AMD Radeon RX 5500 performance is almost on par with RX 580
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AMD Radeon RX 5500 performance is almost on par with RX 580

The AMD Radeon RX 5500 performs nearly as well as the RX 580 while using less power. But the GTX 1660 is faster and even more efficient. Expect prices under $200.

This setup makes the new card highly appealing. However, there's a slight catch. While its power consumption is noticeably lower than the Radeon RX 580 (133W vs. 208W), NVIDIA's closest competitor consumes even less—just 128W—and delivers slightly better performance.

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Spec-wise, the Radeon RX 5500 features 1408 stream processors, 88 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. Its Navi 14 GPU runs at a 1670 MHz base clock, 1717 MHz in game mode, and boosts to 1845 MHz. The card delivers 5.99 TFLOPs of compute power and comes with up to 8GB of 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, offering a theoretical bandwidth of around 224 GB/s. The RX 5500's TDP is 110W, and its price is expected to stay under $200.

While the Radeon RX 5500 isn't officially available for purchase yet, our colleagues at heise.de managed to get their hands on an HP pre-built PC featuring an OEM version of the RX 5500 for testing:

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Scores, higher is better
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Frames per second, higher is better
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Frames per second, higher is better

Based on these quick tests, it's clear the Radeon RX 5500 nearly matches the RX 580's performance with significantly lower power draw. However, its rival from the green team, the GTX 1660, still comes out ahead, and it's even slightly more efficient than AMD's new card.

Admittedly, this comparison isn't entirely fair, as AMD positioned the RX 5500 series against the GTX 1650, not the GTX 1660. Still, we can't fault heise.de's choice; the exact rival card might simply not have been available in their lab when they tested the OEM RX 5500.

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Ultimately, we'll only know which card offers better value once official pricing is released. Rumors suggest the 4GB Radeon RX 5500 could cost $130, while the 8GB RX 5500 XT might go for $150.

Sources: WccfTech, Heise