It seems like forever since the last company entered the graphics card market. ASRock has taken up the challenge and partnered with AMD to release their first products based on the AMD Polaris Series of GPUs. Today, we are reviewing the ASRock RX 580 Phantom Gaming X, which is built using the 14 nanometer Ellesmere GPU also known as Polaris 20. ASRock has clearly optimized their card for cost, which suggests that this card is also targeted at crypto-miners who are looking for the most affordable number-crunching power available. ASRock did include an overclock out of the box with their card, up to 1380 MHz from the 1340 MHz AMD reference. Memory isn't overclocked though—our manual overclocking tests show that there is plenty of headroom for that.

In terms of performance, the card pretty much matches the RX 580 reference, which makes it a decent solution for 1080p gaming with high details, offering similar performance to the GTX 1060 6 GB. AMD's next-fastest option, the RX Vega 56, is 36% faster but much more costly at the same time. NVIDIA's GTX 1060 3 GB is 10% slower, with the GTX 1070 being 30% faster. I did wonder why performance is so close to the RX 580 stock and not a few percentile higher, which would be expected due to the 40 MHz GPU clock increase. After digging around for a bit I found out that ASRock has configured their BIOS with a fairly low power limit of 145 W, which does match AMD's default, but is too low for this card. The TDP limit causes the GPU to run into its power limit at stock, which causes it to clock down to around 1345 MHz. While this isn't a huge deal (it's just a few percent of performance), a better power setting would be around 160 W, which the card's VRMs can certainly take, and with the 8-pin power connector it can draw up to 225 W. I have notified ASRock of this, and they mentioned that they are considering releasing a BIOS with a higher TDP limit, but it's been two weeks and there is no BIOS in sight. What I would like to highlight is the card's exceptional mining performance out of the box, since it is 11% higher than that of the reference version, which clearly shows that ASRock has done extensive VBIOS tuning for these tasks.

ASRock's quest for cost reduction means that there is no backplate. Having one would be nice, but when cost matters, it's often the first thing to go. The cooler is also much simpler than on other RX 580 variants, using just three heatpipes. This clearly affects cooling performance, so in order to avoid thermal throttling, ASRock had to pick a more noisy fan profile, which, with 45 dBA, does get quite loud when the card is fully loaded. Temperatures are alright with 77°C, but don't leave much headroom to quieten down the fan some more. VRM circuitry uses more affordable components than other vendors, but in my opinion, they picked a good implementation which has no effects on performance or the card's longevity. A crucial capability that is included is the idle-fan-off feature we love so much since it provides a perfect noise-free experience during desktop work, Internet browsing, and even light gaming.

Power efficiency compared to NVIDIA has been AMD's weak spot for a long time—the RX 580 Phantom Gaming X brings no surprises here. Gaming power consumption is where you would expect it, with NVIDIA's options being much better in that regard, which is how they can run cooler and more efficient: less heat needs to be dissipated, which means the cooler won't have to work nearly as hard.

ASRock tells us that this card will only be available in select regions in South America and Asia (not including China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan). This severely limits their ability to penetrate the important markets, like the US and EU, but on the other hand, it gives them nice testing grounds to collect feedback in. I don't think their production volume is that big either, so sticking to smaller markets could be a good thing. Also, a significant part of the available capacity goes towards make mining cards, which probably get snatched up by miners waiting right outside the factory.

While exact pricing is not known yet, and it differs by region anyway, I expect these cards to be available at very affordable prices; it will probably the cheapest RX 580 available. Current GPU prices are still high, which means money matters to customers, and the RX 580 Phantom Gaming X could use that to gain success. Everybody dismissing ASRock as player in the graphics market should think about how ASRock started in the motherboard business—with low-end, affordable motherboards. Today, they are one of the big players, offering not only low-end products, but also boards catered to enthusiasts, and with great success. Their strategy for the GPU market doesn't seem all that different, and I'm excited for what comes next.