ASRock’s AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT Phantom Gaming 16GB OC graphics card was designed as a premium take on AMD’s reference version of the Radeon RX 7800 XT. This card features a larger, more capable thermal solution and higher clocks to boost performance. All of this comes with a price increase over the reference card’s base price (to $529, from $499), which places the card in fierce competition with several similarly priced cards. But it’s nonetheless a potent option in this segment of the graphics card market. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super holds our Editors’ Choice award in this category and price range, but this ASRock card is a great pick if you find at even a modest discount.Configuration and Design: Staying Cool With Flashy LightsAs I’ve previously reviewed AMD’s reference design for the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT, I won’t delve into great detail about its architecture or design in this review. For more information on those areas, check the above-linked review. Instead, let’s get straight into the essential details you should consider while considering this particular ASRock card.
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(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The Radeon RX 7800 XT has 3,840 streaming processors, 240 texture mapping units (TMUs), 96 raster operation processors (ROPs), and 60 ray accelerators. This connects to 16GB of GDDR6 with a bitrate of 19.5Gbps over a 256-bit memory interface. This effectively gives the card 624GBps of bandwidth. The reference model is set for a base clock of 1,800MHz and a turbo clock of 2,430MHz, the latter of which is increased to 2,565MHz on the ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT Phantom Gaming 16GB OC.
This boost in clock speed represents roughly a 5.5% increase in overall clocks, and it could result in a similar increase in performance. This boost doesn’t come for free as, at $529, the ASRock Radeon RX 7800 XT Phantom Gaming 16GB OC costs 6% more than the $499 reference model. That’s not so bad, on the whole, given that you also get a beefier triple-fan thermal solution with this model versus the dual-fan solution AMD opted for on its reference card.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
In addition to having an extra fan and better overall cooling potential, ASRock’s card also has a lot more going on aesthetically. The card is primarily black but has some dark-purple details added to the metal backplate to spruce up the look. It also has RGB LEDs on its front and side to attract more attention when powered up.Testing the ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT Phantom Gaming: The Setup and the CompetitionWe benchmarked the ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT Phantom Gaming 16GB OC on our latest GPU testbed desktop, which is built around an Intel Core i9-12900K processor running at stock clocks on an Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboard. The processor has access to 32GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM running at 5,600MHz, and the processor is kept cool by a Corsair Hydro Series H100X water cooler.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The system also contains a 1TB Corsair MP600 Pro NVMe 4.0 SSD as its primary storage device with Windows 11 Pro installed. Power is supplied via a Corsair HX1500i 1,500-watt 80 Plus Platinum power supply.
Priced at $529, the Radeon RX 7800 XT competes directly with Nvidia’s $549 GeForce RTX 4070 and the $599 GeForce RTX 4070 Super. Both cards cost a bit more than ASRock’s Radeon RX 7800 XT, but they are close enough to make them alluring alternatives if they have better performance. Let’s see.Synthetic TestsSynthetic test results enable us to gauge the performance of graphics cards in specific areas. Still, the results must be considered carefully as they don’t always reflect real-world performance.
The RX 7800 XT performed well enough in 3DMark, coming close to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, but the latter was ahead overall. These two cards were in a near-dead-even tie in Furmark and close to a tie in LuxMark. The Radeon RX 7800 XT managed to pull ahead by a slim margin in Superposition, though.Ray-Tracing, DLSS, and FSR TestsAMD’s ray-tracing hardware has shown to not be quite as powerful as its competitors, which caused it to fall behind somewhat in games that support ray-tracing. The Radeon RX 7800 XT did better than usual in these tests, possibly due to driver updates released along with the card’s launch.
