Asrock rx 580 review: ASRock Phantom Gaming X RX 580 Review

Final Word

Ultimately, despite these being the best RX 580 cards, which of these cards is best depends on you.

• If you want the best out of box performance, get the XFX GTS Black Edition.
• If you want the best cooling and overclocking headroom, get the ROG STRIX.
• If you want a card suited for a smaller build, get the MSI ARMOR card,
• If you only game at 1080p/want to save some money, XFX GTS XXX Edition.
• If you’re on a very tight budget, get the PowerColor RED Dragon Edition.

Personally, we’d go for the ROG Strix… as long as it’s on sale. However, as long as you buy the card that matches your needs, then you can’t go wrong with any of the GPUs on this list.

You can check out our GPU Hierarchy right here.

Comment below and let us know: which you prefer? Do you have experience with any of these? Or have you used another RX 580 with great results?

WePC is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

ASRock Radeon RX 580 Phantom Gaming X Review and Test

Introduction

ASRock’s first graphics card, the Radeon RX 580 Phantom Gaming X 8 GB, has arrived. In the early 2000s, when ASRock was just getting started, PC enthusiasts didn’t take the company seriously. ASRock has been completely focused on low-cost motherboards with entry-level chipsets. However, over the years, the company has cut off a decent amount of branded dividends, focusing on the most impressive segment of the market. As the company became more and more independent of ASUSTek, it gradually began to embrace and directly compete in all market segments and gradually earned the respect of enthusiasts for coming up with and implementing some of the most daring and weird motherboard designs. The company has since matured into a solid motherboard brand that has products in every price range.

ASRock’s expansion into product segments other than motherboards has been quite conservative compared to monsters like ASUS and MSI. The company is looking to change that with the biggest entry to the market, starting with graphics card motherboards. Several industry observers have commented that ASRock’s decision to sell graphics cards has less to do with PC gaming and more to do with the breakneck growth of GPU-accelerated blockchain computing, especially cryptocurrency mining. But ASRock didn’t follow the path of some other manufacturers who made video cards exclusively for mining (which don’t even have display connectors and are extremely basic, and often come with almost no product warranties). The company does not want to appear greedy for PC gamers, which means that its products are complete. The first sub-brand for graphics cards is called Phantom Gaming; Here the main emphasis is on «gaming».

Table of contents:

AMD is the launch partner for ASRock’s Phantom Gaming series, a line entirely based on Radeon RX 500 «Polaris» GPUs. Today’s tested Radeon RX 580 Phantom Gaming X 8 GB card is the TOP. The new product combines a custom PCB design, although it is laid out similar to AMD’s reference PCB design. There is also 8Gb/s GDDR5 memory made by Micron; and a thermal solution, which many users have already commented on; they say, it looks identical to some models of video cards from Colorful (probably the same OEM). This cooler can be safely attributed to the correct one — it is an aluminum radiator pierced with copper heat pipes, which gives off heat to it.

The ASRock RX 580 Phantom Gaming X 8 GB is factory overclocked to 1380 MHz and comes with a couple of software presets that boost the clock to 1435 MHz (OC mode) or cut it down to 1324 MHz (Silent mode). The card is equipped with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory with a 256-bit interface. Price and availability are up in the air. Exactly what you will not find a device in Europe. While the official price is unknown, but the card is expected to be one of the most affordable RX 580 on the market, so the price of 29$0 (this is the price of the cheapest RX 580 on Newegg at the moment).

Specifications

Fiji

Packaging and contents

Scope of delivery:

• Video card
• Documentation + Driver CD

Card

The ASRock card has a fairly clean, neat and somewhat angular appearance. The plastic casing has small metal inserts as the main accents. The back panel is missing. The dimensions of the device are 26.5 cm x 11.0 cm. Please note that the back of the protruding shroud can be simply cut off if necessary to fit the card in a small case, thus saving about 2.5 cm.

Installing the card will require two slots on your system.

Ports:

• DVI-D x1
• HDMI x1
• DisplayPort x3

The HDMI port is version 2.0b and the DisplayPort has been upgraded to 1.3 HBR3/1.4 HDR ready to support 4K at 120Hz and 5K at 60Hz, or 8K at 60Hz with two cables. GPU acceleration now supports H.264 up to 4K30 and HEVC up to 4K60. Accelerated decoding is supported for HEVC up to 4K60 Main-10, VP9 up to 4K, and H.264 up to 4K120.

