Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB: Review |Hashrate||Test| Specs |Hashrate | Pros and Cons | CPU performance – After trying the Radeon RX 5500 XT in 4GB version, we tested the variant with more memory, 8GB of GDDR6. Also in this case we put on the test bench a Sapphire Pulse model, identical in all respects to the 4GB version. We recall the specifications of the new AMD proposal.
The Radeon RX 5500 XT is based on one GPU call Ships 14, which has its roots in architecture Radeon DNA (RDNA). Like the other Navi cards, this one too does not support ray tracing at the moment and it has no acceleration units dedicated to technology. The graphics processor is produced with process a 7 nanometers, it has 6.4 billion transistors and supports PCIe 4.0 – the die has a size of 158 mm2, less than the 221 mm2 of the Polaris GPU of the RX 480/580 (14nm).
AMD says the performance per watt of the RX 480 is 60% better, with performance growing 12% against a 30% drop in fuel consumption. Inside the Navi 14 GPU there are 22 Compute Units, for a total of 1408 stream processors able to guarantee a computing power up to 5.2 teraflops (single precision FP32). The GPU has a base frequency of 1067 MHz, a typical frequency (Game Clock) up to 1717 MHz (the Sapphire Pulse we tested reaches 1737 MHz), while the boost frequency is 1845 MHz.
The card comes on the market with 4 or 8 GB of type memory GDDR6 which operates at 14 Gbps, connected to a 128 bit bus. As for TBP – Total Board Power – there is talk of a value of 130 watts. The 4 and 8 GB Sapphire Pulse RX 5500 XT has an 8 pin PCIe connector which however is required on all RX 5500 XT. At the rear there are three DisplayPort outputs and one HDMI.
The Radeon RX 5500 XT is proposed as a card to play very well in Full HD (1080p), where the RX 5700 series points to WQHD (1440p). The price indicated at launch by AMD is $ 169 (4GB) and $ 199 (8GB) for the United States, and these are tax-free prices. As for Italy, AMD did not give official information, but the 4GB RX 5500 XT is on the market today at around 200/210 euros, while the 8GB costs 235/250 euros.
RX 480 | RX 580 | RX 5500 XT | RX 5700 | RX 5700 XT | |
Architecture | GCN | GCN | RDNA | RDNA | RDNA |
Project | Polaris 10 | Polaris 20 | Ships 14 | Ships 10 | Ships 10 |
Productive process | 14 nm | 14 nm | 7 nm | 7 nm | 7 nm |
Transistor number | 5.7 billion | 5.7 billion | 6.4 billion | 10.3 billion | 10.3 billion |
Die size | 232 mm2 | 232 mm2 | 158 mm2 | 251 mm2 | 251 mm2 |
Compute Unit | 36 | 36 | 22 | 36 | 40 |
Stream Processor | 2304 | 2304 | 1408 | 2304 | 2560 |
Base Clock | 1120 MHz | 1257 MHz | 1607 MHz | 1465 MHz | 1605 MHz |
Game Clock | – | – | 1717 MHz | 1625 MHz | 1755 MHz |
Boost Clock | 1266 MHz | 1340 MHz | 1845 MHz | 1725 MHz | 1905 MHz |
FP32 performance | 5.8 TFLOPs | 6.17 TFLOPs | 5.2 TFLOPs | 7.95 TFLOPs | 9.75 TFLOPs |
FP16 performance | 5.8 TFLOPs | 6.17 TFLOPs | 10.4 TFLOPs | 15.9 TFLOPs | 19.5 TFLOPs |
Fill-rate texture | 182.3 GT / s | 193 GT / s | 162.4 GT / s | 248.4 GT / s | 304.8 GT / s |
ROPs | 32 | 32 | 32 | 64 | 64 |
Fill-rate pixels | 40.51 GP / s | 42.8 GP / s | 59 GP / s | 110.4 GP / s | 121.9 GP / s |
Memory | 8 GB GDDR5 | 8 GDDR5 | 4/8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 |
Memory clock | 8 Gbps | 8 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 14 Gbps |
bandwidth | 256 GB / s | 256 GB / s | 224 GB / s | 448 GB / s | 448 GB / s |
Bus | 256 bit | 256 bit | 128 bits | 256 bit | 256 bit |
TBP | 150 W | 185 W | 130 W | 180 W | 225 W |
On the market you will not see a reference card as instead happened with the RX 5700, but a host of proposals from AMD partners from brands such as ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, PowerColor, Sapphire and XFX. Even the RX 5500 XT – like many other company cards so far – is accompanied by a bundle: in this case we talk about Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and three months of Xbox Game Pass. The game is worth around 50 euros, while the Xbox Game Pass is worth around 10 euros.
To know how we test video cards you can read this article.
Processor | Intel Core i9-9900K (available here) |
Motherboard | Asus ROG Z390 Maximus XI Hero (WiFi) (available here) |
RAM | 2 × 8 GB DDR4 Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 3600 MHz (available here) |
power supply | Sharkoon Silentstorm IceWind Black 750W |
SSD | Crucial BX300 480 GB (available here) |
sink | Noctua NH-U12A (available here) |
Buffet | Dimastech Mini V1.0 |
Driver | Nvidia GeForce 441.21 WHQL AMD Radeon Adrenalin 2020 Edition (19.12.2) |
In this table, the specifications of the cards inserted within the graphs you see below. The entire Nvidia GeForce GTX 16 line, to which is added the new RX 5500 XT 4 GB, the RX 5500 XT 8 GB and the “usual” RX 590.
