Sapphire RX 5500 XT Pulse 4GB Review

1. Introduction2. Sapphire RX 5500 XT Pulse 4GB3. Testing Methodology4. 3DMark Fire Strike & Time Spy (1080p, 1440p, 4K)5. Battlefield V (1080p, 1440p, 4K)6. The Division 2 (1080p, 1440p, 4K)7. F1 2019 (1080p, 1440p, 4K)8. Far Cry New Dawn (1080p, 1440p, 4K)9. Gears 5 (1080p, 1440p, 4K)10. Ghost Recon: Wildlands (1080p, 1440p, 4K)11. Metro Exodus (1080p, 1440p, 4K)12. Middle Earth: Shadow of War (1080p, 1440p, 4K)13. Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1080p, 1440p, 4K)14. Total War: Three Kingdoms (1080p, 1440p, 4K)15. Clock Speed16. Temperatures17. Acoustics18. Power Consumption19. Overclocking20. Closing Thoughts21. View All Pages

It has been over two months since AMD first announced the RX 5500 series of GPUs. Since then, Nvidia has launched both the GTX 1660 SUPER, and more recently the 1650 SUPER, in a pre-emptive attempt to render AMD's new GPUs dead on arrival. Today, we can finally assess the performance of the Navi-based RX 5500 XT.

The first thing to note is that this review is concerned with Sapphire's RX 5500 XT Pulse 4GB. 5500 XT is available in both 4GB and 8GB models (the only difference is the VRAM capacity), so if you want to see our review of an 8GB card, head over to the ASRock Challenger HERE.

Secondly, AMD disclosed pricing to us yesterday, with the 4GB model retailing for £159.99 here in the UK, while the 8GB model is £20 more expensive at £179.99. Considering GTX 1650 SUPER cards start at £149.99, this really is a head-to-head battle between Team Red and Team Green in the ~£150 market segment.

The last point to note in this introduction is how RX 5500 XT fits in with the rest of the RX 5500 series. When AMD made the initial announcement back in October, core spec was announced for the RX 5500 ‘series', but the 5500 XT was not explicitly mentioned. As it transpires, both the RX 5500 and RX 5500 XT use the exact same GPU, with the same core count. The primary differences are that RX 5500 (non-XT) has slightly lower clocks, is only available as a 4GB model, and is only available to OEMs. RX 5500 XT is available as a standalone part, so unless you want to buy a pre-built system, you can forget about the non-XT version of the 5500.

GPU	RX 5500 XT	RX 5700	RX 5700 XT	RX Vega 56	RX Vega 64
Architecture	Navi	Navi	Navi	Vega 10	Vega 10
Manufacturing Process	7nm	7nm	7nm	14nm	14nm
Transistor Count	6.4 billion	10.3 billion	10.3 billion	12.5 billion	12.5 billion
Die Size	158mm²	251mm²	251mm²	486mm²	495mm²
Compute Units	22	36	40	56	64
Stream Processors	1408	2304	2560	3584	4096
Base GPU Clock	n/a	Up to 1465MHz	Up to 1605MHz	1156 MHz	1274 MHz
Game GPU Clock	Up to 1717MHz	Up to 1625MHz	Up to 1755MHz	n/a	n/a
Boost GPU Clock	Up to 1845MHz	Up to 1725MHz	Up to 1905MHz	1471 MHz	1546 MHz
Peak SP Performance	Up to 5.20 TFLOPS	Up to 7.95 TFLOPS	Up to 9.75 TFLOPS	Up to 10.5 TFLOPS	Up to 12.7 TFLOPS
Peak Half Precision Performance	Up to 10.4 TFLOPS	Up to 15.9 TFLOPS	Up to 19.5 TFLOPS	Up to 21.0 TFLOPS	Up to 25.3 TFLOPS
Peak Texture Fill-Rate	Up to 162.4 GT/s	Up to 248.4 GT/s	Up to 304.8 GT/s	Up to 330.0 GT/s	Up to 395.8 GT/s
ROPs	32	64	64	64	64
Peak Pixel Fill-Rate	Up to 59.0 GP/s	Up to 110.4 GP/s	Up to 121.9 GP/s	Up to 94.0 GP/s	Up to 98.9 GP/s
Memory	4/8GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6	8GB HBM	8GB HBM
Memory Bandwidth	224 GB/s	448 GB/s	448 GB/s	410 GB/s	483.8 GB/s
Memory Interface	128-bit	256-bit	256-bit	2048-bit	2048-bit
Board Power	130W	185W	225W	210W	295W

With that in mind, GPU specs for the RX 5500 XT have therefore been online for two months, so nothing new is revealed to us. Built on the same Navi architecture as the RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT, and fabbed on TSMC's 7nm process, the RX 5500 XT consists of 22 Compute Units (CUs) and 1408 Stream Processors.

The same 14Gbps GDDR6 memory has also been brought down from the RX 5700 series, with 4GB or 8GB models. The 5500 XT however has a narrower, 128-bit memory interface, meaning total memory bandwidth is 224 GB/s, or half that of its pricier brethren.

As for clock speeds, the Sapphire card here follows the reference specification with a 1845MHz boost clock. Total board power is rated at 130W, or 30W above GTX 1650 SUPER.

The Sapphire RX 5500 XT Pulse 4GB ships in a multi-coloured box, with prominent AMD Radeon branding visible on the front. There's no image of the card itself here.

