AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT - An Updated RX580?
After spreading its well-trained muscles in the CPU category, AMD tries to impose itself on the other market that it activates: video cards. Today we are going to talk about the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, a video card that should compete with NVIDIA's GTX Super series and is targeting gaming at 1080p resolution with 60 frames per second. But will AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT deliver the promised performance?
What is AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT?
Where NVIDIA has boards like the RTX 2080 and RTX 2070 in the high-end and enthusiast segment, Radeon is trying to offer the RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT as powerful video card proposals that will give you high resolutions and stable frame rates. What AMD did not release, however, was a budget video card, which would offer new technologies and improvements brought by RDNA architecture, but the situation has just changed.
The RX 5500 XT is a budget video card, which falls within the range of $150-$200 and comes in two variants, one with 4GB and another with 8GB. Specifications worth mentioning are the 7nm manufacturing process which ensures good performance while consumption and thermal efficiency are more than decent and the fact that it supports PCI-Express 4.0, the bus introduced exclusively by AMD with the launch of the X570 platform and 5700 and 5700 XT video cards.
Let’s have a look at some performance tests for the RX 5500 XT
Our sample is a Sapphire Pulse RX 5500 XT 4GB variant, which uses a classic cooling system consisting of a rather stiff heatsink, the cooling of which is carried to two fans mounted on top of it. All this assembly is encased in a housing that covers both the front plate and the back, with a custom backplate, specific to this distribution.
Unfortunately, compared to the Pulse editions of the older generation or high-end models, we have no RGB on this board. Even if some of you are happy with this aspect, it never hurts to have a few lights around here. Note that the board requires an 8-pin power adapter to be able to turn it on.
The AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT is a video card that aims to deliver enjoyable gaming experiences at FullHD resolution. This means that 1080/60p gaming should not be a problem, AMD argues that in eSports titles we can see even 90+ FPS. For testing these claims we used the following games: Gears of War 5, Borderlands 3, Forza Horizon 4 and FiFa 2020. So without further talking here are the results:
Seeing these results we could say from the start that it's not worth it, or that the RX 5500 XT is a bad video card, but it would be a lie. Yes, it does not offer the same performance as the NVIDIA GTX 1660 Super (more on the GTX 1660 Super later in the next review), but the price is not the same and I think not the Ultra settings at 1080p should be the main purpose of this board, but Medium, a preset that combines visual quality with performance and offers an ok experience from any perspective.
Another aspect that the RX 5500 XT has as an advantage over NVIDIA is the support for FreeSync, a technology that we find easily integrated in almost every gaming monitor (and not only) on the market. This means that whether the video card can deliver 100FPS or below 60, the monitor will manage to synchronize its refresh rate with the game's framerate, so you won't feel the difference.
Conclusion: Is the Radeon RX 5000XT worth the money?
We can't answer this question, but you are able to get an answer, depending on what your needs, budget or preferences are. The Radeon RX 5500 XT, at least from our point of view, is just a RX 580 from 2017, which has been updated to the newest technologies emerging in the meantime, and the only real benefits are on the power consumption and noise side.
For the same amount of money, the Green Team offers the GeForce GTX 1650 Super 4GB, which offers roughly the same specifications, with the performance being similar or slightly lower than the AMD board. The only real problem that the RX 5500 XT faces is not the GTX 1650 Super, but the GTX 1660 Super, a board that is only $40 away in price while offering a significant difference in the performance department.
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