In F1 22, the RX 7800 XT was on an even footing with the RTX 4070 at all resolutions. Though it was two frames per second (FPS) behind the RTX 4070 at 1080p, this is less than a 2% performance difference and not discernible while playing the game. After enabling FSR 1.0 and DLSS 2.0, the RX 7800 XT saw a more significant performance boost than the Nvidia competition, allowing it to surpass the RTX 4070 Super, too. We got a more mixed result with DLSS 3 and FSR 2.0 enabled, giving the Nvidia cards a clear advantage at 1440p, but the RX 7800 XT took the advantage at 4K.We don’t have test results for the RTX 4070 in Returnal, but the RX 7800 XT was considerably behind the RTX 4070 Super in this test both with and without FSR and DLSS enabled. Only when DLSS 3 was enabled did the RTX 4070 Super fall behind; you would simply keep that feature off in this particular game if you owned an RTX 4070 Super. We witnessed more or less the same results in Cyberpunk 2077, except DLSS 3 was less detrimental in this game. Lastly, in Guardians of the Galaxy, the RX 7800 XT was notably behind the RTX 4070 at all resolutions.AAA Game TestsAMD does a fair bit better in games that lack ray-tracing support, enabling it to perform on a near-even footing with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super in Total War: Three Kingdoms. The original RTX 4070 was considerably slower here and cleanly surpassed by the RX 7800 XT.
The Radeon RX 7800 XT struggled more in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, where it matched up more closely to the RTX 4070 than the RTX 4070 Super. The Far Cry 5 results we gathered, unfortunately, don’t tell us much, as this game has shown at 1080p to either be bottlenecked by the host processor or the game engine, which has caused most cards to turn in results quite close to each other.Legacy Game TestsPerformance in legacy games tends to depend heavily on how well modern drivers support those older games. Though more than a decade old now, Bioshock Infinite is still relatively well supported and showed the RX 7800 XT ahead of the RTX 4070. The RTX 4070 Super was in a near tie with the RX 7800 XT, but the RX 7800 XT was notably ahead at 1080p.
In Hitman Absolution, the RX 7800 XT again pulled ahead of the RTX 4070 and the RTX 4070 Super. Though the RTX 4070 Super was slightly faster at 1440p resolution in this game, the RX 7800 XT was faster at both 4K and 1080p resolutions by a more significant ratio. The last legacy game we tested was Sleeping Dogs, which showed the Radeon RX 7800 XT behind the RTX 4070 and the RTX 4070 Super.Power and Thermal TestsThe power consumption of the graphics card testbed as a whole was measured using a Kill-A-Watt power meter. Changing out only the graphics card enables us to gain insight into how much power each card draws versus the others we have tested.
Power consumption for the Radeon RX 7800 XT was relatively high, with it consuming more power than many of the other cards listed in the chart. In particular, the RTX 4070 Super and RTX 4070 consumed a fair bit less.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Despite its higher power draw, the ASRock RX 7800 XT that we tested managed to stay cooler throughout the testing process. This can only be due to the excellent thermal solution used by ASRock on this card.Verdict: A Capable Card Worth Bargain-Hunting ForIt’s clear from the test results that ASRock built the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT Phantom Gaming 16GB OC well with a high-performance thermal solution. The card’s speeds vary from test to test, but it was nonetheless competitive in many areas with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4070 and the faster Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super. In some areas, like games that support ray tracing, the RX 7800 XT struggled, but outside those titles, it tended to be faster than its primary rivals.Due to the highly competitive place in which these cards contend, it isn’t easy to blanket-recommend one over the other. We don’t think you will be disappointed with any of them, and they all do enough to justify their price. Instead, we recommend closely monitoring promotions when picking among these cards. A $50 discount on the RX 7800 XT or the RTX 4070 would easily make either card the value winner. A game bundled with one card or the other could tip the balance, too.Both are highly recommendable, but without any promotions, we give the edge to the ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT Phantom Gaming 16GB OC. At the same time, we’d still opt for the RTX 4070 Super over the RX 7800 XT, which again heightens the need to carefully consider current pricing when shopping for any graphics card in this price range.
ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT Phantom Gaming 16GB OC
The Bottom Line
ASRock’s take on the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT has an excellent thermal solution and performs well for the money. It’s a solid 1440p gaming pick, and a real winner if you find it on sale.
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