ASRock Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 OC 6 GB GDDR6 Graphics Card Review – Triple Fan Cooling & 14 Gbps Memory!

The ASRock Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 OC graphics card comes inside a standard cardboard box. The front of both packages has a large "Phantom Gaming" logo in the middle. A large 'OC Edition' badge can also be spotted on the bottom left corner.

Other features of the graphics card are also mentioned such as the RDNA architecture, 7nm node, Fidelity FX, Freesync 2 HDR along some specs such as 6 GB GDDR6, PCIe 4.0 Support, AMD Radeon Software Support & Polychrome Sync.

The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. The three key aspects of ASRock's Phantom Gaming lineup include a Triple Fan design, a stylish metal backplate, and Polychrome Sync support. A large list of product specifications and features are also mentioned which you can see in the picture below.

The sides of the box once again greet us with the large Radeon RX branding. There's also the mention of 6 GB GDDR6 memory available on the card. The higher memory bandwidth delivered through the new GDDR6 interface would help improve performance in gaming titles at higher resolution over GDDR5 based graphics cards.

Outside of the box, the graphics card and the accessory package are held firmly by foam packaging. The graphics card comes with a few accessories and manuals which might not be of much use for hardcore enthusiasts but can be useful for the mainstream gaming audience. The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card.

After the package is taken care of, I can finally start talking about the card itself. The card itself is very long but the design really stands out from the rest of the RX 5600 XT offerings in the market right now.

The ASRock Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 OC is by no means a small graphics card. It's taller than most of the cards I tested and needs a good amount of space inside a PC. The Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 OC measures at 290.6x126.5x53.1mm while it is also slightly taller, taking up 2.7 slots of space.

The design of the ASRock Phantom Gaming D3 series is brand new as the company just recently introduced it on its Navi based graphics card lineup. The red and black color scheme on the shroud looks great.

The back of the card features a solid backplate which looks stunning with its matte black finish that also features white and red stripes. There's also a phantom gaming logo on the backplate. You can also see that the cooler shroud extends beyond the PCB and has extra cooling room in the form of aluminum fins which I will discuss more in detail.

The Phantom Gaming D3 cooler is made of three large fans that push air through the central heat sink block. All three fans are acrylic in design and go in well with the overall them of the graphics card.

ASRock also features their 0db Silent Cooling technology for the fans. This feature won’t spin the fans on the card unless they reach a certain threshold.

ASRock's 0dB silent fans are mostly work-load dependent. In stressful applications, the fans would start spinning but if the workloads are not that intensive on the GPU, they would stop.

I am back at talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate which both card use. The whole plate is made of solid metal with rounded edges that add to the durability of this card. The matte finish on the backplate gives a unique aesthetic.

There's no multi-GPU connector on the card as AMD uses its XDMA architecture for CrossFireX capabilities. This allows GPUs to communicate directly over the PCIe bus rather than an external bridge.

With the outsides of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of these monster graphics cards. The first thing to catch my eye is the humungous fin stack that's part of the beefy heatsink which the cards utilize.

The dual fin stacks run all the way from the front and extend beyond the PCB. There are two four-pin connectors that run through the heatsink. One powers the three fans while the other powers the Polychrome Sync RGB LEDs that are featured underneath the shroud.

Running through the heatsink is a total of four copper heat pipes, two of which feature a thick design while a singular copper heat pipe is embedded just under the copper base plate.

The nickel-plated copper baseplate features thermal pads for the VRM and electrical components such as VRMs and MOSFETs. The whole cooling design is very neat and should keep the card cool under intense gaming workloads.

I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme which includes three Display Port 1.4a, & a single HDMI 2.0b.

ASRock Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 OC Teardown:

The ASRock Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 OC makes use of a full non-reference PCB design, featuring a 6+1 Phase design and coupled with better components such as solid-state capacitors along with a series of higher-quality chokes. The PCB makes use of the uP9505P PWM controller.

The ASRock RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 features a single 8 pin power connector that feeds the card. The Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 OC has a rated TDP of 150W.

We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. The latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used from AMD and NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 10. All games that were tested were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.

