AMD Radeon RX 5500 Crushes the GeForce GTX 1650, According to AMD's Numbers

(Image credit: AMD)

A Redditor somehow managed to uncover the marketing materials for the Radeon RX 5500 gaming graphics card. The documents, which date back to October 2019, are hosted on AMD's Marketing Asset Resource System (MARS), so they are as legit as they come.

The first bit of interesting information lies with AMD's product stack. The chipmaker has placed the Radeon RX 5500 in the Performance category, which we don't necessarily agree with. However, the big surprise here is that the Polaris-based models, such as the Radeon RX 570, RX 580, and RX 590 are absent in the lineup. Strangely enough, the Radeon RX 560 is still listed. The dismissal of the three aforementioned models could be an indication that AMD is preparing to replace them with new Navi products.

In addition to the Radeon RX 5500 and RX 5500M, there are three more AMD graphics cards that can potentially employ a variant of the Navi 14 die. One of them is obviously the Radeon RX 5500 XT, while the other two could be the Radeon RX 5300 and RX 5300M. 

If (or when) the Radeon RX 5500 XT launches, it'll probably slide into the same tier as the non-XT variant. AMD still hasn't reveal the Radeon RX 5500's pricing yet. However, the chipmaker did state that it's competing against the GeForce GTX 1650. The GeForce GTX 1650 retails for $149, so we can only assume AMD will price the Radeon RX 5500 similarly. The Radeon RX 5700 retails for $349, meaning there would be a $200 gap between it and the Radeon RX 5500. AMD could fill that gap with the Radeon RX 5500 XT.

AMD made it clear during the Radeon RX 5500's announcement that it would be getting into the ring with the GeForce GTX 1650. Therefore, it doesn't come as a surprise that the chipmaker would compare both graphics cards in the Radeon RX 5500's 'How to Sell' guide. As with any internal testing, we'll need to approach the performance results with caution.

According to AMD's results, Radeon RX 5500 seemingly delivers 49% more performance in AAA titles and 37% more performance in popular eSports titles in comparison to the GeForce GTX 1650. There's a good chance that AMD created the document before the GeForce GTX 1650 Super's release. The GeForce GTX 1650 Super will arrive with significant improvements, including 384 more CUDA cores and the upgrade from 8 GB/s GDDR5 memory to 12 GB/s GDDR6 memory. So, it'll be mighty interesting to see whether the Radeon RX 5500 can outperform the GeForce GTX 1650 Super.

Even though AMD has already announced the Radeon RX 5500, we still don't have a concrete date when they will hit the market. On the contrary, Nvidia has confirmed that the GeForce GTX 1650 Super will arrive on November 22, a little less than two weeks from today.

Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • King_V
    There's a bit that says: "There's a good chance that AMD created the document before the GeForce GTX 1650 Super's release." but the link is to the 1660 Super review.

    Following sentence is: "The GeForce GTX 1650 Super will arrive with significant improvements, including 384 more CUDA cores and the upgrade from 8 GB/s GDDR5 memory to 12 GB/s GDDR6 memory."

    I think the 1650 Super is meant to be launched in late November, if I'm not mistaken. That first sentence that I quoted is therefore confusing/misleading. That paragraph needs to be looked over and edited.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    So low middle range is coming, maybe in the undefined future.
    heh... but good to get new architecture to that segment too,
    Interesting to see the power balance after these releases.
    Reply
  • srimasis
    Who gives a crap about Gtx1650? The real comparison of Rx5500 should be with Rx570. As of now, an Rx570 costs about 120$. So if AMD wants a winner GPU, Rx5500 should cost about 150$ and give performance better than Rx570.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    If the 5500 is supposed to replace the 570/580/590, then I hope we'll see 8GB variants. 4GB is getting a little tight.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    srimasis said:
    Who gives a crap about Gtx1650? The real comparison of Rx5500 should be with Rx570. As of now, an Rx570 costs about 120$. So if AMD wants a winner GPU, Rx5500 should cost about 150$ and gives performance better than Rx570.

    Eventually... I am sure that 570 and 580 will remain cheaper than 5500 untill almost all 570 and 580 has been sold. Everything else would be bad economical choise...
    Untill that 570 and 580 will remain superior option.
    Reply
  • King_V
    srimasis said:
    Who gives a crap about Gtx1650? The real comparison of Rx5500 should be with Rx570. As of now, an Rx570 costs about 120$. So if AMD wants a winner GPU, Rx5500 should cost about 150$ and gives performance better than Rx570.

    I would agree - though the 1650 Super, depending on its performance, could throw this equation completely off.

    hannibal said:
    Eventually... I am sure that 570 and 580 will remain cheaper than 5500 untill almost all 570 and 580 has been sold. Everything else would be bad economical choise...
    Untill that 570 and 580 will remain superior option.

    Agreed - the 5500 will be released, but might be in an odd position. If it performs like the 570 or the 580 (or 590?), it would be good, but if it's priced competitively with the 5x0 cards (and I imagine it would be to compete against Nvidia in that tier), then the Polaris cards would naturally have their prices driven downward, until supplies dry up. Might be a while, though, since seems like there's a still a plentiful supply of Polaris cards.
    Reply
  • revengeyo
    AMD fails again
    They compare it to gtx1650 😂
    I bet the RX5500 can barely keep up with RX 470 reference. Tech from 2016 😂

    Reply
  • Olle P
    srimasis said:
    Who gives a crap about Gtx1650? The real comparison of Rx5500 should be with Rx570.
    Assuming the RX 570 get discontinued it's just about uninteresting.
    As I wrote in another thread the GTX 1650 is very interesting to those that don't have a PCIe power connector. The RX 5500 just seems too power hungry!
    I was hoping for a better power to performance ratio, but it will still be interesting to see how well it actually perform once available.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    InvalidError said:
    If the 5500 is supposed to replace the 570/580/590, then I hope we'll see 8GB variants. 4GB is getting a little tight.

    Agreed. 4GB is barely enough for 1080P gaming. I can think of plenty of titles that love more VRAM.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    jimmysmitty said:
    Agreed. 4GB is barely enough for 1080P gaming. I can think of plenty of titles that love more VRAM.
    Increasing resolution while leaving everything else the same has relatively little impact on VRAM usage. The bulk of it is consumed by having more higher resolution textures and models - newer games put more stuff on-screen in general, that extra stuff gets incrementally more detailed and more varied even at lower detail levels, and all of it has to be stored somewhere.

    At least there are no 2-3GB models... yet.
    Reply