ASRock Unveils Radeon RX 5500 XT Challenger ITX 8 GB Graphics Card
by Gavin Bonshor on April 16, 2020 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- Radeon
- ASRock
- Mini ITX
- Navi
- 7nm
- RX 5500 XT
- Challenger ITX
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ASRock has announced its latest ITX graphics card for small form factors, the Radeon RX 5500 XT Challenger ITX. This new mini-ITX card is based on AMD's Navi 14 GPU and offers 8 GB of GDDR6 memory attached to a 128-bit bus, with the same core and memory clock speeds as a reference model.
Finding a graphics card for a small form factor system can be tiresome with very little on the market to choose from. One of the big trade-offs of graphics cards designed for small form factor systems is that beefier models such as AMD's RX 5700 XT, and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2080 Ti are too large in design to accommodate such a small PCB, which is where smaller cards designed particularly for the ITX form factor come in.
Focusing on the ASRock RX 5500 XT Challenger ITX 8G, it is very small for its power with dimensions of 190 x 139 x 42 mm, meaning that it is just under 7.5 inches in length. It features a single 10 cm cooling fan on its front, embedded in a white and silver dual-slot cooler, which is designed to direct hot air out of the rear of a chassis. The cooler on the ASRock RX 5500 XT Challenger ITX 8 G is actually longer than a reference model (7.5 vs 7.1 inches) but is still much smaller than most aftermarket designs from other vendors.
Physical size aside, the card is very similar in specifications to other 5500 XT cards on the market. The Challenger ITX ships with a base core clock of 1607 MHz and acn boosts up to 1845 MHz. Meanwhile the effective memory core clock speed of 14 Gbps. Unsurprisingly then, with its reference-like clocks, the card is targeted towards 1080p gaming.
As for display outputs, ASRock has outfitted the card a trio of DisplayPort 1.4 connectors as well as a single HDMI 2.0b port. Feeding the mini monster is a single 8-pin 12 V ATX PCIe power connector, which is more than sufficient to meet its 130 W TDP.
ASRock hasn't announced when the Radeon RX 5500 XT Challenger 8G will be available at retailers, nor has it provided any information about its price.
Related Reading
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Source: ASRock
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jtd871 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
It's a RX5500. I doubt this card would saturate even a x8 connection.Please go ahead and buy whatever card you like, for whatever reason, at whatever price you're willing to pay. Nobody's holding a gun to your head forcing you to buy a card you obviously don't like.
TheinsanegamerN - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
The x8 connection has already shown to be a serious issue when used on 3.0 connections and the 4GB VRAM config. It was all over the internet at launch. I guess you missed it.Valantar - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
... The 1660S is a much higher tier GPU, and if you're looking at that kind of price range, why not then go a bit further and get an RX 5600 XT? The driver issues are also seriously overblown - the vast majority of initial bugs were fixed early, and what remains is generally a tiny but loud minority. Not that exisitng bugs shouldn't be fixed ASAP, but rare and difficult to reproduce bugs take time to fix, and that situation is exactly the same for Nvidia. As for PCIe x8: how does that matter? Only the RTX 2080Ti is noticeably bottlenecked by an x8 link anyhow, so you'll never notice a difference. Also, remember that the 5500 XT is a PCIe 4.0 card and thus has the same bandwidth as any 3.0 x16 card.brucethemoose - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
+1A point few seem to have brought up: mATX boards and cases are cheaper than ATX and ITX, and their full ATX PSUs are cheaper than ITX PSUs. Hence mATX is the best choice unless you want an absolute top-end rig, or if looks/space are a critical priority.
ITX SHOULD be cheaper... but its not :/
Valantar - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
ITX is more expensive because it's small enough to make engineering more challenging, which can significantly drive up costs. mATX isn't. Also,premium ITX boards are common, premium mATX boards are rare as chicken teeth.amnesia0287 - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
To be more specific it’s a non-reference design which means they had to engineer their own pcbs. ANY non-reference design is gonna cost more, performance oriented or not.TheinsanegamerN - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
What are you talking about? No motherboard is reference, there are not AIBs working with GPU PCBs. ITX is a standard just like ATX.brucethemoose - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Ugh why can I not reply to comments.brucethemoose - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
Perhaps. But unless you go HEDT, top end boards dont have as many benefits anymore.Theres very little OC headroom in consumer CPUs, with the possible exception of the max core count parts. Onboard sound is OK, and external DACs are quite reasonably priced. 10GBE and loads of M.2 slots are niche features.
flyingpants265 - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
To any low-income people reading this comment, please open up ebay or craigslist, and get a RX570 for as low as $65 USD.To people with well-paying jobs, they would prefer to spend their expendable income on a brand new product. But people lacking $$$ should be looking squarely at the used market. There's never been a better time to go used IMO (even despite the virus). Ex-miner cards are not even a big issue.
I got an RX580 in late 2018 for $80 USD, used it for a while, traded it for $80+1050Ti which I then sold for another $80 USD.
RX570 for $40 USD locally. The other choice was a brand new 1660Ti for like $250.... it's not really worth the upgrade for a 1080p screen!
Ryzen 2600 for $75 USD. A brand new 3600 cost almost 3x that in Canada... for a 15% performance increase, no thanks!
So $115 USD, versus what would have been roughly $450, for just those 2 parts.
If I went the super cheap route, I could have gotten a 2600/16GB/570 system, including all components, for about $330 USD. But I went Tomahawk max, 850W seasonic PSU, WD SN500 nvme, corsair air 740. Gets up to 400fps in CS:GO. Brand new games run fine except Metro which I would never play anyway. I'm in a great position to drop in a 2070S or something, if I ever feel like it.