo and brand name.

The back side of the graphics card is exposed, there is no backplate used with this model.

The Power delivery on the RX580 Phantom Gaming X OC is achieved through one 8-Pin PCI-Express power connector, it is positioned on the right corner of the graphics card alongside a reflecting ASRock logo insert.

On the rear of the graphic card we find the following ports:
– 3x DisplayPort 1.4,
– 1x HDMI 2.0,
– 1x DVI-D.

The removal of the cooling system is done with ease, the heatsink and fan assembly is held in place by six screws. The four spring adjusted screws around the GPU die and two more at the back of the graphics card.

The heatsink itself makes contact with the GPU chip surface through a layer of thermal compound while both the memory chips and the power delivery system make contact through thermal pads.

The ASRock RX580 Phantom Gaming X OC features a six phase power delivery system which uses MOSFETs made by SINOPOWER, the high side uses a single SM4336, while the low side uses two SM4373 per phase. Controlling the voltage regulation is done by an International Rectifier IR3567B dual-output digital multi-phase controller.

Other AMD RX580 implementations use Samsung memory chips, ASRock’s variant uses eight Micron memory chips, model number: D9VVR and full model number: MT51J256M32.

Testing

The following system was used to test the graphics card:
– Processor: Intel i5 6600K @ 3.9 GHz
– Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Professional Gaming i7
– RAM: Ballistix Tactical Tracer 16GB DDR4 @ 2666MHz
– SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB
– HDD: WD 1 TB Blue
– PSU: SeaSonic Snow Silent 750W
– CPU Cooler: SilverStone Tundra TD02-E
– Case: Phanteks Enthoo Luxe White
– Thermal compound: Arctic Cooling MX-4

The RX580 Phantom Gaming X OC does not suffer from sagging in spite of the lack of a backplate.

All reviews use the latest Nvidia and AMD drivers available at the time to better test the graphics cards, in this case, the AMD Adrenalin Edition 18.11.1 driver was used. All the games used to test the graphics cards are set to their highest quality settings with the resolution 1920 x 1080. Both the games and benchmarks used were run three times.
The software used to measure the temperature and frames per second (FPS) are the following:
– AIDA64 Extreme V5.98.4800
– GPU-Z 2.14.0
– MSI Afterburner 4.6.0
– Fraps

The overclocking has been done using the default fan settings. Each graphic card will overclock differently due to different batches of memory chips used as well as the variation in the manufacturing process of the graphics core. This means that each graphics card will overclock differently in both frequencies obtained and voltage required.
In the case of the RX580 Phantom Gaming X OC model, a maximum overclock of 1520MHz Base Clock and 2250 Memory Clock was achieved. These frequencies resulted in a overall gain of 6.7%.

The test results are as follows:

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0 Score

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V (Low 1%)

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Low 1%)

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (Low 1%)

Temp. Performance

The Idle tests consists of the system left at the Desktop for 30 minutes, the power consumption is measured during the test.
Full Load: Represents the power consumption of the graphics card while playing a modern video game, in this case the benchmark of Tomb Raider 2013 with the following settings: 1920 x 1080, Ultra Preset, TressFX OFF, 4xAA.
Peak: Represents the power consumption of the graphics card during a synthetic benchmark, in this case FurMark 1.15.1.

The noise level was measured at three different distances from the fans (10cm, 20cm, 30cm.) the noise was measured with a margin of error of ± 5 db.

Idle

Full Load

Final thoughts

The ASRock RX580 Phantom Gaming X OC 8GB offers good value for money, being one of the cheapest implementations of the RX580 model. In order to achieve the lower price, ASRock made the choice of not including a backplate and using a simpler cooling system that features just 3 heatpipes and two fans that are 85mm in diameter. This is also the reason for the loud fan profile preinstalled. The overall performance in gaming is good, the RX 580 being at around the same level as a GTX 1060 and approximately 20% slower than a Founder’s Edition GTX 1070.
The included ASRock Phantom Gaming Tweak software is good and offers all the information and options for overclocking the graphics card, this software also allows for the creation of a custom fan profile and curve.

The build quality is good, the heatsink has a copper plate that makes contact with the graphics chip die, and the heat is dissipated with the help of three heatpipes that have different outer diameters. In addition, in spite of the lack of a backplate, the graphics card is perfectly straight and does not suffer from any sagging.
In conclusion, the ASRock RX580 Phantom Gaming X OC is an affordable graphics card that has good performance in games and a decent overclocking potential. It’s main advantage over the other implementations of the RX580 model is the lower price but good quality. The power delivery system has a six phase design and the total power draw is 202W.