As far the reliability of leaks go, this latest one comes directly from
AMD, by way of a Reddit post—forum user "juggies" posted a link to documents and marketing materials on AMD's Marketing Asset Resource System (MARS) for the
Radeon RX 5500, and apparently AMD is positioning the card as a faster option than rival NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1650.
Before we get to that, let's recap the specs. The Radeon RX 5500 is another graphics card with a
Navi GPU underneath the hood. It has 22 compute units, up to a 1,670MHz game clock, and up to a 1,845MHz boost clock to deliver up to 5.2 TFLOPs. It also boasts 4GB of GDDR6 memory linked to a 128-bit bus, for 224GB/s of memory bandwidth (there will also be an 8GB variant, though rumor has it that will be a Radeon RX 5500 XT model).
Interestingly, AMD is positioning the Radeon RX 5500 as a "performance" part. Have a look at this recommended usage chart that appears in one of AMD's marketing documents...
Click to Enlarge (Source: AMD)
Polaris is sticking around for the time being, though it looks like AMD wants to phase out its Radeon RX 590, 580, and 570 cards, and replace them with the Radeon RX 5500. It's debatable whether any of those cards qualify as "performance" cards, but that is how AMD is positioning them regardless, with the Radeon RX 5700 series joining the
Radeon VII (7nm Vega) in the "enthusiast" tier.
Here's a look at another slide that places the cards in order in performance...
Click to Enlarge (Source: AMD)
Here we get not just an overview of where how these cards stack on top of another, but also how AMD sees them aligning with the competition, as represented in the column on the far right. From AMD's perspective, this is how the cards align...
-
Radeon RX II vs GeForce RTX 2080
- Radeon RX 5700 XT vs GeForce RTX 2070
- Radeon RX 5700 vs GeForce RTX 2060
- Radeon RX 5500 vs GeForce RTX 1650
- Radeon RX 5500M vs GeForce RTX 1650
- Radeon RX 560 vs GeForce GTX 1050 (2GB) and GeForce GTX 750 Ti
- Radeon RX 550 vs Intel HD 630
We are not sure if any of those comparisons apply to
NVIDIA's refreshed Super models in AMD's mind, but there's rough guide of where these cards are positioned to compete, based on AMD's marketing materials.
AMD Claims The Radeon RX 5500 Beats NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1650 In 1080p Gaming
The last couple of marketing materials we will highlight outline AMD's Radeon RX 5500 performance claims, with respect to how the card compares to the
GeForce GTX 1650 in 1080p gaming.
Click to Enlarge (Source: AMD)
According to AMD's internal testing and data, the Radeon RX 5500 is significantly faster than the GeForce GTX 1650 in several games—up to 43 percent faster in Battlefield 5 at the high end, and 21 percent faster in Fortnite in the low end of these comparisons.
Click to Enlarge (Source: AMD)
AMD's marketing materials show big gains in many different titles, resulting in "up to 49 percent more expected performance compared to NVIDIA graphics" in AAA games, and up to 37 percent more in esports games.
Time will tell if things actually shake out the way AMD presents. If they do, however, the Radeon RX 5500 could be a very compelling card. That will also depend on how it is priced. For reference, the GeForce GTX 1650 carries a $149 MSRP.