AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT is one of the graphics cards that will be released for the first time in 2020. After at the end of 2019 AMD launched their mainstream Navi GPU solution with the Radeon RX 5500 series , now AMD is completing their Navi product line with the RX 5600 series. The RX 5600 series itself was first announced at the AMD CES 2020 event yesterday .
It's quite clear from the name, the RX 5600 series will be positioned between the RX 5500 and the RX 5700 series. AMD itself says that the 5600 series will still be aimed at the 1080p gamer market , in contrast to the 5700 series which is designed to deal with 1440p.
RX 5600 Series
AMD added that there are 3 products in the 5600-series, namely:
AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT: For Desktop
AMD Radeon RX 5600: For OEM-only (aka 'PC Branded' like Dell, HP, etc.)
AMD Radeon RX 5600M: For notebooks
There's no complete info yet, but the RX 5600 will have nearly identical specifications to the RX 5600, only with fewer Compute Units ( 5600 = 32 CU, 5600XT = 36 CU ). Then the RX 5600M will likely have a lower Power Limit / TDP of 5600XT and 5600 considering its design target is a notebook.
RX 5600 XT specifications: Navi10 with part of the 'missing' Memory Controller
On top of that, the RX 5600XT appears to be a cut-down version of the RX 5700 , with one memory controller subtracted from it . Unfortunately, cutting this section will also reduce the amount of L2 Cache on the RX 5600XT to 3MB ( on the RX 5700 series there is a full 4MB ).
Total installed GDDR6 Video RAM to 6 GB . This may look a little 'strange' because AMD since 2016 has even equipped their various GPUs with 8GB RAM configurations ( such as the Polaris RX 480 for example ), and the Radeon RX 5500 XT which only has a 128-bit memory bus still has an 8GB variant. .
Interesting points of the 5600 XT, Site: https://canvas.drieam.nl/eportfolios/8580/Home/KIJK_Casanovas_2020_Volledige_Film_Nederlandse__1080p
Both use 36 CUs ( 2304 Stream Processor / Shader unit ), like the RX 5700
Clockspeed rating is a bit low at 1375 Mhz 'Game Clock' (estimated clock for normal game load) , and up to 1560 Mhz Boost Clock
The 150W TDP appears to be the reason for the low clockspeed rating , both Vega and Navi 7nm indicate that achieving high clocks will make TDP 'swollen'
Video RAM uses 6GB GDDR6 12Gbps
6GB RAM seems to happen because the RX 5600 has a 192-bit memory bus (not 256-bit like the RX 5700)
Of course, just like the other GPUs of the Navi family , the RX 5600 XT inherits the RDNA architecture , is made on a 7nm fabrication , and is compatible with the PCIe 4.0 standard .
At the press briefing that we attended, AMD stated that there was no design reference for the 5600XT , and vendor / add-in board partners were allowed to do custom designs ( Also Read: VGA Reference vs Custom Design ) with various adjustments, even pre-overclock configurations .
One of the things that surprised us about this factory overclocking was a drastic change in the specifications of the GPU review unit that we received . When we first received a review of the unit ( Sapphire Pulse RX 5600 XT ), this card's specifications were exactly the same as AMD's specifications above: 1560Mhz Max Boost, 150W TDP, and 12Gbps GDDR6 . In this configuration we also had time to do a short pre-test on this card and realized the large overclock headroom on the GPU and also the memory .
But what is even more surprising is the arrival of a last-minute BIOS from AMD with much higher specifications - 1750Mhz Max Boost, 160W TDP, and 14Gbps GDDR6. With such a clock configuration, the score results almost match our OC Manual setting!
We ourselves looked at the Sapphire RX 5600XT product page, and the specifications given were high - this GPU seems to be experiencing a high factory overclocking rate from AMD's specifications , as can be seen below:
Seeing that factory overclocking this high is a bit 'unnatural' for mainstream products, and we often encounter enthusiast-class products, we asked AMD a few questions about this.
AMD states that:
AMD allows AIB / Vendor to do factory overclocking as far as possible (in accordance with VRM, Power Limit, Thermal, etc )
There are no specific rules regarding the use of the GDDR6 chip, vendors may choose to include a version with a rating of 12Gbps (according to the AMD Spec), or 14Gbps
AMD realized that with factory overclocking this high, the headroom for tuning would be reduced , but the goal is for all users to get a performance boost
Apart from the Sapphire, we also saw other 5600 XT versions experiencing quite high overclocking rates , although we didn't have any reviews for other units besides the Sapphire so we couldn't do the test.
With an SRP (suggested retail price) of around 279 USD , to what extent will the Radeon RX 5600 XT meet the needs of mid-range gamers? Let's take a look at the test results! 😉
Comparative Testing by Ivan Rachmatsyah Akbar 'IvanCupa'
Principal Testing, Analysis and Writing by Alva Jonathan 'Lucky_n00b'
The main discussion of the Radeon 5600XT this time will cover: Performance Test: Synthetic Benchmarks & 10 Games at 1080p . Not to forget, we will also include some of the overclocking test results at JagatOC
Those that were not tested due to limited testing time were:
GPU Teardown unit & GPU VRM Analyzer
Complete testing at 1440p and 4K resolutions
The system used for testing is as follows:
Processor: Intel Core i9-7900X 'Skylake-X'
Motherboard: MSI X299 XPOWER GAMING AC
RAM: G.Skill TridentZ RGB DDR4-3600CL16 4x8GB (Run @ DDR4-3200 CL16)
SSD: Galax SSD 256GB SATA / ADATA SX8200 Pro 1TB nvme
PSU: Corsair AX1200i
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-C14
Case: No Case, Open Bench Table (suhu ambient 25C)
OS: Windows 10 64-bit (1903 Update)
GPU & Driver
The GPU that we tested to add comparative data in this article are:
AMD Radeon RX 5500XT 8GB – MSI RX 5500XT Gaming X
AMD Radeon RX 5700 8GB – ASUS ROG STRIX RX 5700 OC Edition
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB – Founders Edition (FE)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6GB – Inno3D TwinX2 OC
Next, this is the version of the GPU Driver used for testing:
The 5600XT uses the pre-release 20.1.1 Radeon Software Adrenalin driver for the 5600XT
5500XT and 5700 use Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.1.2
All NVIDIA GeForce uses NVIDIA Forceware 441.87 DCH
Benchmarks & Games list:
The synthetic benchmarks used are 3DMark Fire Strike (DX11,1080p) and 3DMark Time Spy (DX12,1440p). While the game test is:
GPU Setting
For the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 5600XT, we will perform benchmarks on 2 (two) configurations :
AMD spec 150W 12bps GDDR6 , and
Sapphire factory-overclocked, 160W 14Gbps GDDR6
Also note, the TDP / power limit of the comparator GPU that we use is:
AMD Radeon RX 5500XT 8GB – MSI RX 5500XT Gaming X = 135W TDP
AMD Radeon RX 5700 8GB – ASUS ROG STRIX RX 5700 OC Edition = 180W TDP
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB – Founders Edition (FE) = 160W TDP
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6GB – Inno3D TwinX2 OC = 125W TDP
Site: https://canvas.drieam.nl/eportfolios/8584/Home/KIJK_Onze_jongens_in_Miami_2020_Volledige_Film_Nederlandse__1080p