Announced back in October, the Radeon RX 5500 XT is launching today along with several custom variants from AMD's board partners. While the Radeon RX 5700 series targets the upper $300 US+ segment, the Radeon RX 5500 series targets the $150-$200 US segment which brings AMD back in the most crucial graphics market, the budget segment.
The Radeon RX 5500 series uplifts AMD by bringing a modern architecture design and moving away from its GCN design featured on the Polaris GPUs. This allows AMD to bring more streamlined graphics performance in modern workloads and gaming titles. AMD was already ahead of the curve in utilizing new techs such as HBM and smaller process nodes and Navi is no exception. Aside from the new graphics architecture, AMD has also introduced GDDR6 memory and a smaller 7nm process node for their mainstream lineup which is a big update from the 14nm process on Polaris and Vega series cards.
While the Radeon RX 5500 series cards bring new technologies and features to the segment, the tech itself doesn't come cheap. The Radeon RX 5500 XT is hence available in two flavors, directly competing against NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 16 SUPER graphics cards. The Radeon RX 5500 XT 4 GB has an MSRP of $169 US which is $10 US more than the reference MSRP of the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER which costs $159 US. The Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB has an MSRP of $199 US which is $30 US less than the reference MSRP of the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER which costs $229 US.
AMD Radeon GPU Segment/Tier Prices
| Graphics Segment | 2015-2016 | 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ultra Enthusiast Tier | Radeon R9 Fury X Radeon R9 Fury Radeon R9 Nano |
Radeon R9 Fury X Radeon R9 Fury Radeon R9 Nano |
Radeon RX Vega 64 | Radeon RX Vega 64 | Radeon VII |
| Price | $649 US $549 US $649 US |
$649 US $549 US $649 US |
$499 US | $499 US | $699 US |
| Enthusiast Tier | Radeon R9 390X | Radeon R9 390X | Radeon RX Vega 56 | Radeon RX Vega 56 | Radeon RX 5700 XT |
| Price | $429 US | $429 US | $399 US | $399 US | $399 US |
| High-End Tier | Radeon R9 390 | Radeon R9 390 | N/A |
Radeon RX 590 | Radeon RX 5700 |
| Price | $329 US | $329 US | N/A | $279 US | $349 US |
| Mainstream Tier | Radeon R9 380X Radeon R9 380 Radeon R9 370X Radeon R9 370 |
Radeon RX 480 Radeon RX 470 |
Radeon RX 580 Radeon RX 570 |
Radeon RX 580 Radeon RX 570 |
N/A |
| Price | $229 US $199 US $199 US $179 US |
$229 US $179 US |
$229 US $169 US |
$229 US $169 US |
N/A |
| Entry Tier | Radeon R7 360 | Radeon RX 460 | Radeon RX 560 | Radeon RX 560 | Radeon RX 5500 XT Radeon RX 5500 XT |
| Price | $109 US | $129 US | $99 US | $99 US | $199 US $169 US |
Well, in terms of performance the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 4 GB is supposed to be much faster than the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER at about 10-13% average. The Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB is said to be about 20% faster than the 4 GB variant. This should put the Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB models close to the GeForce GTX 1660 (non-SUPER). The higher memory buffer that the 8 GB model comes with should definitely help in high-resolution and modern AAA titles but again, these are marketing numbers and I will see how the card actually performs in my own set of benchmarks.
Unlike the GeForce RTX cards which had some feature advantage over the Radeon RX 5700 series cards, the GeForce GTX cards don't feature RTX/DLSS support. This puts them just on par with the Radeon RX 5500 series in feature set with the exception of the Turing NVENC encoder which does an exceptional job for gamers on a budget. The Radeon RX 5500 is supported by the latest AMD Adrenaline 2020 Edition bringing features such as Radeon Boost, Integer Scaling, Radeon Image Sharpening, Radeon Anti-Lag, and Freesync support. These are a impressive list of features on their own and something to really consider when comparing AMD's and NVIDIA's budget tier range of cards.
So for this review, I will be taking a look at the MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT Gaming X. This is MSI's new and flagship custom design for the Navi 14 GPU that features dual TORX 3.0 fans along with the renowned MSI features such as Zero Frozr and Smooth heat pipe design. The card has an MSRP of $224.99 US which is a $25 US premium over the reference MSRP.
