The AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT Review, Feat. Sapphire Pulse: Navi For 1080p
by Ryan Smith on December 12, 2019 9:00 AM ESTSynthetics
While we’ve already had our an in-depth at Navi with the launch of the RX 5700 series earlier this year, new GPUs within the family sometimes expose bottlenecks that we haven’t seen before. So our synthetic tests can help to highlight these bottlenecks, as well as any other changes that the GPU designers may have made in the process of scaling down their GPUs.
The RX 5500 XT does surprisingly well in our pixel fillrate benchmark. Even though it only has half the ROPs and half of the memory bandwidth of the more powerful RX 5700, it’s able to deliver ~79% of the pixel fillrate in this test. This is much better than I was expecting. It may be a sign that AMD’s ROP partitions aren’t seeing great scaling from 32 to 64 pixels per clock, or alternatively that AMD has made some significant efforts in keeping the RX 5500 XT from diving too hard due to its more limited resources.
Meanwhile texture fillrates are more in line with our expectations. The RX 5500 XT has 14 fewer CUs than the RX 5700 but a slightly higher clockspeed, and its results reflect that.
Our buffer compression ratios are also relatively consistent with what we’ve seen on the RX 5700 cards. AMD does have capable delta color compression technology; however it seems to struggle under intensive synthetic workloads. Under lighter workloads we see better compression ratios, but lower throughput overall.
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StrangerGuy - Friday, December 13, 2019 - link
Yeah, In Singapore a RX570 8GB is $100 and 1660S is $200. Not even sure why anyone in that price segment should bother with anything between those two.catavalon21 - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
I guess AMD wanted something in this performance band which cannot run OpenCL (at least not worth a hoot)No, I'm not over it.
CHADBOGA - Thursday, December 12, 2019 - link
Such a disappointing product. :(Now I am left with choosing between a 1660 Super and a 5700XT.
Nothing else makes any sense to me.
PeachNCream - Friday, December 13, 2019 - link
I recommend buying something that does make sense to you and makes you feel accomplished/empowered/etc. for a couple of months until your mind adjusts to the new normal and is no longer impressed by your own purchase and you begin to feel compelled to repeat. Go for it! None of us are going to turn up at your home to make comments about your computer's components.GreenReaper - Friday, December 13, 2019 - link
Speak for yourself . . .lenghui - Friday, December 13, 2019 - link
This still can't beat the value of RX570 4GB for $110-$120 (current prices on the egg). I am quote a bit disappointed with the lack of progress in value/dollar lately.AntonErtl - Friday, December 13, 2019 - link
I had hoped for a card that would form the basis for a replacement for my passively cooled Radeon HD 6770, but I guess I'll have to keep the 6770 for some more years (no, a semi-passive card that's quiet in the beginning and turns into a siren after a while does not cut it; BTDT).a5cent - Friday, December 13, 2019 - link
Until AMD supports MxGPU on these cards or on their APUs, I can't care about AMD's graphics division anymore. Intel has supported GVT-g in their iGPUs for years already.I'd instantly go with AMD if they had anything comparable.
philosofool - Friday, December 13, 2019 - link
Could we see some 1440p results in the future? For me, a $200 dollar card is always the sweetspot. My computer is not primarily a gaming device, but I really like my 27" 1440p monitor. I need to know whether a card meets my needs, not whether it would be great if I only had a different monitor.Besides, not everyone insists on 60fps or Ultra settings.
philosofool - Friday, December 13, 2019 - link
I found a review that included 1440p results. In most games, including some benched here, the 99th percentile is north of 30fps, which I consider totally playable. However, a GTX 1660 Super appears to increase its lead there: 99th percentile @ 56fps in a 12 game average.