Overall and Final Verdict
Now that I have taken a look at the MSI RX 5500 XT Gaming X and ran it through all of our tests. Let’s get the rundown on the good and bad. First off, I love the new look that MSI went with. It’s much cleaner looking than the previous Gaming X styling. The simple design is a little more style, while I’m still a 15 year old at heart. I still prefer my builds to look a little cleaner and not really have a full “gaming” look and I think this new design better fits that. I also like that they used different textures and the black and grey to make the boxy look still have some style. I could go without the red accents though, same with the white patch on top with the backlit branding. I’ve really been wanting to see more companies use their RGB lighting for accents rather than to light up my PC with more branding. The new backplate, like with the fan shroud is also a nice change. They used the multiple textures here again, but this time on the all-aluminum backplate. Frankly, the RX 5500 XT is in a range where not all cards are going to have a backplate or they may go with a plastic version. So having a quality aluminum design here was a welcome addition and they also made sure the back of the GPU could breathe with a few vents right behind it.
As for performance, the MSI RX 5500 XT Gaming X ran right with the PowerColor Red Dragon in every single test. That means the 1080p performance is still solid like I mentioned at the launch. The 5500 XT isn’t a high-end card or even a high end 1080p card. You get good performance and you can expect every game to be playable at 1080p which is all a lot of people want or need. Compute testing, like in the other 5500 XT tested, didn’t really impress. But I don’t think most people looking to do rendering and video work on the side will be looking at the 5500 XT.
The Cooler on the Gaming X was a bit of a mixed bag in our testing. It did run extremely quiet when I did the under load testing. But if you do plan on turning the fan up it does ramp up the noise significantly. The thermal performance left a little be desired with that same fan profile as well, but the cooler did have a lot of headroom left. Overall the cooler design, while being one of the MSI Dual Frozr coolers that almost always perform extremely well, has a horizontal fin design that seems to hold it back. On the plus side, it doesn’t vent down against the motherboard and around your M.2 slots though. MSI’s RX 5500 XT also pulled a lot more wattage in testing that I would have expected as well.
As for pricing, well the 5500 XT Gaming X 8GB is listed currently at $224.99 which is on the high end for the RX 5500 XT. They are bundling this and the other RX 5500 XT’s with the Xbox Game Pass and Monster Hunter World which is a nice addition. The Red Dragon that I tested against this card is slightly cheaper at $219.99 which makes picking the Gaming X a little hard given the difference in cooling performance and them both having similar styling. But I think both cards are a little too high overall. From MSI I think the RX 5500 XT Mech 8GB might be a better choice given its lower price. In addition, if you are on the fence if you want the 5500 XT or you think you might want a little more performance I would hold out to see how the recently announced RX 5600 XT tests as well.
Live Pricing: HERE