The self-levelling laser ruler did not reveal any abnormalities.

ASRock Radeon RX 580 Phantom Gaming X PCB on both sides.

Closer

ASRock used only three heatpipes in the cooler itself, which is much simpler (and cheaper) than on the larger RX 580 models.

The board uses a single 8-pin power connector. This configuration sets the input power up to 225W.

No comments here.

PCB analysis

At ASRock, when designing their PCB, they clearly focused on making it cheaper. 6 phases for GPU and 1 phase for VRAM are involved.

The IR3567B controller controls the GPU voltage. It provides six phase signals from a combination of one Magnachip MDU1517 (high-side) and two Magnachip MDU1514 (low-side) for each phase. Other manufacturers use highly integrated chips for this task, which increases thermal density and cost. ASRock chose to keep cooling simple and easy because heat is distributed over a larger area.

Single-phase VRM is controlled by the same IR3567B that controls GPU voltage. This controller has the ability to support two circuits, so ASRock uses the second one to control the VRAM, which helps keep the price down.

GDDR5 memory chips are manufactured by Micron and carry the model part number D9VVR, which stands for MT51J256M32HF-80:B. According to the specification, their frequency is 2000 MHz (effective power is 8000 MHz GDDR5).

The Radeon RX 580 uses an Ellesmere GPU similar to the Radeon RX 480, each transistor is identical. The only difference is in the manufacturing process, which has been improved and is now manufactured by Samsung and Globalfoundries. The number of transistors is 5.7 billion and the die size is 232 mm².

Test configuration

Test configuration — VGA Rev. 2018.1
Processor	Intel Core i7-8700K @ 4.8 GHz (Coffee Lake, 12MB Cache)
Motherboard	ASUS Maximus X Hero Intel Z370
RAM	G.SKILL 16 GB Trident-Z DDR4 @ 3867 MHz 18-19-19-39
Accumulator	2x Patriot Ignite 960 GB SSD
Power:	Seasonic Prime Ultra Titanium 850W
Cooler	Cryorig R1 Universal 2x 140 mm fan
Operating system	Windows 10 64-bit Fall Creators Update
Drivers	All NVIDIA cards: 390. 77 WHQL	All AMD cards: Catalyst 18.2.1 Beta
Display	Acer CB240HYKbmjdpr 24″ 3840×2160

Assassin’s Creed Origins

Battlefield 1

Call of Duty: WWII

VI

Dawn of War III

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Divinity Original Sin II

F1 2017

Ghost Recon Wildlands

Grand Theft Auto V

Hellblade : Senua’s Sacrifice 9

Prey

Rainbow Six: Siege

90 154

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Sniper Elite 4

SpellForce 3

The Evil Within 2

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Wolfenstein II

Power consumption 90 311

Idle power consumption has improved significantly compared to other RX 580 boards. While the difference is small in absolute numbers (only 2W), it’s still the lower idle draw we’ve seen with any other AMD-based card in quite some time.

Gaming power consumption is very similar to the RX 580 reference, we also report that ASRock did not increase the power cap in any way (confirmed by our testing on page 35). Furmark’s maximum wattage suggests a total wattage limit of up to 200W.

Noise level

As usual, the custom card turns off its fans completely at idle (up to 60 °C).

The ASRock Radeon RX 580 Phantom Gaming X is quite noisy when playing games, of course, due to the relatively weak cooler. With the card running at 77°C, there is very little headroom left for the cooler, allowing for higher temperatures.

Total performance

Performance per watt

Performance per dollar

Ethereum mining performance

Throttling frequency

9 0004

Looking at the results of the test, distinct doubts may arise. The ASRock RX 580 is supposed to run at the listed 1380MHz, but benchmarks show closeness to the RX 580 reference design clocking in at 1340MHz.

So I dug a little deeper and started monitoring the GPU frequency over time as shown in the table below. Using a typical gaming load, not Furmark.