GTX 1660 Ti | GTX 1660 SUPER | GTX 1660 | GTX 1650 SUPER | GTX 1650 | GTX 1060 6GB | RX 5500 XT | RX 590 | |
GPU | 12nm TU116-300 | 12nm TU116-300 | 12nm TU116 | 12nm TU116 | 12nm TU117-300 | 16 nm GP106-400-A1 | 7 nm Ships 14 | 12 nm Polaris 30 |
CUDA Core | 1536 | 1408 | 1408 | 1280 | 896 | 1280 | 1408 | 2304 |
TMU | 96 | 88 | 88 | 80 | 56 | 80 | 88 | 144 |
ROPs | 48 | 48 | 48 | 32 | 32 | 48 | 32 | 32 |
Base Clock | 1500 MHz | 1530 MHz | 1530 MHz | 1530 MHz | 1485 MHz | 1506 MHz | 1607 MHz | 1469 MHz |
Boost Clock | 1770 MHz | 1785 MHz | 1785 MHz | 1725 MHz | 1665 MHz | 1709 MHz | 1845 MHz | 1545 MHz |
Memory clock | 12 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 8 Gbps | 12 Gbps | 8 Gbps | 8 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 8 Gbps |
Memory | 6GB GDDR6 | 6GB GDDR6 | 6GB GDDR5 | 4GB GDDR6 | 4GB GDDR5 | 6 GB GDDR5 | 4/8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR5 |
Memory bus | 192-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 192-bit | 128-bit | 256-bit |
bandwidth | 288 GB / s | 336 GB / s | 192 GB / s | 192 GB / s | 128 GB / s | 192.2 GB / s | 224 GB / s | 256 GB / s |
TDP | 120W | 125W | 120W | 100W | 75W | 120W | 130W | 175 W |
Suggested price in dollars (tax-free) | USD 279 | USD 229 | USD 219 | 160 USD | USD 149 | USD 299 | USD 169/199 | USD 279 |
Launch date | February 22, 2019 | October 29, 2019 | March 14, 2019 | November 22, 2019 | April 23, 2019 | 19th July 2016 | December 12, 2019 | November 15, 2018 |
According to AMD’s statements during a briefing in which we participated, the 8 GB model guarantees an average performance 10/15% higher than the 4 GB version: it goes from + 12% with Borderlands 3 with high details to + 24% with Wolfenstein II set to Ultra as you can see in the following slide. Much, however, depends on the game, the details set and the resolution.
But which video card does the RX 5500 XT collide with? The GTX 1650 SUPER from Nvidia. The goal is obviously to beat it and at the same time to make the owners of the RX 480 and GTX 970 look at this new solution as a possible update. Let’s see how the card behaved in our tests.
The 8 GB Radeon RX 5500 XT is almost 7% faster than the 4 GB version in our suite. It’s less than AMD says, but apparently we don’t have a suite of games that weighs so much on VRAM. However, some cases of excellence can be seen, such as FC New Dawn and AC Odyssey, where 8 GB give a good performance boost.
To detect noise, we placed the sound level meter 10 cm away from the central fan and perfectly perpendicular to the board. These are not absolute measurements, performed in an anechoic chamber with all the necessary precautions, but only serve to be able to give a yardstick of comparison between all the cards that we will try.
As for the RX 590, the model in our possession is the Red Devil by PowerColor. We have noticed that it consumes much more than other RX 590s, such as Sapphire Nitro +: we are talking about 40 watts more. So the gap between the other boards and the RX 590 under load is generally less wide than what it seems from our chart.
Consumption is really low, as are temperatures. The noise of the tested Sapphire Pulse RX 5500 XT 8GB is really contained, and in idle the noise produced by the computer is chargeable only to the rest of the PC components since the two fans do not run.
What about the 8 GB version of the RX 5500 XT? We had already talked about it discussing the 4 GB model and we reiterate it: in the future, you’d better focus on the 8 GB version, although at present the 4GB model is also more than valid for playing in Full HD with high details.
More memory will certainly be useful already starting from the games coming out in 2020, particularly at the end of the year when the next-gen consoles will debut and the optimized cross-platform games will increase. Recall among other things that the new consoles from Sony and Microsoft will have next-generation AMD hardware, so we should see greater compatibility of the games with Navi solutions. All this without forgetting that the Radeon Software drivers seem to give a good performance boost during the year.
Also in this case we cannot criticize Sapphire’s personalization: the card has rather compact dimensions, it does not make noise under load, consumption is low and temperatures are normal. The 8 GB RX 5500 XT typically delivers superior performance to Nvidia’s GTX 1650 SUPER, but for now the difference is not such as to cover the price difference.
The gap is wide, we are talking about 180/200 euros for the SUPER compared to 240 euros for the RX 5500 XT 8GB. We believe that the card costs 20 euros more than necessary at the moment, but it has just been presented and therefore it is right to give time to availability and prices to settle down. Should it start to drop in price, then the Radeon RX 5500 XT could become a very interesting card, potentially a best seller like the RX 580 8GB.
We therefore advise you to keep an eye on it in case your budget is around 200/220 euros and you do not have an urgent need to change your video card.
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