A few months after AMD released their Radeon RX 5700 XT that is geared towards the mid-range and 1440p gaming market; the company recently released their new graphics card targeting the entry level or 1080p gaming market – the AMD Radeon RX 5500 Series GPUs. The new entry level GPUs include an RX 5500 series for desktop and a Radeon RX 5500M GPU for mobile systems. These new GPUs will combat NVIDIA’s existing GTX 1600 series GPUs. Interestingly there are reports claiming that NVIDIA will launch a “Super” variant of the GTX 1600 series to combat AMD’s RX 5500 GPU. The new RX 5500 GPU series is also based on AMD’s new RDNA architecture, with features similar to what the RX 5700 series offers. You can check out more details and some performance comparison from the slides and official news below.
AMD Radeon RX 5500 GPU Series for 1080p Gaming
AMD announced the Radeon™ RX 5500 series graphics products, harnessing groundbreaking RDNA gaming architecture to deliver the ultimate in high-performance, high-fidelity 1080p gaming.
The AMD Radeon™ RX 5500 series includes the Radeon™ RX 5500 graphics card that will be available in desktop PCs from leading manufacturers and graphics cards from board partners, as well as the Radeon™ RX 5500M GPU for notebook PCs. Top system providers worldwide are embracing the new products, with HP and Lenovo™ planning to offer Radeon™ RX 5500 graphics cards in their high-performance desktop gaming PCs beginning this November, and Acer planning to offer systems with the cards beginning this December. In addition, later this month MSI is expected to launch the world’s first gaming notebook powered by AMD Ryzen™ processors and Radeon™ RX 5500M GPUs.
“Based on feedback and insights from global gaming communities, gamers rank graphics as the most critical component for speed and performance,” said Johnson Jia, senior vice president and general manager, Consumer Business of Intelligent Devices Group, Lenovo. “That’s why the Lenovo Legion™ T730 and T530 gaming towers and the IdeaCentre™ T540 Gaming desktop pack in AMD’s latest Radeon™ RX graphics – satisfying players’ need for high-fidelity visuals and lightning-fast framerates to fully immerse into their gameplay.”
“MSI Alpha 15 is a new chapter for us, and we’re excited to partner with AMD to combine the latest 7nm technology found in the Radeon™ RX 5500M GPU and MSI’s gaming DNA for our gamers,” said Charles Chiang, CEO of MSI.
Based on AMD’s slide above, the Radeon RX 5500 desktop graphics card offers up to 37% more performance than NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1650.
This time with the Radeon RX 5500M mobile GPU, it offers up to 30% more performance than the GTX 1650 mobile GPU. It’s clear that AMD is targeting eSports title and 1080p gaming resolution with these new GPUs.
With the newest additions to the Radeon™ family, AMD is bringing its advanced RDNA gaming architecture and industry-leading 7nm process technology to legions of mainstream gamers worldwide in exciting new form factors and systems. Powered by RDNA, the Radeon™ RX 5500 provides up to 1.6X higher gaming performance-per-watt than current Radeon™ graphics cards based on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture.
The AMD Radeon™ RX 5500 series was built from the ground up to deliver incredible 1080p gaming, high-fidelity visuals and ultra-responsive gameplay. Optimized to deliver incredible experiences on the hottest games, the Radeon™ RX 5500 graphics card provides up to 37 percent faster performance on average than the competitive product in select titles at 1080p. For mobile gaming, a laptop configured with the Radeon™ RX 5500M GPU provides up to 30 percent faster performance on average than the competition, and delivers up to 60+ FPS in select AAA titles and up to 90+ FPS in select eSports games.
“It’s been incredible to see the response to our RDNA architecture from gamers worldwide, and now we’re bringing the same high-framerate, dynamic gameplay and advanced features to 1080p gaming with the Radeon™ RX 5500 series,” said Scott Herkelman, corporate vice president and general manager, Radeon Technologies Group at AMD. “AMD is committed to delivering incredible gaming experiences to all gamers across all price-points. Whether fighting the Calypso twins in Borderlands 3 or battling to take back Auroa in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon® Breakpoint, the Radeon™ RX 5500 series allows every gamer to feel fully immersed and lose themselves in these beautiful and complex worlds.”
Built on industry-leading 7nm process technology and supporting high-bandwidth PCIe® 4.0 technology, the new AMD Radeon™ products take advantage of powerful features to bring 1080p gameplay to the next level, including:
- Radeon™ Image Sharpening (RIS) – Brings crispness and clarity to in-game visuals that have been softened by upscaling and post-process effects in DirectX® 9, 12 and Vulkan® titles. When paired with Radeon™ GPU upscaling, RIS enables sharp visuals and fluid frame rates on high-resolution displays.
- AMD FidelityFX – Offers an open-source toolkit for game developers to add high-quality post-process effects to help make games look beautiful while offering the optimal balance of visual fidelity and performance. Available on GPUOpen, FidelityFX features Contrast-Adaptive Sharpening (CAS), which draws out detail in low-contrast areas while minimizing artifacts caused by typical image sharpening routines.
- Radeon™ Anti-Lag – Anti-Lag significantly decreases input-to-display response times, including making Borderlands 3 up to 23 percent more responsive with Radeon™ RX 5500 series graphics and offering a competitive edge in gameplay.
- Largest gaming display ecosystem – With over 950 supported monitors to choose from, gamers can enjoy stutter-free, tear-free gameplay with AMD Radeon FreeSync™9 and Radeon FreeSync™ 2 HDR technology.
AMD Radeon RX 5500 GPU Series Specifications
AMD Radeon ‘Raise the Game’ Bundle
The new Radeon™ RX 5500 series are included in the latest AMD Radeon Raise the Game bundle, offering gamers their choice of Borderlands 3 or Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon® Breakpoint with the purchase of eligible pre-configured desktop and notebook systems powered by Radeon™ RX 5500 and RX 5500M graphics. Learn more here.
AMD Radeon RX 5500 Pricing and Availability
MSI is expected to launch the MSI Alpha 15 laptop, powered by Radeon RX 5500M GPUs. Meanwhile the RX 5500 graphics cards will be available in desktop gaming system beginning in November 2019; these includes gaming the HP OMEN Obelisk and Pavilion gaming desktops, and Lenovo Legion T530 and IdeaCentre T540 Gaming PCs. The Radeon RX 5500 graphics cards are expected to be available in Acer Nitro 50 PCs beginning in December 2019.
Finally AMD mentioned that board partners are expected to launch standalone graphics cards this quarter (Q4 2019). That’s a very vague release date if you ask me. We could be custom RX 5500 by November or December 2019. AMD is currently silent when it comes to the price of the new RX 5500 (XT) graphics cards. But we expect that it would be north of $100 and just below the $200 USD price range.
