Today AMD announced their Radeon RX 5500 series graphics products that harness the power of their new RDNA architecture. The Radeon RX 5500 series graphics cards will feature a desktop PC version as well as a 5500m model for notebooks.
“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.”
Features
- Radeon™ Image Sharpening (RIS)5 – 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-Lag6 – Anti-Lag significantly decreases input-to-display response times, including making Borderlands 3 up to 23 percent more responsive7 with Radeon™ RX 5500 series graphics and offering a competitive edge in gameplay.
- Largest gaming display ecosystem8 –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 technology10.
Radeon™ RX 5500 Series
| Model | Compute Units | Stream Processors | TFLOPS | GDDR6 (GB) | Game Clock11 (MHz) | Boost Clock12 (MHz) | Memory Interface |
| Radeon™ RX 5500M GPU (For Mobile Systems) | 22 | 1,408 | Up to 4.6 | 4GB | Up to 1,448 | Up to 1,645 | 128-bit |
| Radeon™ RX 5500 series (For Desktop Systems) | 22 | 1,408 | Up to 5.2 | Up to 8GB | Up to 1,717 | Up to 1,845 | 128-bit |
Both models feature 22 compute units and 1408 stream processors with the notebook version having up to 4gb of GDDR6 memory while the desktop version will have up to 8gb of GDDR6 memory. The boost clock will also vary a bit as the mobile version will boost up to 1645MHz, while the desktop version will be able to boost as high as 1845MHz.
Availability
Later this month, MSI is expected to launch the MSI Alpha 15 laptop, powered by Radeon™ RX 5500M GPUs. In addition, Radeon™ RX 5500 graphics cards are expected to be available in leading desktop gaming systems beginning in November 2019, including HP’S OMEN Obelisk and Pavilion Gaming desktops, as well as 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. AMD board partners are expected to launch standalone graphics cards this quarter (Q4 2019).
Ever since the mining craze, a couple of years ago, gamers have been forced to pay more and more for their graphics cards. It began first with the shortage due to the mining boom and then again later when companies realized people are willing to pay any price to get their hands on the hardware that powers their gaming habits.
I suspect these cards are aimed at those of us who need the power but are on a budget and can’t afford the ever-growing price of the ‘mid-ranged’ graphics card.