The AMD Radeon RX 5500 Series Family
The AMD Radeon RX 5500 series lineup is made up of several variants which include desktop and mobile parts but there are only two desktop variants with one of them making their way to the DIY market and the other one aiming the OEM market. The Radeon RX 5500 XT is the DIY variant while the Radeon RX 5500 is the OEM variant. We will only be focusing on the Radeon RX 5500 XT as that is the one we received for our review and is the only card that you can actually buy in the market.
AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 4 GB / 8 GB Official Specifications ($169-199 US)
The AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT is a very important graphics card that is placed in a super competitive segment. Taking up the battle with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER, the RX 5500 XT will not only compete against the upgraded Turing offering, but also the Radeon RX 590 which is currently being sold at discounted prices and has a really good price to performance value. Still, the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT packs a lot of crunch for a little beast that it is.
The AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT features 1408 stream processors which mean that there are 22 CUs or compute units featured on the card. It also packs 88 TMUs and 32 ROPs with clock speeds rated at 1670 MHz base, 1717 MHz game, and 1845 MHz boost clocks. The card manages to deliver up to 5.20 TFLOPs of compute performance at 130W. The card comes in 8 GB and 4 GB GDDR6 memory options. The memory featured on the card runs across a 128-bit bus interface, delivering 224 GB/s bandwidth.
The 8 GB model is launching at an MSRP of $199 US which is close to the $229 US of the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER while the 4 GB model is launching at an MSRP of $169 US which is $10 US higher than the $159 US GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER (4 GB). In terms of performance, the 4 GB variant has performance that matches the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER while sipping in more power. The 8 GB model should offer slightly better performance than the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER with its higher frame buffer uplifting the performance in games with high-res textures.
AMD Radeon RX 5000 '7nm Navi RDNA' GPU Lineup Specs:
| Graphics Card | Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary | Radeon RX 5700 XT | Radeon RX 5700 | Radeon RX 5600 XT | Radeon RX 5600 | Radeon RX 5500 XT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Architecture | 7nm Navi (RDNA 1st Gen) | 7nm Navi (RDNA 1st Gen) | 7nm Navi (RDNA 1st Gen) | 7nm Navi (RDNA 1st Gen) | 7nm Navi (RDNA 1st Gen) | 7nm Navi (RDNA 1st Gen) |
| Stream Processors | 2560 SPs | 2560 SPs | 2304 SPs | TBD | TBD | 1408 SPs |
| TMUs / ROPs | 160 / 64 | 160 / 64 | 144 / 64 | TBD | TBD | 88 / 32 |
| Base Clock | 1680 MHz | 1605 MHz | 1465 MHz | TBD | TBD | 1670 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1980 MHz | 1905 MHz | 1725 MHz | TBD | TBD | 1845 MHz |
| Game Clock | 1830 MHz | 1755 MHz | 1625 MHz | TBD | TBD | 1717 MHz |
| Compute Power | 10.14 TFLOPs | 9.75 TFLOPs | 7.95 TFLOPs | TBD | TBD | 5.19 TFLOPs |
| VRAM | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 6 GB GDDR6 | 6 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 |
| Bus Interface | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit | 128-bit |
| Bandwidth | 448 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 336 GB/s | 336 GB/s | 224 GB/s |
| TBP | 235W | 225W | 180W | TBD | TBD | 110W |
| Price | $449 US | $399 US | $349 US | ~$300 US | ~250 US | $169 US (4 GB) $199 US (8 GB) |
| Launch | 7th July 2019 | 7th July 2019 | 7th July 2019 | January, 2020 | January, 2020 | 7th October 2019 |
Radeon RX 5500 "7nm Navi RDNA GPU" Feature Set and A Word on HW-Enabled Ray Tracing
While we would share a few tidbits of the RDNA architecture itself below, there are also some highlights we should mention for the Navi GPU. According to AMD themselves, the Navi 14 GPU will be 12% faster at the same power and should consume 30% lower power at the same clock speeds as Polaris GPU. The AMD Navi 14 GPU has a die size of 158mm2 and delivers 1.7x perf per area over the Polaris 10 GPU. The chip packs 6.4 Billion transistors while the Polaris 10 GPU packed 5.7 Billion transistors on a die that was almost 70% bigger.
Also, when it comes to ray tracing, AMD is indeed developing their own suite around it. According to their vision, current GCN and RDNA architecture will be able to perform ray tracing on shaders which will be used through ProRender for creators and Radeon Rays for developers. In next-gen RDNA which is supposed to launch in 2020 on 7nm+ node, AMD will be bringing hardware-enabled ray tracing with select lighting effects for real-time gaming. AMD will also enable full-scene ray tracing which would be leveraged through cloud computing.
