The ASRock Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 is the first real custom design for the RX 5600 XT. We have reviewed six RX 5600 XT cards from all the major vendors so far, but all of those were based on their RX 5700 boards with the only difference being the GPU swapped for the Navi 10 XLE GPU. The ASRock approach is different. Since cost is extremely important in this market segment, they decided to come up with a custom PCB design that is optimized for the RX 5600 XT. The first noticeable difference is that there's only six memory pads, which is ideal for the 6 GB VRAM configuration of the RX 5600 XT—all other cards have two empty spots for memory, which just increases PCB size, complexity, and cost. Next up, ASRock switched from the expensive IR35217 / NCP81022 voltage controller combination to a much more affordable dual uP9505P design, something we've been seeing on a lot of cost-efficient NVIDIA boards. ASRock also reduced the PCB size and adjusted their cooler for those changes, which reduces cost even further. This RX 5600 XT PCB is what AMD should have given to its board partners as "reference". No point having an overbuilt PCB if you can't sell your cards because they're more expensive than the competition.

ASRock was also wise to go all out on the BIOS upgrade for their Phantom Gaming D3. You get 1750 MHz memory clock and 1750 MHz Boost clock, which is the highest AMD allows for the RX 5600 XT. Overall, when averaged over our testing suite at 1080p resolution, we see the ASRock RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 beat the NVIDIA RTX 2060 with a slim 2% lead—an important win. The card also slightly beats AMD's aging Radeon RX Vega 64, which is just as important a victory. The NVIDIA GeForce 16-series is far behind, as the GTX 1660 Ti is 17% slower, and the GTX 1660 Super is 19% slower. AMD's next-fastest SKU, the Radeon RX 5700, is only 6% faster and much more expensive. NVIDIA's RTX 2060 Super is 10% faster than the RX 5600 XT. Compared to other RX 5600 XTs, the ASRock card shares the throne with the ASUS STRIX, MSI Gaming Z, PowerColor Red Devil, and Sapphire Pulse—they're all exactly as fast. Overall, the RX 5600 XT is a great card for 1080p gaming with plenty of headroom for future titles, but it can also handle 1440p well, maybe not at ultra details in every single game, but it'll be a very decent experience overall.

ASRock's triple-fan, triple-slot cooler does a great job keeping the card cool. I like how it's not taller than the standard slot height, which could be useful in some smaller cases. With 67°C under load the GPU runs cooler than on many competing cards. Noise levels are as low as 28 dBA—whisper quiet while fully loaded—on a card that's just $10 above MSRP. With those noise levels the card actually beats all competing NVIDIA designs I'm aware of. Yes, you read right, AMD is now quieter than NVIDIA! Generally, RX 5600 XT cards are very quiet, with all cards we tested being between 27 and 29 dBA, so the differences are slim. ASRock also included the highly popular idle-fan-off capability with their card, which completely shuts off the fans in idle, browsing, productivity, and light gaming. Some competing NVIDIA cards lack that feature, too.

Overall power consumption of the ASRock RX 5600 XT is worse than other cards, though. For some reason the Phantom Gaming D3 no longer goes to the "0 MHz/0 V" power state, which means idle power draw is a few watts higher than on other RX 5600 XT cards. I'm not exactly sure why this is happening. I reached out to ASRock and AMD for clarification, maybe it can be resolved with a BIOS update. While 10 W sounds high in idle, it's not the end of the world. Even at Europe's high energy prices it'll mean maybe a buck more per month with heavy usage. Multi-monitor power consumption has been high on AMD for years because they run the memory at full speed in that state. For cards with the 1750 MHz memory BIOS update this increases power draw above cards that stay at 1500 MHz. Gaming power draw is increased by around 20 W over other models. Thanks to its higher performance, the card remains very power efficient, matching NVIDIA's RTX 2060 almost exactly in that metric. Usually, my biggest concern with power draw is that it drives up heat output, which forces the cooler to work harder. As our results show this is not a problem on the ASRock RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 as temperatures are low and the cooler runs very quietly.

Back when NVIDIA launched the RTX 2060 with 6 GB VRAM, the Internet was full of hate. Now, AMD does exactly the same, and it still makes perfect sense for me. 8 GB VRAM on a card that's targeted at 1080p/1440p isn't worth it, especially if you have to meet a certain price point to make the card attractive. Looking through our performance results I can identify only a single clear case: Assassin's Creed Origins. Here, we see the RX 5600 XT fall behind at 1440p, but all the other games are running fine. If you absolutely must have 8 GB VRAM, then be ready to pay for it: the RX 5700 and RTX 2060 Super have you covered. It's not something I would do in this case where money matters.

The next and certainly bigger controversy will be real-time ray tracing support. NVIDIA's RTX 2060 supports hardware accelerated ray tracing and the RX 5600 XT does not. While proliferation of RTX is limited today, several big titles with RTX support are coming out this year. Next-gen consoles will also have support for hardware ray tracing, which will further push game developers to embrace the new technology. Still, I would say ray tracing isn't the most important capability to have right now in this market segment. On the other hand, the RTX 2060 is barely more expensive than the RX 5600 XT and has that unique selling point, making this a close call.

The ASRock RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 is currently available for $290, which is a very reasonable $10 increase over the $280 base price. For the $10 you get the highest clocks available on the market on both memory and GPU, an excellent cooler with great temperatures and fan noise, and idle-fan stop. Really a no-brainer in my opinion, absolutely worth it. Right now the only alternative to the Phantom Gaming D3 is the Sapphire Pulse, which retails at $290, too. It's just as fast, and while the ASRock card has a slightly better cooler, power draw is higher. Personally, I think I'd pick the better cooler over the power draw, but the choice is up to you. Most other RX 5600 XT models are a bit more expensive without adding any significant benefits. Considering the PCB improvements by ASRock I'm sure they have much more headroom in their card's price than other board partners. During the RX 5600 XT launch several partners told me, "we're not making any money", so margins must be thin already, which could mean ASRock is better prepared for a coming price war.