CPU	Intel Core i9-9900K @ 4.70 GHz
Motherboard	AORUS Z390 Master
Video Cards	ASRock Radeon RX 5600 XT PG D3 OC MSI Radeon RX 5700 XT Gaming X MSI Radeon RX 5600 XT Gaming Z MSI Radeon RX 5700 Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Lightning X ASUS ROG GeForce RTX 2070 STRIX OC MSI GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER Gaming Z MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER Gaming X
Memory	G.SKILL Trident Z RGB Series 32GB (4 X 8GB) CL16 3600 MHz
Storage	Samsung SSD 960 EVO M.2 (512 GB)
Power Supply	ASUS ROG THOR 1200W PSU
Drivers	Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.1.3 (RX 5600 XT) Adrenalin 2020 Edition 19.12.3 (Rest AMD cards) GeForce Game Ready Driver 441.66 (NVIDIA cards)
OS	Windows 10 64-bit

• All games were tested on 1920x1080 (HD), 2560×1440 (2K), and 3840×2160 (4K) resolutions.
• Image Quality and graphics configurations have been provided in the screenshots below.
• The “reference” cards are the stock configs while the “overclock” cards are factory overclocked configs provided to us by various AIB partners.

DOOM

In 2016, Id finally released DOOM. My testing wouldn’t be complete without including this title. All cards were capable of delivering ample frame rates at the 1440p resolution using Nightmare settings, so my focus turned to 4K.

Red Dead Redemption II

RDR2 is using the latest iteration of the Rockstar Advanced Graphics Engine, or RAGE, and has ditched DX11 in favor of being able to choose between Vulkan or DX12 for your preferred API.  Red Dead Redemption 2 has built-in benchmark utility that is fairly representative of typical gameplay and we used this to measure our performance.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory and brutal FPS action ever! The game once again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set during an alternate future where Nazis won the World War, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy too. Powering the new title is once again, id Tech 6 which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained their glorious FPS roots and are slaying with every new title.

Ultra HQ-AF, Vulkan, Async Compute On *if available, Deferred Rendering and GPU culling off

We tested the game at Ultra settings under the Vulkan API which is standard. Async Compute was enabled for graphics cards that support it while deferred rendering and GPU culling were disabled.

You can read our detailed analysis of GPU Culling and Deferred Rendering graphical settings for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus here!

Battlefield V

Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best looking Battlefields to date.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Humanity is at war with itself and divided into factions. On one end, we have the pure and on the other, we have the augmented. That is the world where Adam Jensen lives in and this is the world of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The game uses the next generation Dawn Engine that was made by IO interactive on the foundation of their Glacier 2 engine. The game features the support of DirectX 12 API and is one of the most visually intensive titles that taxes the GPU really hard.

Gears 5

The Coalition is back with the Gears of War series, but this time they've dropped the 'of War' so I guess war does change sometimes. Gears 5 is a bit of an interesting one from a release standpoint as it released on Xbox as well as the multiple stores on the PC; Steam as well as the Xbox PC App and Windows Store. Running off the Unreal Engine, the game boasts some seriously impressive visuals which can put even one of the best cards on their feet.

Hitman 2 (DX12 Highest Settings)

Hitman 2 is the highly acclaimed sequel to 2016 Hitman which was a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game once again lets you play as Agent 47 who embarks on a mission to hunt down the mysterious Shadow Client. The game runs on IO’s Interactive’s Glacier 2 engine which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while making use of DirectX 12 API.

Shadow of The Tomb Raider

Sequel to The Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of The Tomb Raider is visually enhanced with an updated Foundation Engine that delivers realistic facial animations and the most gorgeous environments ever seen in a Tomb Raider Game. The game is a technical marvel and really shows the power of its graphics engine in the latest title.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus continues the journey of Artyom through the nuclear wasteland of Russia and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.

Assassins Creed: Odyssey

Assassins Creed Odyssey is built by the same team that made Assassins Creed Origins. They are known for reinventing the design and game philosophy of the Assassins Creed saga and their latest title shows that. Based in Greece, the open-world action RPG shows its graphics strength in all corners. It uses the AnvilNext 2.0 engine which boosts the draw distance range and delivers a very impressive graphics display.

We tested the game at maxed settings with TAA enabled and 16x AF. Do note that the game is one of the most demanding titles out in the market and as such tweaks and performance issues are being patched out.

Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 is a standalone successor to its predecessor and takes place in Hope County, a fictional region of Montana. The main story revolves around doomsday cult the Project at Eden’s Gate and its charismatic leader Joseph Seed. It uses a beefed-up Dunia Engine which itself is a modified version of CryEngine from Crytek.

Ghost Recon: Wildlands

Using the new Anvil Next engine that was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Ghost Recon: Wildlands goes wild and grand with an open-world setting entirely in Bolivia. This game is a tactical third-person shooter which does seem an awful lot similar to Tom Clancy's: The Division. The game looks pretty and the wide-scale region of Bolivia looks lovely at all times (Day/Night Cycle).

