Packaging

The Card

The ASUS RX 5500 XT STRIX is following the design language set forth by ASUS for their Navi generation cards. The dominant color is black, but softer curves are used than on other cards. A metal backplate is included, too.


Dimensions of the card are 28 x 13 cm.


Installation requires three slots in your system.


Display connectivity options include three standard DisplayPort 1.4a and an HDMI 2.0b.


The board uses one 8-pin power connector. This input configuration is specified for up to 225 watts of power draw.


You also get one 4-pin PWM fan header to sync your case fans to the graphics card's fans and an addressable RGB header other RGB components can be connected to.


AMD's Navi generation of GPUs no longer supports CrossFire. DirectX 12 does include its own set of multi-GPU capabilities, but the implementation requires game developers to put serious development time into a feature only a tiny fraction of their customers might ever use.

Disassembly

The ASUS cooler design is actually quite a bit different from what we usually see on graphics cards. The fan shroud assembly, including the two fans, is coming off first.


Next, you immediately have access to the large heatsink with its six(!) heatpipes. Usually, the fan shroud and heatsink form one unit during disassembly. Note that this part of the cooler also provides cooling for the memory chips and VRM circuitry.


The metal backplate protects the cards against damage during handling and installation.