It became apparent that the card almost never reaches the clock speed of 1380 MHz, and averages around 1348 MHz (purple line). Upon closer inspection of the VBIOS, it becomes clear that the card is configured with a GPU TDP limit of 145W, which is AMD’s default — almost all RX 580 cards on the market use higher values. It seems that ASRock didn’t touch this value for some reason, so I checked what power limit the card would need to reach the default frequencies.

The chart above shows GPU frequencies measured over three runs, one at default power limit (purple), the second at +10% (blue) and the third at +15% (red). Only 15% of the curve reaches 1380 MHz all the time, it’s a little hard to see because of the overlap with the blue line.

Without a doubt, ASRock must go to the power limit of 165W, the card is capable of handling it, why does it need an 8-pin power connector, designed in combination with a 225W slot.

ASRock sent a relevant message about this, their response was that they were aiming to follow the AMD TDP standard but are considering releasing a new BIOS with a higher power ceiling.

Overclocking

As mentioned on the previous page, the TDP of the card is very limited, so we increased the power limit to actually reach the dialed frequencies.

The maximum VRAM overclock of our sample is 2230 MHz (+12%) and 1430 MHz on the GPU (+4%).

Overclocking Efficiency

Using these clock speeds, we ran a quick Unigine Heaven benchmark to evaluate the gains from overclocking.

Actual, actual gain in 3D performance from overclocking was 6.2%!

Temperatures

Idle temperatures are excellent even with blocked fans. Gaming temperatures are decent too.

Frequency profiles

	GPU frequency	Memory frequency	Clock GPU Voltage (measured)
Desktop	300 MHz	300 MHz	0. 750 V
Multi-Monitor	600 MHz	2000 MHz	0.950 V
Blu-ray Playback	318 MHz	300 MHz	0.800 V
3D Load	1380 MHz	2000 MHz	1.175 V

Rating & Review

MSRP of the ASRock Radeon RX 580 Phantom Gaming X is not yet known, but is expected to be in the region of $290, which is in line with the most affordable RX 580 variants.

---

• Quite affordable
• Factory overclocked out of the box
• Fan-off in standby mode
• Excellent mining performance
• HDMI 2.0b, DisplayPort 1.4

---

• Not available in main markets: US, EU, China, Hong Kong
• Noisy in gaming
• Missing backplate
• Memory not warmed up
• TDP limit set extremely low

---

8.5

Well, well, another company has entered the graphics card market. ASRock took on this burden and partnered with AMD to launch its first products based on AMD Polaris GPUs. Today we “tested” the top ASRock RX 580 Phantom Gaming X, built on a 14nm Ellesmere GPU, known as Polaris 20. ASRock clearly tried to optimize their card for accessibility, which also hints that this model is also intended for miners who are looking for the most affordable powerful option. The company applied factory overclocking and raised the core frequency to 1380 MHz from AMD’s default 1340 MHz. But the memory turned out to be not overclocked, but today’s manual overclocking test shows that there are places for this to turn around.

The performance of the card is broadly in line with the reference RX 580, making it a decent solution for high-detail 1080p gaming, offering similar performance to the GTX 1060 6GB. AMD’s next faster variant, the RX Vega 56, is already 36% faster, but much more expensive. The NVIDIA GTX 1060 3 GB is 10% behind, but the GTX 1070 is 30% faster. The only question that came up was why the performance is so close to the stock RX 580, i.e. not a few percent higher that one would expect due to a 40 MHz increase in GPU frequency. With a bit of fiddling around, it became clear that ASRock had set its BIOS to a fairly low power limit of 145W, which is actually AMD’s default, but too low for this card. This leads to the fact that the GPU almost immediately «chooses» such a TDP limit, leading to a reset of the frequency to 1345 MHz. Although this is not a huge loss (only a few percent of performance), but the optimal power limit could be about 160 W, and, of course, the VRM card will cope, and with an 8-pin power connector it should pull 225 W. I notified ASRock about this and got a reply that they are considering releasing a BIOS with a higher TDP limit, but it’s been two weeks and no BIOS is visible. What I would like to highlight in particular is the card’s exceptional mining performance right out of the box, 11% higher than the reference version, indicating that ASRock has done extensive VBIOS tuning for this type of task.