New Compute Unit Design
Great Compute Efficiency For Diverse Workloads
- 2x Instruction Rate (enabled by 2x Scalar Units and 2x Schedulers)
- Single Cycle Issue (enabled by Executing Wwave32 on SIMD32)
- Dual Mode Execution (Wave 32 and Wave 64 Modes Adapt for Workloads)
- Resource Pooling (2 CUs Coordinate as a Work Group Processor)
As you can tell, AMD is changing a lot in terms of architecture with RDNA (Radeon DNA) compared to GCN. There's a new Compute unity design, a more streamlined Graphics pipeline & a multi-level cache hierarchy. Aside from the GPU architecture, support for GDDR6 memory is another major change that brings AMD's graphics cards on par with NVIDIA in utilizing modern memory designs for higher bandwidth.
We have seen several variants of the Gaming X, mostly those that come with MSI's renowned Twin Frozr 7 and Tri-Frozr cooling but the Radeon RX 5500 XT Gaming X is a beast of its own. Featuring a new design scheme and a new look for the Twin Frozr 7 cooler, the RX 5500 XT Gaming X boasts some really impressive specs for a $25 premium which is pretty sweet of a deal for this impressive card.
In addition to the custom design, the Radeon RX 5500 Gaming X comes with a non-reference PCB that ships with a higher factory overclock, featuring a 7+1 phase design that features higher quality components than the reference variant which is already a really good design by itself. In terms of clock speeds, the graphics card features the same base frequency of 1685 MHz and a maximum boost clock of 1845 MHz. Following are the main features of the Radeon RX 5500 XT Gaming X graphics card:
Core / Memory
- Boost Clock / Game Clock / Base Clock / Memory Speed
Up to 1845 MHz / Up to 1737 MHz / 1685 MHz / 14Gbps - 8GB GDDR6
- DisplayPort x 3 (v1.4) / HDMI 2.0b x 1
TORX FAN 3.0: Supremely silent
- Dispersion fan blade: Steeper curved blade accelerating the airflow.
- Traditional fan blade: Provides steady airflow to massive heat sink below.
RGB Mystic Light
- Customize colors and LED effects with exclusive MSI software and synchronize the look & feel with other components.
Afterburner Overclocking Utility
- Wireless control through Android / iOS devices.
- Predator: In-game video recording.
Dragon Center
- A consolidated platform that offers all software including MYSTIC LIGHT functionality for your MSI Gaming product.
MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT Gaming X Graphics Card Gallery:
MSI Twin Frozr 7 With Refreshing New Design For Navi
With the differences out of the way, now let's talk about the similarities and the main highlights of the Gaming X cards. The MSI Radeon RX 5000 Gaming X lineup is designed to be the best custom solution for AMD's RDNA GPUs. The card is huge and bulky, featuring two TORX 3.0 fans in a 2.7 slot design, a custom PCB that is designed for overclocking and a huge heatsink featuring the new wave curved II design.
The much anticipated return of MSI’s iconic dual fan GAMING series. Combining a mix of black and gunmetal grey with a classy brushed metal backplate, this masterpiece provides you premium design with magnificent and smooth RGB light effects on the outside. The new MSI GAMING card is designed to amaze you!
MSI has incorporated and refined a couple of things in the new Gaming series graphics cards. First is the TORX fan 3.0 which uses both traditional and dispersion fan blades to accelerate airflow and push it down in a steady stream. These fans are made up of an extended life bearing design which ensures silent functionality in heavy loads.
The fans are fully compliant with the Zero Frozr Technology and are actually comprised of three areas. All of these would stay at 0 RPM (idle state) if the temperatures don't exceed 60C. When it does exceed 60C, all fans would start spinning. You can change that through the MSI configuration panel if you want more cooling performance over noise load but it's a nifty feature which I do like.
In addition to the cooling fans, the heatsink has been designed to be denser by using a wave curved fin design. It allows more air to pass through the fins smoothly, without causing any turbulence that would result in unwanted noise. Airflow Control Technology guides the airflow directly onto the heat pipes, while simultaneously creating more surface area for the air to absorb more heat before leaving the heatsink.