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

The Witcher 3 Game of The Year Edition

Witcher 3 is the greatest fantasy RPG of our time. It has a great story, great gameplay mechanics and gorgeous graphics. This is the only game I actually wanted to get a stable FPS at 4K. With GameWorks disabled, I gave all high-end cards the ability to demonstrate their power.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War

The successor of 2014’s epic, Shadow of Mordor, Shadow of War continues the previous game’s narrative continuing the story of the ranger Talion and the spirit of the elf lord Celebrimbor, who shares Talion’s body, as they forge a new Ring of Power to amass an army to fight against Sauron. The game uses the latest Firebird Engine developed by Monolith Productions and is very intensive even for modern graphics cards.

No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. The ASRock Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming series comes with two/three fans on the shrouds. The triple fan variant that we got to test features 0dB fan technology and also has an extended heatsink that should help sustain higher heat output of the Navi 10 GPU.

Note – We tested load with Kombuster which is known as a ‘power virus’ and can permanently damage the hardware. Use such software at your own risk!

I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle and full stress when the card was running games. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plugin on their custom cards.

AMD Radeon RX 5500 series is based on TSMC's 7nm process node. The 7nm process is a major upgrade over the 14nm FinFET node, delivering better efficiency and a much smaller chip footprint. The ASRock Radeon RX 5600 XT PG D3 OC has a TDP of 150W and its power consumption is slightly higher than that in our testing with slight peaks when the card hits peak clocks but those are not fully sustained for longer duration workloads.

With the release of the Radeon RX 5600 XT, AMD finally completes its mainstream lineup with a surprisingly great card. At first, the Radeon RX 5600 XT wasn't looking like a formidable opponent against NVIDIA's Turing lineup but the rather messy situation with the BIOS updates and what I would like to refer to as a 'Free Performance Upgrade' has put it in a very respectable place in the mainstream graphics segment.

Featuring the Navi 10 design, the card has essentially the same chip as the Radeon RX 5700, with optimized clocks and memory configuration. But the unique offsetting point of this chip is the TDP which shows that these Navi 10 dies didn't quite make it to the higher-end clocks of the RX 5700. But it allows AMD to manage a mainstream tier graphics card without producing a separate SKU which isn't either a Navi 14 or a Navi 10 design. The Radeon RX 5600 XT has strong driver support which is made even better with the recent release of the AMD Adrenaline 2020 edition software suite and a whole range of other features that you get with Navi such as Freesync and Anti-Lag technologies. All of these are well-added features in the 1080p HD gaming which this card clearly handles without an effort.

Initially, the card was positioned against the GTX 1660 Ti which retails for $279 US too but the GTX 1660 SUPER replaced it offering 95% of the card's performance at a lower price of $229 US. NVIDIA also dropped the price bomb on the RTX 2060 which with its added feature set of RTX features as DLSS/RTX made for a much worthwhile purchase but AMD's performance upgrade did uplift the RX 5600 XT quite a lot.

In terms of performance, the Radeon RX 5600 XT 6 GB graphics card consistently outperformed the RTX 2060 and much of this is to do with the faster clock speeds that are enabled through the vBIOS flash on the ASRock Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 model. You are looking at anywhere from 20 to 25% performance boosts over the GTX 1660 SUPER and GTX 1660 Ti which makes this card a compelling upgrade for 1080p and even 1440p gamers. I was surprised to find some bigger gains in Vulkan optimized titles that go off to show AMD's great and continuing driver support for the latest APIs.

With all the good things about this card to say, there's one issue which would play a major role in deciding the fate of this card and that's the price. At $290 US, we are talking a $10 US premium over the RX 5600 XT MSRP. The faster clocks and custom cooling for just $10 US extra is totally worth it.

The extra cost also goes into the shroud design which features a solid metal backplate, and a triple-fan cooling system. This specific AIB variant offers a superb cooling solution, superb components, and performance which delivers a 5-10% uplift over the base versions of the card. This puts the ASRock Radeon RX 5600 XT comfortably ahead of the RTX 2060 custom designs which are anywhere from $299 to $329 US.

The RTX 2060 has some nifty features of its own such as DLSS and ray-tracing support which has been optimized now to be played around on NVIDIA's entry-level RTX solution but if you aren't a fan of those, the RX 5600 XT is the more compelling option in a simple price to a performance metric.

I had a slight complaint about the temperatures and power consumption which were slightly higher than the other RX 5600 XT model I tested but ASRock has stated that they plan to release another BIOS that should fix power consumption on this card while retaining the clock speeds.

The ASRock Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 OC offers a factory overclock with 14 Gbps BIOS, a great cooling design featuring three fans, a nice cooler shroud and even comes with a back-plate, all for a $10 US premium over the reference price of $279.99 US which is simply put one hell of a deal!