ASRock removed the rear panel in the fight for an affordable price. Having a backplate would be nice, but if cost is critical then it’s probably the first thing to do. The cooler is much simpler than on other custom RX 580 variants; only three heat pipes. This certainly affects the cooling process, so to avoid thermal throttling, ASRock had to resort to a noisier fan profile, which at 45dBA really gets loud when the graphics card is fully loaded. The temperature is around 77°C, leaving no margin for the fans to calm down a bit. The VRM circuit uses more affordable components than other manufacturers, but ASRock engineers chose a good implementation that does not affect the performance or durability of the device at all. Well, the key feature is blocking the turntables at idle.

Energy efficiency relative to NVIDIA products has long been AMD’s weak point, and the RX 580 Phantom Gaming X also came without surprises. Gaming power consumption is an Achilles’ heel, where the NVIDIA variants cost a lot more, as they are cooler and yet more efficient: less heat needs to be dissipated, which means the cooler doesn’t have to work as hard.

ASRock advises that this model will only be available in certain regions of South America and Asia (excluding China, Hong Kong and Taiwan). This severely limits the company’s ability to penetrate important markets such as the US and EU, but on the other hand, it provides a good basis for testing and gathering feedback. Definitely production volume is not that big, so sticking to smaller markets might be a good practice. Of course, a significant part of the available power goes to mining, most likely the cards are snatched by miners right outside the factory.

The exact price is still unknown, but in any case it differs by region, it is expected to be available, possibly as the cheapest RX 580 offer. Current GPU prices are still sky-high, which means that money is paramount for potential buyers, and the RX 580 Phantom Gaming X can just use this key moment to achieve success. All those who perceive ASRock as a non-serious player in the graphics market should remember how the company started in the motherboard market — with inexpensive options. And today, ASRock is one of the big players, offering not only inexpensive products, but also boards for extreme enthusiasts. While their strategy for the GPU market doesn’t look quite right, it’s interesting to see what happens next.

Acknowledgment for reviewing and testing W1zzard.

Sincerely, procompsoft.ru

Where to get

ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC

Top specifications and features

• Passmark score
• GPU base clock
• RAM
• Memory Bandwidth
• Effective memory speed

Passmark score

ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC:
7642
Best score:
29325

Performance

ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC:
2091
Best score:

Memory

ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC:
717
Best score:

General Information

ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC:
89
Best score:

ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC Features:
167
Best score:

Description

ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC graphics card based on GCN 4. 0 architecture has 5700 million transistors, tech. 14 nm process. The frequency of the graphics core is 1257 MHz. In terms of memory, 8 GB is installed here. DDR5, 2000MHz frequency and 256Gb/s maximum bandwidth. Texture size is 198.7 GTexels/s. FLOPS is 6.04.

In tests, the ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC graphics card performed as follows — according to the Passmark benchmark, the model scored 7642 points. At the same time, the maximum number of points for today is 260261 points.
Directx version — 12. OpenGL version — 4.5.

In terms of compatibility, the video card is connected via the PCIe 3.0 x16 interface. Regarding cooling, the heat dissipation requirements here are 185 watts.
In our tests, the video card scores 492606 points.

Why ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC is better than others

• Passmark score 7642 . This parameter is higher than that of 22% of goods
• GPU base clock speed 1257 MHz. This parameter is higher than that of 50% of goods
• RAM 8 GB. This parameter is higher than that of 35% of goods
• Effective memory speed 8000 MHz. This parameter is higher than that of 24% of goods
• GPU memory frequency 2000 MHz. This parameter is higher than that of 77% of goods

• Memory bandwidth 256 GB/s. This parameter is lower than that of 39% of products
• FLOPS 6.04 TFLOPS. This parameter is lower than 43% of products
• Turbo GPU 1380 MHz. This parameter is lower than that of 45% of goods

ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC Review

Performance

Memory

general information

Functions

Ports

Tests in benchmarks

ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC Review: 9 Highlights0849

GPU base clock

The graphics processing unit (GPU) has a high clock speed.

1257MHz

max 2459

Average: 1124.9 MHz

2459MHz

GPU memory frequency

This is an important aspect calculating memory bandwidth

2000MHz

max 16000

Average: 1468 MHz

16000 MHz

FLOPS

A measure of the processing power of a processor is called FLOPS.

