Article [TechPowerUp] Radeon RX 5500 Review

[TheRookie]

TechPowerUp has posted review of the Radeon RX 5500

AMD Radeon RX 5500 Review

The RX 5500 Navi is AMD's ambitious attempt to disrupt the sub-$200 graphics card market just as the RX 5700 series did to the sub-$400 market, bringing in much needed competition. It won't be easy as NVIDIA tried to preempt it with the GTX 1650 Super and GTX 1660 Super.

www.techpowerup.com

summary:

 

[Qwertilot]

Presumably still short of, say, the corresponding NV laptop parts on perf/watt or they'd surely be doing it to chase the gaming laptop market.

 

[AtenRa]

If the price is close to $150, then yes. That 1650 Super really is, for the price.

Im talking technically, same amount of transistors vs TU116 with a process advantage and you cannot at least have the same perf at lower power ???
If the performance and power draw is what we see in the TPU review then this is a complete technical failure.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

A 32 CU cut down Navi 10 with RX5700 clocks (or slightly lower) would likely be a supremely power-efficient card with very good performance. ~RTX 2060 performance might be feasible with a single 6-pin pcie connector (<=150w) given that the lower clocks will allow AMD to take a hacksaw to the load voltages and be more in the sweetspot of the 7nm process.

Such a card will also likely piss on Navi 14 in perf/w, so maybe that's why there hasn't been any such thing from AMD.

-Navi 10 is already a very compact die @ ~250mm2 and very price/performance competitive with it's NV counterparts.

I doubt there are hordes of defective dies out there to launch a line from, and the current dies are likely selling well enough as is.

Might be loads of unsold Vega inventory out there prices in the $200-300 range, but at some point AMD has to acknowledge that no one wants a Vega card anymore and just swallow the write off.

Edited for the right piece of silicon.

 

[AtenRa]

-Navi 14 is already a very compact die @ ~250mm2 and very price/performance competitive with it's NV counterparts.

I doubt there are hordes of defective dies out there to launch a line from, and the current dies are likely selling well enough as is.

Might be loads of unsold Vega inventory out there prices in the $200-300 range, but at some point AMD has to acknowledge that no one wants a Vega card anymore and just swallow the write off.

NAVI 14 is just 158mm2, its the NAVI 10 that is 251mm2

 

[SPBHM]

kind of sad that this segment isn't really looking all that amazing against the RX 480 and 1060 from all those years ago

 

[mohit9206]

kind of sad that this segment isn't really looking all that amazing against the RX 480 and 1060 from all those years ago

3 and half years since RX480 launched at $199 and now similar performance at $149 with RX5500. That isn't too bad but not great either. But i'll still take this over the over inflated mining craze prices where RX480 class cards were selling for $400+

 

[Guru]

Are OEM GPUs, these days, really all that different than retail (with reference clocks?). I'm not talking retail "OC" models, sure, those might be a few percentage-points better.

But are OEM cards intentionally degraded somehow? Why should we EXPECT results for "retail" cards to differ. Honest question.

Edit: No-one posted performance-per-watt graphs for the RX 5500? Those had better be out of this world, for the premium on this card to make any sense whatsoever.

(See release of GTX 750 ti, at the time.)

It's not the same. OEM's tend to have the weaker power slots, they tend to have weaker coolers, they tend to be clocked lower. OEM version might have 1x 6pin pci-e , while the retail might have 1x 8pin pci-e, it gets better custom coolers and higher clocks. So all that accounts for higher boost clocks and longer boost clocks.

We are likely looking at about 4-5% performance difference between the OEM and retail version of the card. Still nothing major, its still the same card, but at $150 it will be better value than a GTX 1650super.

As far as pricing I think AMD didn't reveal the price for this reason, they wanted to see where Nvidia position their 1650super.

 

[jpiniero]

but at $150 it will be better value than a GTX 1650super.

It's not gonna sell at $150. It'd have to be less. That's why I think AMD didn't announce a price, they were reserving the right to cancel the retail release if the prices didn't work for them based upon what nVidia did.

 

[Guru]

It's not gonna sell at $150. It'd have to be less. That's why I think AMD didn't announce a price, they were reserving the right to cancel the retail release if the prices didn't work for them based upon what nVidia did.

GTX 1650 is $160 and against the OEM version is about 3-5% faster. With better cooling, bit higher boost clocks and probably better power delivery the retail version is likely to reduce that already small number and probably be on exactly the same overall performance.

The more important thing is that the RX 5500 is more future proof as it has better DX12 and Vulkan performance across the board, with the exception of 1 or 2 games where its the same.

So at $150 I see it as a better value, unless of course you are one of those never AMD'ers who always pay Nvidia premium tax for the green sticker.

 

[jpiniero]

The ref model looks like it has an adequate cooler and 8-pin power. I doubt AIBs will be able to do much better. What would be better is if it was the fully enabled die.

 

[guachi]

I'm not so much disappointed in this release as I am surprised that the 1650 Super is a worthwhile release compared to the terrible 1650.

Even so, the performance is so weak it sooner recommend getting a used 480/570/580/1060/1070 or whatever.

 

[gorobei]

there are 8gb versions coming with possibly better performance

Gigabyte and MSI appear to be readying Radeon RX 5500 XT with 8GB GDDR6

There's still some mystery involving AMD's Radeon RX 5500 series.

www.pcgamer.com

the main issue is that we're approaching 1080p >60fps ultra settings on single gpu 8pin power. the jump to 4k medium on a mainstream chip is more than a 7nm shrink can handle without a major rethink in basic game engine design.

until we get multiple gpu chiplets on a single die/substrate we arent going to see 4k performance at mainstream prices.