AMD unveils Radeon RX 5600 series GPUs – Radeon RX 5600 XT 20% faster than GTX 1660 Ti

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Just as expected, AMD revealed the Radeon RX 5600 series to the world during its pre-CES 2020 showcase, along with a pair of new mobile graphics cards.

We’ll start with the desktop chips, which comprise the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB and the AMD Radeon RX 5600 6GB. The Radeon RX 5600 XT will be available from January 21st, priced at $279, while pricing has yet to be announced for the standard Radeon RX 5600. Based on AMD’s current roster we’re expecting it to be $229-$249.

Specs-wise, the Radeon RX 5600 XT sports the same 2304 Stream Processors across 36 CUs as the Radeon RX 5700. However, it’s got markedly slower clock speeds with a ‘Game Clock of 1375 MHz and a Boost Clock of 1560 MHz (versus 1725 MHz on an RX 5700). It’s backed up by 6GB GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit memory interface. In total we’re looking at 7.19 TFLOPS compute performance.

The Radeon RX 5600 is roughly 12-15% slower than the Radeon RX 5600 XT. It features a cut-down GPU with 2048 SPs and 32 Compute Units. Clock speeds and memory remains identical across both graphics cards.

AMD is claiming the Radeon RX 5600 XT is 20% faster on average than a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB across today’s biggest AAA games. Team Red pitted a Radeon RX 5600 XT against a GTX 1660 Ti in a rig which also included a Ryzen 7 3800X CPU, 16GB DDR4 3200MHZ RAM and a Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master motherboard. Games tested were  Battlefield 5, Borderlands 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, The Division 2, Gears of War 5, Monster Hunter World, Red Dead Redemption, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and Ghost Recon Breakpoint, which all definitely qualify as the biggest AAA games around right now.

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is currently available for pretty much the exact same price as the Radeon RX 5600 XT, give or take. With that 20% frame rate advantage the Radeon RX 5600 XT begins to look a more tempting proposition than the 1660 Ti and is certainly a more interesting choice than the tepid Radeon RX 5500 series.

“From heart-pounding esports competitions to eye-popping AAA blockbusters, today’s games demand more performance, higher framerates and lower latency than ever before,” said Scott Herkelman, corporate vice president and general manager, Radeon Technologies Group at AMD. 

“There are 90 million active users on Steam, and over 64 percent of gamers who participated in a recent Steam survey reported playing at 1080p. We’re committed to providing all 1080p gamers with the raw horsepower and incredible features that enable the absolute best gaming experiences with all settings maxed out. The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT more than delivers, powering the ultimate in 1080p gaming at a price point that is sure to delight gamers everywhere.”

The Radeon RX 5600 series will be available starting from January 21st.