6.04TFLOPS

max 1142.32

Average: 53 TFLOPS

1142.32TFLOPS

RAM

8GB

max 128

Average: 4.6 GB

128GB

Turbo GPU

If the speed of the GPU drops below its limit, it can switch to a high clock speed to improve performance.
Show all

1380MHz

max 2903

Average: 1514 MHz

2903MHz

Texture size

A certain number of textured pixels are displayed on the screen every second.
Show all

198.7 GTexels/s

max 756.8

Average: 145.4 GTexels/s

756.8 GTexels/s

Architecture name

GCN 4.0

GPU Name

Polaris 20

Memory bandwidth

This is the speed at which the device stores or reads information.

256GB/s

max 2656

Average: 257. 8 GB/s

2656GB/s

Effective memory speed

The effective memory clock speed is calculated from the size and information transfer rate of the memory. The performance of the device in applications depends on the clock frequency. The higher it is, the better.
Show all

8000MHz

max 19500

Average: 6984.5 MHz

19500MHz

RAM

8GB

max 128

Average: 4.6 GB

128GB

GDDR Memory Versions

Latest GDDR memory versions provide high data transfer rates to improve overall performance
Show all

5

Mean: 4.9

6

Memory bus width

A wide memory bus means that it can transfer more information in one cycle. This property affects the performance of the memory as well as the overall performance of the device’s graphics card.
Show all

256bit

max 8192

Average: 283. 9bit

8192bit

Thermal Dissipation (TDP)

Heat dissipation requirement (TDP) is the maximum amount of energy that can be dissipated by the cooling system. The lower the TDP, the less power will be consumed.
Show all

185W

Average value: 160 W

2W

Manufacturing process

The small size of the semiconductor means it is a new generation chip.

14 nm

Average: 34.7 nm

4 nm

Number of transistors

5700 million

max 80000

Average: 7150 million

80000 million

PCIe version

Considerable speed is provided for the expansion card used to connect the computer to peripherals. The updated versions have impressive throughput and provide high performance.
Show all

3

Average: 3

5

Width

278.81mm

max 421.7

Average: 192. 1mm

421.7 mm

Height

126.78mm

max 619

Average: 89.6mm

619 mm

DirectX

Used in demanding games, providing enhanced graphics

12

max 12.2

Mean: 11.4

12.2

OpenCL version

Used by some applications to enable GPU power for non-graphical calculations. The newer the version, the more functional it will be
Show all

2

max 4.6

Average: 2.2

4.6

opengl version

Later versions provide better game graphics

4.5

max 4.6

Average: 4.2

4.6

Shader model version

6.4

max 6.6

Average: 5.9

6.6

Version Vulkan

1.2

Has HDMI output

HDMI output allows you to connect devices with HDMI or mini-HDMI ports. They can transmit video and audio to the display.
Show all

Yes

HDMI version

The latest version provides a wide signal transmission channel due to the increased number of audio channels, frames per second, etc.
Show all

2

max 2.1

Mean: 1.9

2.1

DisplayPort

Allows you to connect to a display using DisplayPort

3

Average: 2.2

4

DVI outputs

Allows connection to a display using DVI

1

Mean: 1.4

3

Number of HDMI connectors

The more there are, the more devices can be connected at the same time (for example, game/TV type consoles)
Show all

1

Average: 1.1

4

Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

HDMI

Yes

Passmark test score

7642

max 29325

Average: 7628. 6

29325

FAQ

How much RAM does ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC have

ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC has 8 GB.

What version of RAM does ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC 9 have?0311

ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC supports GDDR5.

What is the architecture of ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC

GCN 4.0.

Watts of ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC

185 Watts.

How the ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC performs in benchmarks

The card scored 7642 in the Passmark benchmark.

ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC 9 FLOPS0311

6.04 TFLOPs.

Which PCIe version does it support?

version PCIE 3.

Which version of DirectX supports ASROCK Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC

DirectX 12.

How many ports HDMI Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC 9031 1

1 port HDMI.

Does ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX 580 OC DVI support

1 DVI ports.