Talking about the heatsink, the massive block is comprised of five 6mm and a single 8mm copper squared shaped heat pipes with a more concentrated design to transfer heat from the copper base to the heatsink more effectively. The base itself is a solid nickel-plated base plate, transferring heat to the heat pipes in a very effective manner. To top it all off, MSI uses their exclusive Thermal Compound X which is said to offer higher thermal interface and heat transfer compared to traditional TIM applications.
On the back of the Gaming X graphics card is a solid backplate with a dual-tone design which comes in brushed aluminum and matte silver finish. It also strengthens the card and thanks to some cleverly placed thermal pads even help to keep temperatures low.
A die-cast metal sheet acts as a Close Quarters Heatsink for the memory modules and doubles as an Anti-Bending safeguard by connecting to the IO Bracket. The power phases towards the right side are covered by a plate that is fused directly to the heatsink for excellent cooling.
MSI has bundled its exclusive software such as Dragon Center that now comes with a creator mode. The creator mode is specifically tuned for Gaming X series graphics cards, offering peak performance and greater stability in multiple productivity workloads.
The MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT Gaming X graphics card comes inside a large cardboard box. The front of both packages has a large "MSI" logo on the top left corner & the "Gaming X" series branding on the lower-left corner. A large picture of the graphics card itself is depicted on the front which gives a nice preview of the new Gaming X design, exclusive to AMD Radeon graphics cards.
The packaging also comes with an AMD 50 sticker since the red team celebrated its 50th year anniversary in 2019. Other features of the graphics card are also mentioned such as the RDNA architecture, 7nm, Fidelity FX, Freesync 2 HDR along some specs such as 8 GB GDDR6, PCIe 4.0 support, and OC edition.
The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. The three key aspects of MSI's top tier custom cards are its new TORX Fan 3.0 cooling system, the Twin Frozr 7 thermal design, and the wave curved heatsink. A large list of product specifications and features are also mentioned which you can see in the picture below.
The sides of the box once again greet us with the large Radeon RX branding. There's also the mention of 8 GB GDDR6 memory available on the card. The higher memory bandwidth delivered through the new GDDR6 interface would help improve performance in gaming titles at higher resolution over GDDR5 based graphics cards.
Outside of the box, the graphics card and the accessory package are held firmly by foam packaging. The graphics card comes with a few accessories and manuals which might not be of much use for hardcore enthusiasts but can be useful for the mainstream gaming audience. The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card.
Useful manuals and installation guides are packed within an MSI labeled letter case. There is an MSI Quick Users Guide, a Support bracket installation guide, a sticker letter, the MSI DIY comic, and a single driver disk. It's best to ignore the driver disk and install the latest software and graphics drivers directly from the AMD and MSI official web pages as the ones shipped in the disks could be older versions and not deliver optimal performance for your graphics cards.
After the package is taken care of, I can finally start talking about the card itself. The card itself is simply stunning to look at and the shroud is really well-built with great texturing along the sides.
MSI’s Twin Frozr heat sinks are some of the most iconic heatsink cooling solutions that I have ever tested. With the Radeon RX 5500 series cards, MSI is offering a brand new Twin Frozr 7 design. The Radeon RX 5700 Gaming X measures at 247 x 128 x 47 mm and takes up two slots. This is simply put a smaller version of the Radeon RX 5700 Gaming X series design which was a 2.5 slot beast.
The design of the MSI RX Gaming X series is brand new, as in we haven't seen a similar shroud and backplate design on any other cards even though there have been several Twin Frozr variants that came before it. The red and black color scheme along with the brushed aluminum finish does look good, offering a cleaner look than the more futuristic-looking GeForce based Twin Frozr cards.
The back of the card features a solid backplate which looks stunning with its dual-tone finish that comes in matte grey and brushed aluminum colors. The backplate is made out of solid metal and has several heat pads to dissipate heat off the back.
The dual fan Torx Fan 3.0 has already been seen on MSI's Gaming (Twin Frozr) variants but the Gaming X series for Radeon RX 5500 just has that unique feeling which I got when I tested their high-end Radeon RX 5700 Gaming X series a few months back.
The new heatsink is a slightly modified version of the one used on MSI's Gaming X series with the main changes being the shroud and a massive wave-curved heatsink design that takes up most of the space on this behemoth.
Coming to the fans, the card actually features two based on the Torx 3.0 system. Both fans combine traditional and dispersion fan blade technology to offer better cooling performance.
