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AMD Expects The Radeon RX 5500 To Dominate Nvidia GTX 1650 With 37 Percent Higher FPS

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Today AMD unveiled the Radeon RX 5500, a new mid-range GPU designed for 1080p gamers, and clearly targeting Nvidia’s GTX 1650 as its competition. During a briefing earlier this month, AMD projected that its new RX 5500 will beat the GTX 1650 by up to 37% in e-sports titles, and that its mobile variant (the RX 5500M) boasts up to 30% higher framerates in AAA games versus Nvidia’s mobile equivalent.

As you would expect, however, these pre-release estimates come with some caveats. And there seems to be some cherry-picking in the mix.

Radeon RX 5500 Crucial Specs:

Like the RX 5700 series, the RX 5500 is built on a 7nm process using AMD’s new RDNA architecture. That means a smaller die size and an estimated 1.7x better performance-per-area and 1.6x better performance-per-watt versus the RX 480.

But as I alluded to, AMD is launching both a desktop version and a mobile version of the Radeon RX 5500. Here are the specs for each:

Early 1080p eSports Benchmarks: RX 5500

The first bright spot in the chart below is that popular eSports titles like Fortnite, Apex Legends, PUBG, Overwatch and Rainbow Six Siege (allegedly) run at 90 FPS or better. And all tests were done using High or Ultra quality settings.

AMD’s slide during the press briefing brags about “up to” 37% faster expected performance versus the GTX 1650, however the Overwatch result tells a different story: that gap actually represents a 51% higher framerate which certainly warrants some real-world testing.

This isn’t a case of AMD placing the majority of that claim on one title, either. Of the games tested here, the smallest performance advantage over the GTX 1650 is 26% and the average is 37%. Not too shabby!

Early AAA Gaming Benchmarks: RX 5500M

The next chart shifts to more graphically demanding games – and to AMD’s mobile RX 5500M GPU.

Here, AMD battles Nvidia’s GTX 1650 Max-Q on a similarly specced laptop with a Ryzen 7 3750H CPU; except for the fact that the Radeon-equipped laptop has 32GB of DDR4 RAM, while the Nvidia equivalent only has 8GB. Gotta read that fine print, folks!

Still, the disparity in system memory shouldn’t make a sizeable difference.

Also note that both cards have a 128-bit memory bus and 4GB of video memory; although the RX 5500M packs GDDR6 as opposed to GDDR5 inside the GTX 1650 Max-Q.

It’s worth pointing out that Borderlands 3, World War Z and The Division 2 are all AMD-partnered titles, and DICE’s Frostbite engine (Battlefield V) has long shown a preference for Radeon hardware. So in this particular benchmark suite, the cards are decidedly stacked in AMD’s favor.

In fairness, these wins can also be attributed to a slightly higher board power and higher GPU clock speeds.

MSI Alpha 15 Laptop

Interestingly, one of the first products we may see on retail shelves is the MSI Alpha 15 laptop boasting the RX 5500M, a 144Hz IPS panel and a Ryzen 7 3750H. It looks like a solid machine, and it’s encouraging to see a flagship laptop like this that’s all-AMD; something that the continued success of Ryzen surely attributes to.

The MSI Alpha 15 will start at $999.

A Paper Launch

As opposed to the RX 5700 Series launch, the RX 5500 Series is very much a paper launch. We only have an October release window for the MSI Alpha 15, and a promise that Acer, HP and Lenovo will also be releasing RX 5500 series laptops and desktops, but details are scarce at publication time.

Beyond that, we’ll see the usual assortment of AIB (board partner) cards hitting the streets, but no reference designs from AMD this time around. And no specific details yet about those board partner products.

The biggest question is price. The competitive benchmarks are strong versus Nvidia’s GTX 1650, but those are somewhat less persuasive without having a price tag. And Nvidia may have a GTX 1660 Super waiting in the wings.

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