AMD Radeon RX 5500 launched but does not ship until November

As expected, today is the launch date of the AMD Radeon RX 5500 video card. However, it appears the company will not be making a reference card for this lower-end Navi GPU. For actual cards you'll have to wait until AMD's board partners release custom-design cards in November. AMD positions the card against the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 but did not share a suggested retail price. The first laptops with the Radeon RX 5500M are expected later this month.

The desktop version has 1408 shaders, 22 compute units, up to 8GB GDDR6 memory, up to 1717MHz Game clock, up to 1845MHz Boost, and a 128-bit memory bus. The mobile version is similar but has maximum 4GB GDDR6 memory, a Game clock of maximum 1448MHz and a Boost of up to 1645MHz.

Today, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced the Radeon™ RX 5500 series graphics products, harnessing groundbreaking RDNA gaming architecture to deliver the ultimate in high-performance, high-fidelity 1080p gaming.

The AMD Radeon™ RX 5500 series includes the Radeon™ RX 5500 graphics card that will be available in desktop PCs from leading manufacturers and graphics cards from board partners, as well as the Radeon™ RX 5500M GPU for notebook PCs. Top system providers worldwide are embracing the new products, with HP and Lenovo™ planning to offer Radeon™ RX 5500 graphics cards in their high-performance desktop gaming PCs beginning this November, and Acer planning to offer systems with the cards beginning this December. In addition, later this month MSI is expected to launch the world’s first gaming notebook powered by AMD Ryzen™ processors and Radeon™ RX 5500M GPUs.
“Based on feedback and insights from global gaming communities, gamers rank graphics as the most critical component for speed and performance,” said Johnson Jia, senior vice president and general manager, Consumer Business of Intelligent Devices Group, Lenovo. “That’s why the Lenovo Legion™ T730 and T530 gaming towers and the IdeaCentre™ T540 Gaming desktop pack in AMD’s latest Radeon™ RX graphics – satisfying players’ need for high-fidelity visuals and lightning-fast framerates to fully immerse into their gameplay.”

“MSI Alpha 15 is a new chapter for us, and we're excited to partner with AMD to combine the latest 7nm technology found in the Radeon™ RX 5500M GPU and MSI’s gaming DNA for our gamers,” said Charles Chiang, CEO of MSI.

With the newest additions to the Radeon™ family, AMD is bringing its advanced RDNA gaming architecture and industry-leading 7nm process technology to legions of mainstream gamers worldwide in exciting new form factors and systems. Powered by RDNA, the Radeon™ RX 5500 provides up to 1.6X higher gaming performance-per-watt than current Radeon™ graphics cards based on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture.

The AMD Radeon™ RX 5500 series was built from the ground up to deliver incredible 1080p gaming, high-fidelity visuals and ultra-responsive gameplay. Optimized to deliver incredible experiences on the hottest games, the Radeon™ RX 5500 graphics card provides up to 37 percent faster performance on average than the competitive product in select titles at 1080p1. For mobile gaming, a laptop configured with the Radeon™ RX 5500M GPU provides up to 30 percent faster performance on average than the competition, and delivers up to 60+ FPS in select AAA titles and up to 90+ FPS in select eSports games.

“It’s been incredible to see the response to our RDNA architecture from gamers worldwide, and now we’re bringing the same high-framerate, dynamic gameplay and advanced features to 1080p gaming with the Radeon™ RX 5500 series,” said Scott Herkelman, corporate vice president and general manager, Radeon Technologies Group at AMD. “AMD is committed to delivering incredible gaming experiences to all gamers across all price-points. Whether fighting the Calypso twins in Borderlands 3 or battling to take back Auroa in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon® Breakpoint, the Radeon™ RX 5500 series allows every gamer to feel fully immersed and lose themselves in these beautiful and complex worlds.”

Built on industry-leading 7nm process technology and supporting high-bandwidth PCIe® 4.0 technology, the new AMD Radeon™ products take advantage of powerful features to bring 1080p gameplay to the next level.