The dispersion fan blade technology has a steeper curved blade that accelerates airflow and as such increases effectiveness in keeping the GPU cool. All fans deploy double ball bearing design and can last a long time while operating silently.
The MSI TORX 3.0 fans deliver 50% more air pressure than standard blade fans and 15% more air pressure than MSI's TORX 2.0 fans. Utilizing the dispersion blade fan technology allows for higher static pressure and air to be pushed through the aluminum fin heatsink.
MSI also features their Zero Frozr technology on the Twin Frozr heatsink. This feature won’t spin the fans on the card unless they reach a certain threshold. In the case of the Twin Frozr heatsink, that limit is set to 60C. If the card is operating under 60C, the fans won’t spin which means no extra noise would be generated.
I am back at talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate which both card use. The whole plate is made of solid metal with rounded edges that add to the durability of this card. The matte and brushed aluminum finish on the backplate gives a unique aesthetic.
We can also see the MSI Dragon logo on the back which looks stunning. MSI is also using heat pads beneath the backplate which offer more cooling to the electrical circuitry on the PCB.
There's no multi-GPU connector on the card as AMD uses their XDMA architecture for CrossFireX capabilities. This allows GPUs to communicate directly over the PCIe bus rather than an external bridge.
With the outsides of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of these monster graphics cards. The first thing to catch my eye is the humungous fin stack that's part of the beefy heatsink which the cards utilize.
The fin stack runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB. The heatsink features the concentrated heatsink design, making contact with the copper baseplate that sits right over the GPU die.
You can see that four 6mm copper heat pipes run through the aluminum finned heatsink. The copper heat pipes come out from the GPU block and cover the entire aluminum heatsink block.
The base itself is a solid nickel-plated base plate, transferring heat to the heat pipes in a very effective manner. To top it all off, MSI uses its exclusive Thermal Compound X which is said to offer higher thermal interface and heat transfer compared to traditional TIM applications.
I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme which includes three Display Port 1.4a, & a single HDMI 2.0b.
MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT Gaming X Teardown:
The MSI Radeon RX 5500 Gaming X makes use of a full non-reference PCB design, featuring a 7+1 Phase design and coupled with better components such as solid-state capacitors along with a series of higher-quality chokes. MSI also uses several thermal pads and an anti-bending bracket.
The MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT Gaming X is powered by a single 8 pin power connector that feeds the card. The Radeon RX 5500 XT Gaming X has a rated TDP of 130 Watts, the same as the reference model.
We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. The latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used from AMD and NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 10. All games that were tested were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.
GPU Test Bench 2019 (MSI RX 5500 XT Gaming X 8 GB)
| CPU | Intel Core i9-9900K @ 4.70 GHz |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | AORUS Z390 Master |
| Video Cards | MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT Gaming X 8 GB MSI GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER Gaming X GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Armor X OC Gigabyte Radeon RX Vega 56 ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 580 OC |
| Memory | G.SKILL Trident Z RGB Series 32GB (4 X 8GB) CL16 3600 MHz |
| Storage | Samsung SSD 960 EVO M.2 (512 GB) |
| Power Supply | ASUS ROG THOR 1200W PSU |
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit |
- All games were tested on 2560×1440 (2K) and 3840×2160 (4K) resolutions.
- Image Quality and graphics configurations have been provided in the screenshots below.
- The “reference” cards are the stock configs while the “overclock” cards are factory overclocked configs provided to us by various AIB partners.
DOOM
In 2016, Id finally released DOOM. My testing wouldn’t be complete without including this title. All cards were capable of delivering ample frame rates at the 1440p resolution using Nightmare settings, so my focus turned to 4K.
Red Dead Redemption II
RDR2 is using the latest iteration of the Rockstar Advanced Graphics Engine, or RAGE, and has ditched DX11 in favor of being able to choose between Vulkan or DX12 for your preferred API. Red Dead Redemption 2 has built-in benchmark utility that is fairly representative of typical gameplay and we used this to measure our performance.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory and brutal FPS action ever! The game once again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set during an alternate future where Nazis won the World War, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy too. Powering the new title is once again, id Tech 6 which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained their glorious FPS roots and are slaying with every new title.
Ultra HQ-AF, Vulkan, Async Compute On *if available, Deferred Rendering and GPU culling off
We tested the game at Ultra settings under the Vulkan API which is standard. Async Compute was enabled for graphics cards that support it while deferred rendering and GPU culling were disabled.
