AMD Radeon RX 560 4GB Review: 1080p Gaming On The Cheap

By Igor Wallossek, Chris Angelini
published

Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

Rise of the Tomb Raider (DirectX 12)

Image 1 of 6

Radeon RX 560 is undoubtedly faster than its predecessor in Rise of the Tomb Raider, but only by about 5%. Clearly, piling on an additional 128 Stream processors and eight texture units doesn’t result in the kind of scaling we’ve seen in other games, even though we might expect two extra CUs to have a bigger impact.

After all, Radeon RX 560 has the same SE count, ROP count, and memory bandwidth as RX 550. But it only beats that configuration by 52% using 2x the Compute Units at higher clock rates. The RX 570 pushes average frame rates up 78% more by doubling the Shader Engine, Compute Unit, ROP count, and memory bandwidth.

AMD’s less than perfect scaling opens the door for Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1050 2GB to best the RX 560 (on paper—again, they basically tie). The GTX 1050 Ti builds from there, averaging 15%-higher frame rates than Radeon RX 560.


MORE: Best Graphics Cards


MORE: Desktop GPU Performance Hierarchy Table


MORE: All Graphics Content

Igor Wallossek
25 Comments Comment from the forums
  • firerod1
    Cute the price of the 560 by 20$ than it will work.
    Reply
  • RomeoReject
    Cutting it by $20 would make it a $100 card. They'd likely be losing money at that price point.
    Reply
  • firerod1
    20235344 said:
    Cutting it by $20 would make it a $100 card. They'd likely be losing money at that price point.

    I meant this card since it’s 1050 ti price while offering 1050 performance.
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    ...we couldn’t wait to see how Radeon RX 560 improved upon it.

    Is that why you waited almost half a year to review the card? :3
    Reply
  • shrapnel_indie
    20235672 said:
    ...we couldn’t wait to see how Radeon RX 560 improved upon it.

    Is that why you waited almost half a year to review the card? :3

    Did you read the review?

    At the beginning of the conclusion:
    The pace at which new hardware hit our lab this summer meant we couldn’t review all of AMD’s Radeon RX 500-series cards consecutively.
    Reply
  • Wisecracker
    4GB on the Radeon RX 560 = "Mining Card"

    The minimal arch (even with the extra CUs) can't use 4GB for gaming like the big brother 570. The 2GB RX 560 even trades blows with its 4GB twin, along with the 2GB GTX 1050, at the $110-$120 price point for the gamer bunch.

    Leave the RX 560 4GB for the "Entrepreneurial Capitalist" crowd ...

    Reply
  • bit_user
    I think your power dissipation for the 1050 Ti is wrong. While I'm sure some OC'd model use more, there are 1050 Ti's with 75 W TDP.

    Also, I wish the RX 560 came in a low-profile version, like the RX 460 did (and the GTX 1050 Ti does). This excludes it from certain applications. It's the most raw compute available at that price & power dissipation.
    Reply
  • senzffm123
    correct, i got one of those 1050 TI with 75 W TDP in my rig, doesnt have a power connector as well. hell of a card!
    Reply
  • turkey3_scratch
    My RX 460 I bought for $120 back in the day (well, not that far back). There were some for $90 I remember, too. Seems like just an RX 460. Well, it is basically an RX 460.
    Reply
  • jdwii
    Man Amd what is up with your GPU division for the first time ever letting Nvidia walk all over you in performance per dollar, performance per watt and overall performance, this is very sad.

    Whatever Amd is doing with their architecture and leadership in the GPU division needs to change. I can't even think of a time 2 years ago and before where nvidia ever offered a better value.
    Reply