Hardware

Published on October 13th, 2023 | by Adrian Gunning

ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7600 Phantom Gaming 8GB OC Edition Review

Enjoy swift, countrywide shipping when you order the ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7600 Phantom Gaming 8GB OC Graphics Card. This thriving aspect of your PC setup features an 8GB GDDR6 on a 128-Bit Memory Bus, 32 AMD RDNA™ 3 Compute Units with RT+AI Accelerators, and a handy 32MB AMD Infinity Cache™ tech. It also supports Microsoft® DirectX® 12 Ultimate and PCI® Express 4.0 for ultimate gaming performance.

The Radeon RX 7600 is a new “entry-level” graphics card from AMD that has been designed for next-generation gaming (including raytracing) to offer fast speeds for all your high-end 1080p gaming needs. The AMD Radeon RX 7600 comes with advanced AMD RDNA 3 compute units, with second-generation raytracing accelerators and new AI accelerators, including 8GB of GDDR6 to ensure gaming performance remains fast and stable. Thanks to ASRock, we’re checking out their new AMD Radeon RX 7600 Phantom Gaming 8GB OC (Overclock) Edition which has more grunt than the reference card from AMD and is even quieter!

So how does the ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7600 Phantom Gaming 8GB OC Edition play?

Read on…

The ageless (exaggeration here) battle between NVidia vs Radeon (*) continues with both companies releasing graphics card tailored for the more budget savvy gamer who still want to play their games at full detail with the highest possible framerates. The caveat here is limiting the resolution to 1920 x 1080 (1080p) and by targeting this resolution, it allows for fast frames per second (fps) for a wide cohort of games.

(*) Intel have also returned to offering standalone graphics cards

However like all graphics cards, they can render at higher resolutions but expect a significant frame rate drop the higher you go. So while this card is a 1080p card, ASRock have a few tricks to ensure you can run it at the next resolution up. Given that, the main two highlights of this card compared to the reference model is the increased boost speed and ease of overclocking with ASRock Tweak 2.0 Pro. Further, ASRock include some excellent cooling technologies to keep this card super cool and more important quiet.

ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7600 Phantom Gaming 8GB OC Edition Highlights

Another selling point is the design of the card which includes Polychrome SYNC that makes it ideal for cases with a glass side so you can showcase the power of your gaming rig. Apart from the excellent cooling options, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 boasts a wealth of performance driven technology such as the 2,048 stream processors, 128 texture mapping units (TMUs), 64 raster operation units (ROPs), 64 AI accelerators plus 32 Ray Accelerators. The card also runs at 2755Mhz (with boost clock) which really amplifies the power it delivers for 1080p gaming.

ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7600 Phantom Gaming 8GB OC Edition Specifications

ASRock also ensure that you don’t need a top of the range power supply to run this card and recommends a 600W unit. In terms of power connectivity, the card is powered by an 8-pin PCIe connector.

Gallery

Once unpacked, the first thing we noticed about the card was its gamer inspired design and LED’s to create a myriad of different lighting and special effects when powered. Further, it contains three DisplayPorts and one HDMI port plus it allows for multiple monitors to be connected.

For testing, we trialled the card on the following system specifications;

• Motherboard: ASRock Z790 PG Sonic Edition
• Cooler: Corsair iCUE H150i Elite Capellix (water Cooler)
• Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex Platinum SE 1000W
• Hard Drive: WD_Black SN750 SE NVMe SSD
• Memory: Kingston FURY Renegade DDR5 RGB Memory
• Case: Thermaltake V250 Mid-Tower
• Operating System: Windows 11 Professional

Benchmarks

This won’t be the last time we say this but benchmarking can be subjective and is dependent on a number of factors. However we try our best to ensure the latest components, including a fresh install of Windows 11 without any clutter. Each game tested is done three times and always on a freshly booted system.

We tested the AMD Radeon RX 7600 on five of the following games;

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
  Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is a 2020 action role-playing video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the twelfth major installment in the Assassin’s Creed series.
  
• Battlefield V
  Battlefield V is a first-person shooter game developed by DICE and published by Electronic Arts. It is the eleventh main installment in the Battlefield series.
  
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II is a 2022 first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision.
  
• Cyberpunk 2077
  Cyberpunk 2077 is a 2020 action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red.
  
• Horizon Zero Dawn
  Horizon Zero Dawn is a 2017 action role-playing game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.
  

The Benchmarking Results

As you can see from the graph above and the detailed results below, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 scored exceptionally well at 1080p and even 2160p gaming with most titles running well over 100 frames per second at 1920 x 1080.

Cyberpunk 2077 is quite an intensive game so it is understandable that the frame rate was slightly lower, however bear in mind that all games were running on maximum detail. Surprisingly, the card worked well on 2160p as well and anything over 60 frames per second is very playable.

Given the results of the ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7600 Phantom Gaming 8GB OC Edition, it does make for a great entry level gaming card and best of all, it runs perfectly at 1080p and even 2160p. However the card does struggle at 4K and again, this is not the resolution that the card has been designed for. And ray tracing? The card does have the capabilities for ray tracing and for Cyberpunk 2077, an almost playable 35 frames per second on 1080p with full detail (it looked gorgeous) and a very playable 79 frames per second for Spider-Man Remastered, again on high detail. So yes, the card is very capable of ray tracing!

Final Thoughts?

Although the ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7600 Phantom Gaming 8GB OC Edition is not the fastest graphics card available, it does offer gamers on a budget an excellent entry point to playing the latest AAA titles with maximum detail and a high FPS with a 1080p resolution. Sure 2K, 4K and even 8K looks stunningly crisp and sharp, however you do need a very powerful system and graphics card to start playing on these levels and additionally, it’s considerably more expensive.

Cue in the ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7600 Phantom Gaming 8GB OC Edition (around $400AUD Oct 2023) that not only plays well but delivers some future proofing as well. It’s also great for those looking to build more compact systems without needing over the top cooling for its components.

Recommended!

About the Author

Adrian Gunning Adrian lives in Melbourne Australia and has a huge passion for gaming, technology and pop culture. He recently finished his a Bachelor of Journalism and is currently focusing on games journalism. When not writing and playing video games, Adrian can be found in Comics 'R' Us debating the pros of the DC Universe and cons of the Marvel Universe.

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