Battlefield V
Battlefield 5 brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best looking Battlefields to date.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Humanity is at war with itself and divided into factions. On one end, we have the pure and on the other, we have the augmented. That is the world where Adam Jensen lives in and this is the world of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The game uses the next generation Dawn Engine that was made by IO interactive on the foundation of their Glacier 2 engine. The game features support of DirectX 12 API and is one of the most visually intensive titles that taxes the GPU really hard.
Gears 5
The Coalition is back with the Gears of War series, but this time they've dropped the 'of War' so I guess war does change sometimes. Gears 5 is a bit of an interesting one from a release standpoint as it released on Xbox as well as the multiple stores on the PC; Steam as well as the Xbox PC App and Windows Store. Running off the Unreal Engine, the game boasts some seriously impressive visuals which can put even one of the best cards on their feet.
Hitman 2
Hitman 2 is the highly acclaimed sequel to 2016 Hitman which was a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game once again lets you play as Agent 47 who embarks on a mission to hunt down the mysterious Shadow Client. The game runs on IO's Interactive's Glacier 2 engine which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while making use of DirectX 12 API.
Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus continues the journey of Artyom through the nuclear wasteland of Russia and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.
Assassins Creed: Origins
Assassins Creed Origins is built by the same team that made Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag. They are known for reinventing the design and game philosophy of the Assassins Creed saga and their latest title shows that. Based in Egypt, the open-world action RPG shows its graphics prowess in all corners. It uses the AnvilNext 2.0 engine which boosts the draw distance range and delivers a very impressive graphics display.
We tested the game at maxed settings with TAA enabled and 16x AF. Do note that the game is one of the most demanding titles out in the market and as such tweaks and performance issues are being patched out.
Far Cry 5
Far Cry 5 is a standalone successor to its predecessor and takes place in Hope County, a fictional region of Montana. The main story revolves around doomsday cult the Project at Eden’s Gate and its charismatic leader Joseph Seed. It uses a beefed-up Dunia Engine which itself is a modified version of CryEngine from Crytek.
Grand Theft Auto V
GTA V is the most optimized gaming title that has been made for the PC. It’s so optimized, it even runs on my crap GT 840M based laptop with a smooth FPS on a mix of medium/low settings. I mean what???
Aside from being optimized, GTA V is a great game. It was the Game of The Year for 2013. At 1440p Ultra quality, the game gave us smooth frames on all cards tested.
Ghost Recon: Wildlands
Using the new Anvil Next engine that was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Ghost Recon: Wildlands goes wild and grand with an open-world setting entirely in Bolivia. This game is a tactical third-person shooter which does seem an awful lot similar to Tom Clancy's: The Division. The game looks pretty and the wide-scale region of Bolivia looks lovely at all times (Day/Night Cycle).
The Witcher 3 Game of The Year Edition
Witcher 3 is the greatest fantasy RPG of our time. It has a great story, great gameplay mechanics and gorgeous graphics. This is the only game I actually wanted to get a stable FPS at 4K. With GameWorks disabled, I gave all high-end cards the ability to demonstrate their power.
Middle Earth: Shadow of War
The successor of 2014’s epic, Shadow of Mordor, Shadow of War continues the previous game’s narrative continuing the story of the ranger Talion and the spirit of the elf lord Celebrimbor, who shares Talion’s body, as they forge a new Ring of Power to amass an army to fight against Sauron. The game uses the latest Firebird Engine developed by Monolith Productions and is very intensive even for modern graphics cards.
No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. The MSI Radeon RX 5700 XT Gaming X series is fitted with the most advanced version of the TORX 3.0 fans. The cooler features a massive heatsink with multiple heat pipes which extend beyond the fin-based aluminum block that lead towards the incredibly dense heatsink block.
The patented Torx fan 3.0 design and Zero Frozr technology featured on this card make sure that it delivers the best cooling performance and best acoustics while operating.
Note – We tested load with Kombuster which is known as a ‘power virus’ and can permanently damage the hardware. Use such software at your own risk!
I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle and full stress when the card was running games. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plugin on their custom cards.
AMD Radeon RX 5500 series is based on TSMC's 7nm process node. The 7nm process is a major upgrade over the 14nm FinFET node, delivering better efficiency and a much smaller chip footprint. The MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT Gaming X has a TDP of 130W and its power consumption is very much close to that in our testing with slight peaks when the card hits peak clocks but those are not fully sustained for longer duration workloads.
