AMD Radeon RX 5500 gets 7nm Navi and GDDR6 memory

Today AMD announces a new mid-range solution for desktop and mobile markets. The RX 5500 series will feature three SKUs: the RX 5500M, RX 5500 and RX 5500 XT. Not once, does AMD mention the XT variant in the presentation, yet that’s what the SERIES would indicate.

Throughout the presentation, AMD compares its new graphics card to Radeon RX 480 and GeForce GTX 1650. The RX 5500 is meant to be better than both. In the footnotes, we learn that the card used for this comparison is the RX 5500 4GB. Therefore, we assume that the XT variant will share the specs with a non-XT variant, with an exception of higher memory capacity (8 GB).

The RX 5500 series will be the first Radeon mid-range cards to feature GDDR6 memory. A combination of 8GB G6 and 128-bit bus has never been used in consumer graphics before, but thanks to the higher GDDR6 specs, the maximum theoretical bandwidth will reach 224 GB/s, just 32 Gb/s short of RX 580’s bandwidth.

AMD has not confirmed the Navi variant used by RX 5500 series, but the speculation points towards Navi 14. This is a new chip with a die area of 158 mm2. Thanks to the 7nm fabrication process this should translate into higher power efficiency than the Polaris series (AMD claims the RX 5500 provides 1.6X performance per Watt over RX 480). It’s worth adding that the chip has more transistors than Polaris 10 (6.4B vs 5.7B).

This GPU will sport 1408 Stream Processors (22 Compute Units) for all variants of the RX 5500 series (including the mobile version). The boost clock will be lower than RX 5700’s at 1845 MHz, but the memory speed should be the same (14 Gbps).

AMD promises that RX 5500 series will be available this quarter, but no date was given, neither was the pricing.

AMD Radeon RX 5000 Series VideoCardz.com RX 5700 XT RX 5700 RX 5500 GPU 7nm Navi 10 XT 7nm Navi 10 XL 7nm Navi 14 XL (TBC) Die Size 251 mm2 / 10.3B tran. 251 mm2 / 10.3B tran. 158 mm2 / 6.4B tran Stream Processors 2560 2304 1408 Game Clock 1755 MHz 1625 MHz up to 1717 MHz Boost Clock 1905 MHz 1725 MHz up to 1845 MHz Memory Speed 14 Gbps 14 Gbps 14 Gbps Memory 8GB GDDR6 8GB GDDR6 4GB GDDR6 Memory Bus 256-bit 256-bit 128-bit Max. Bandwidth 448 GB/s 448 GB/s 224 GB/s Interface PCI-Express 4.0 PCI-Express 4.0 PCI-Express 4.0

AMD Radeon RX 5500 4GB performance

Desktop version

Note: the slide does not mention the resolution for this comparison (not even in the footnotes).

AMD Radeon RX 5500 vs RX 480 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 VideoCardz.com Radeon RX 5500 4GB Radeon RX 480 8GB GeForce GTX 1650 4GB Gears 5 92 79 61 Borderlands 3 82 69 61 Ghost Recon Breakpoint 60 49 47 Ryzen 5 3600X, 16GB DDR4-3200, Win10 Pro

AMD Radeon RX 5500 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 (1080p) VideoCardz.com Radeon RX 5500 4GB GeForce GTX 1650 4GB Fortnite (High) 90 71 Apex Legends (Ultra High) 93 68 PUBG (High) 99 76 World of Warcraft (10) 115 85 Overwatch (EPIC) 135 89 Rainbow Six Siege (Ultra) 173 125 Radeon 7 3800X, 16GB DDR4-3200, Win10 Pro

Mobile version

AMD Radeon RX 5500M vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile (1080p) VideoCardz.com Radeon RX 5500M 4GB GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile 4GB Monster Hunter World (High) 61 47 Borderlands 3 (Medium) 65 57 The Division 2 (High) 70 55 Sid Meier’s Civilization 6 (Ultra) 71 56 World War Z (Ultra) 78 51 Battlefield 5 (Ultra) 79 55 World of Warcraft (BFZ) (10) 90 68 PUBG (Medium) 91 74 Apex Legends (Medium) 96 77 Ryzen 7 3750H, 32GB DDR4 (AMD); Ryzen 7 3750H, 8GB DDR4 (NVIDIA)

A reference design of RX 5500

AMD is allegedly not planning to launch it for the public. The RX 5500 will stick to custom designs, which were not unveiled yet.

What’s missing in the presentation:

The GPU Variant (Navi 14?).

Pricing.

Release date.

Custom models.

The difference between XT and non-XT variants.

Something to actually be excited about?