A Closer look at the card
Contents
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The Challenger series is ASRock’s budget line, but just know that budget does not mean bad, in this case it just means the card has no bling so it does not cost as much. Some people want the bling and in that case ASRock does offer their Phantom and Taichi lines, maybe for another review. We are focusing here on cards for those of you on a tight budget or maybe those of you that don’t really focus on the looks of the PC, but rather the performance.
With no bling and only 2 fans, this helps keep the card small. The card comes in at 9.49 inches in length. This includes the PCI bracket.
Even though the card comes in at 9.49, the PCB itself, is only 7.5 inches and this plays in the cards favor. The other 2 inches of the card outside of the PCB is the heatsink and 2nd fan to help keep the card cool.
5 inches in depth including the PCI bracket, the card itself is a little under 4 inches.
And just over 1.5 inches in width, the card is not a beast in size, but it might just be in performance, we will go over that all here.
The card comes packed with 3 x Display ports at 1.4b with DCS 1.2 and 1 x HDMI port coming in at 2.0b. You can use all 4 displays at once to enjoy a full digital resolution of up to 8K at 60hz.
As you saw, the card does not come with additional adapters to switch between Display Port or HDMI over to DVI or VGA. This is one of the main reasons I do an unboxing, to show you everything that comes in the box. The fact that it does not come with these adapters help keep the price point low, but I mention it so that you are prepared.
Laying the card down and taking a shot from the rear we can see the extent of the heatsink and its exposed copper pipe. We can also see the single 8Pin PCI Express connection.
Yes, the connection needs to be plugged in order to power the card. The card requires a 450Watt Power supply, but ASRock recommends a 500Watt. We can also see here the Challenger branding. Kind of hidden really in all that the card has to offer.
Along the top of the card, a basic ASRock logo with a metal black plate, just to help keep it a little cooler. The Challenger is not meant to be gaudy.
The underside, where you insert the card into the PCI-e slot exposes the 3 large copper pipes helping to keep the card cool as well as the fins in the larger heatsink.
The bottom of the card, we can see the 2 x 82.55 mm fans branded ASRock. The card itself has a few little lines to distinguish it, but not too much, but at least you know it’s an ASRock.
I have shown you everything there is about the card itself, other than how to install it and it’s performance. In this next chapter we will go into installing the ASRock Challenger D RX 5500 XT 8GB OC Card.
Continue To: Installing the ASRock Challenger D RX 5500 XT 8GB OC Card
We are influencers and brand affiliates. This post contains affiliate links, most which go to Amazon and are Geo-Affiliate links to nearest Amazon store.
I have spent many years in the PC boutique name space as Product Development Engineer for Alienware and later Dell through Alienware’s acquisition and finally Velocity Micro. During these years I spent my time developing new configurations, products and technologies with companies such as AMD, Asus, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA and more. The Arts, Gaming, New & Old technologies drive my interests and passion. Now as my day job, I am an IT Manager but doing reviews on my time and my dime.