The Radeon RX 5500 XT is the first true replacement to the Polaris based Radeon RX 400 and RX 500 series family in 3 years. It has some big shoes to fill as the Radeon RX 400 and RX 500 series have been the real disruptor of the sub $200 US segment over the recent years given the heavily discounted prices and some really impressive game bundles that AMD had to offer with them.
Featuring the Navi 14 design, AMD doesn't take away anything from the Radeon RX 5500 series whereas NVIDIA took most of what made Turing RTX series that good of a deal in terms of overall features, away from the GeForce GTX 16 series cards. The Radeon RX 5500 XT has strong driver support which is made even better with the recent release of the AMD Adrenaline 2020 edition software suite and a whole range of other features that you get with Navi such as Freesync and Anti-Lag technologies. All of these are well-added features in the 1080p HD gaming and more importantly, the eSports gaming segment.
Although the Radeon RX 5500 XT is one card, it comes in two different memory configurations offering two vastly different price points and also performance numbers. The Radeon RX 5500 XT 4 GB is priced at $169 US while the Radeon RX 5500 XT is priced at $199 US. Both of these cards are more expensive than the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER 4 GB with the 8 GB variant coming in close to the GeForce GTX 1660 which has recently started getting price drops in the retail channel and many custom variants can be found for around $199 - $209 US. The card I got to test today is MSI's top RX 5500 XT design and one that has a $25 US premium attached to it. This is dangerously close to the GTX 1660 SUPER.
In terms of performance, the Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB graphics card is consistently ahead of the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER 4 GB graphics card with the card coming in close to a GTX 1660 6 GB but that's a very rare occasion. The GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is still surprisingly ahead of the card while being the same price as the custom RX 5500 XT Gaming X. There are also titles where vendor-specific optimizations come into play and there we can see the gap between the GTX 1650 4 GB and the RX 5500 XT getting very small. This means that the RX 5500 XT, a $199 ($225 for the MSI Gaming X variant), performs just slightly better than the $159 US GTX 1650 SUPER.
While browsing Newegg, I was surprised to find the MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB MECH OC, listed for a price of $199.99 US. Now, this here is a more impressive deal to be honest with the MECH OC offering a dual-fan cooling system too. The MECH OC variant has a smaller overall design and does has a better price to performance value attached to it but it lacks the better PCB design, the great cooling system, and the PCB support plate that the Gaming X has to offer. The MSI Gaming X also offers a much higher overclock of 1685 MHz base and 1737 MHz game clock compared to 1674 MHz base and 1733 MHz game clock on the MECH OC.
The extra costs also go into the behemoth shroud design that comes with a solid metal backplate, and a dual-fan cooling system fitted with MSI's most advanced TORX 3.0 technology. A solid PCB with an 8 phase design keeps this card fed with lots of power which would be useful in getting that extra juice out with manual overclocks. I even saw some nice gains in AAA titles with a small overclock which just shows it is waiting to be pushed even more. The temperatures on the card are also impressive, sitting at 62C at its peak while power consumption numbers see a major drop from the older Polaris architecture while delivering better performance.
The card is also beautiful on its own, a stunning brushed aluminum design that covers the front and backplate along with MSI's Mystic Aura RGB technology which provides a spectacular light show on the side 'Gaming' logo.
The Radeon RX 5500 XT is a great card but the price makes it a really hard buy compared to the GeForce GTX 16 SUPER range from NVIDIA. The Radeon RX 5500 XT does manage to come close to the GeForce GTX 1660 while consistently outperforming the GTX 1650 SUPER in many titles but the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER for $20-$30 US more is a much better deal compared to the 8 GB 5500 XT variant. I guess that's the price you have to pay for offering both 7nm and GDDR6 on a budget / mainstream tier graphics card. AMD does have a promo deal on their RX 5500 XT cards which add up to $90 US worth of value and include a copy of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and a 3-month Xbox Game Pass to sweeten the deal. What I think is that in the next several months, we can see prices on these GPUs fall significantly but till then, $199 US and above is what you'll have to dish out for the 8 GB model.
However, if you are willing to go team red for their absolute great driver support and to run a Freesync display, the MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT Gaming X is a really cool card with premium design aesthetics that you cannot ignore for a $25 US premium. If you want something even better, the MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT MECH OC should deliver the same amount of performance for an even better price of $199 US, same as the MSRP.
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