The PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 5500 XT is one of the few to come with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, and we got our grubby hands on one!

Here is our review of the PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics card!

 

AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT : A Quick Primer

The AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT is basically the desktop version of the Radeon RX 5500M, using the same GPU with 6.4 billion transistors fabricated on the 7 nm process technology.

This Navi GPU has 22 Compute Units with 1408 stream processors and a 128-bit memory interface. The only difference is the Radeon RX 5500 XT has higher clock speeds and TDP, with up to 8 GB of GDDR6 memory.

The AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT designed to deliver 1080p gaming at 60+ fps for AAA titles, and 90+ fps for esport games.

To reduce costs, AMD opted to use a PCI Express 4.0 x8 interface, instead of the PCIe 4.0 x16 interface. But if paired with a PCIe 4.0 chipset, it will deliver the same bandwidth as PCIe 3.0 x16.

Recommended : AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT Tech Report + Video Briefing!

 

AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT Specifications

In this table, we compare its specifications against its more powerful brethren – the RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT.

Please note that this is an AIB-only model, and as far as we are aware, it follows AMD reference specifications,.

Specifications	Radeon RX 5700 XT	Radeon RX 5700	Radeon RX 5500 XT
Transistors	10.3 billion	10.3 billion	6.4 billion
Fab Process	7 nm	7 nm	7 nm
Die Size	251 mm²	251 mm²	158 mm²
Total Graphics Power	225 W	185 W	130 W
Stream Processors	2560	2340	1408
Game Clock	1605 MHz	1465 MHz	1717 MHz
Boost Clock	1905 MHz	1725 MHz	1845 MHz
TMUs	160	144	88
Max. Texture Rate	304.8 GT/s	248.4 GT/s	162.4 GT/s
ROPs	64	64	32
Max. Pixel Rate	121.9 GP/s	110.4 GP/s	59.0 GP/s
Memory Size	8 GB	8 GB	4 GB / 8 GB
Memory Type	GDDR6	GDDR6	GDDR6
Bus Width	256-bit	256-bit	128-bit
Bandwidth	448 GB/s	448 GB/s	224 GB/s
PCIe Interface	PCIe 4.0 x16	PCIe 4.0 x16	PCIe 4.0 x8

 

PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 5500 XT Hands-On Experience

The PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 5500 XT is a no-frills card. It comes in a decent cardboard box, and that’s it.

Here is a couple of key things we pointed out in our hands-on video :

• it is one of the few Radeon RX 5500 XT models to come with 8 GB GDDR6 memory.
• it has a large cooler with heat pipes and two fans
• it has three display options – DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort
• it requires an 8-pin PCI Express power cable

 

PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 5500 XT In Action

Now, if you are looking for RGB bling, then the Red Dragon is not the card for you. But it comes with a backplate.

But more importantly, at least for us, it is really quiet. You can hear a slight whine, but it is quieter than the Ryzen 7 3700X‘s CPU cooler!

In fact, it runs cool enough that both fans will generally not spin up until it gets toasty, and spin down again when things cool down.

Next Page > PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 5500 XT Up Close!

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