Inside, the only two includes extras are a quick installation guide and a manufacturer's note.

Looking at the graphics card itself, this bears an immediate resemblance to the RX 5700 Pulse in terms of the overall shroud design and use of its dual fans. That said, I am appreciative of Sapphire's decision to remove a lot of the red and silver accents for this 5500 XT model, as the card is almost entirely black. This simply means you won't have issues using the Pulse in a colour-coordinated build, which may not have been the case with the 5700 Pulse.

As for the fans, these are dual ball bearing models, each measuring 100mm in diameter.

In terms of the overall size of the card, it's not huge, being a standard dual-slot thickness – full measurements are 233mm x 121.8mm x 39.6mm.

On the front side of the shroud, we can see the silver Sapphire logo sitting on the left-hand side. This is not an RGB zone, as there is no lighting anywhere on the card. Just above this logo, we can also see the dual-BIOS switch, which is a great feature for a card at this end of the market. By default, the card ships using the performance BIOS, but the secondary BIOS activates a ‘silent' mode if you prefer that.

It's also great to see a full-length metal backplate on the Pulse. It's again very colour neutral with just some grey lines running the length of the card, and there is the slightest bit of red showing in the Pulse logo too.

All RX 5500 XTs will require one 8-pin power connector, as is seen here, while display outputs are provided by 3x DisplayPorts and 1x HDMI.

Removing the cooler, we can get a look at the very short PCB used here – the cooler and backplate extend beyond the PCB by almost two inches. Still, the PCB itself is almost certainly AMD's reference design, with a 6-phase VRM for the GPU and single-phase VRM for the memory.

The 4x1GB memory modules are supplied by Micron, and each chip is labelled ‘9TA77D9WCW'. Lastly, the tiny 158mm2 Navi 14 GPU is also on show.

For the cooler, Sapphire has kept things simple but effective. There's a single fin stack and a total of three plate heatpipes. The GPU contacts with a copper core, while that is surrounded by another contact plate for the VRAM. Just off to the side, a secondary coldplate is also positioned for the VRM.

Our newest GPU test procedure has been built with the intention of benchmarking high-end graphics cards. We test at 1920×1080 (1080p), 2560×1440 (1440p), and 3840×2160 (4K UHD) resolutions.

We try to test using the DX12 API if titles offer support. This gives us an interpretation into the graphics card performance hierarchy in the present time and the near future, when DX12 becomes more prevalent. After all, graphics cards of this expense may stay in a gamer’s system for a number of product generations/years before being upgraded.

We tested the RX Vega64 and Vega56 using the ‘Turbo‘ power mode in AMD’s WattMan software. This prioritises all-out performance over power efficiency, noise output, and lower thermals.

Driver Notes

• All AMD graphics cards (except RX 5500 XT) were benchmarked with the Adrenalin 19.9.2 driver.
• RX 5500 XT graphics card were benchmarked with the Adrenalin 19.12.2 driver supplied to press ahead of launch.
• All Nvidia graphics cards (except 1650/1660 SUPER) were benchmarked with the Nvidia 436.48 driver.
• All GTX 1660 SUPER graphics cards were benchmarked with the Nvidia 441.07 driver supplied to press ahead of launch.
• GTX 1650 SUPER was benchmarked with the Nvidia 441.20 public driver.

Test System

We test using the Overclockers UK Germanium pre-built system, though it has been re-housed into an open-air test bench. You can read more about it over HERE.

CPU	Intel Core i7-8700K Overclocked to 5.0GHz
Motherboard	ASUS ROG Strix Z370-F Gaming
Memory	Team Group Dark Hawk RGB 16GB (2x8GB) @ 3200MHz 16-18-18-38
Graphics Card	Varies
System Drive	Samsung 960 EVO 500GB
Games Drive	Kingston UV500 960GB
Chassis	Streacom ST-BC1 Bench
CPU Cooler	OCUK TechLabs 240mm AIO
Power Supply	Corsair AX1500i 80+ Titanium PSU
Operating System	Windows 10 1903

Comparison Graphics Cards List

• PNY RTX 2080 Ti XLR8 Gaming 11GB
• Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition (FE) 11GB
• Nvidia RTX 2080 SUPER Founders Edition (FE) 8GB
• Nvidia RTX 2070 SUPER Founders Edition (FE) 8GB
• Nvidia RTX 2060 SUPER Founders Edition (FE) 8GB
• Nvidia RTX 2060 Founders Edition (FE) 6GB
• Gigabyte GTX 1660 Ti OC 6G
• EVGA GTX 1660 SUPER SC Ultra 6GB
• Gigabyte GTX 1660 SUPER Gaming OC 6G
• Palit GTX 1660 SUPER GamingPro OC 6GB
• Gigabyte GTX 1660 Gaming OC 6G
• ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1650 SUPER 6GB
• Palit GTX 1650 StormX OC 4GB
• Nvidia GTX 1060 Founders Edition (FE) 6GB
• AMD RX 5700 XT 8GB
• ASRock RX 5700 XT Taichi X OC+ 8GB
• PowerColor RX 5700 XT Red Devil 8GB
• Sapphire RX 5700 XT Nitro+ 8GB
• ASUS RX 5700 TUF Gaming X3 8GB
• AMD RX 5700 8GB
• AMD Radeon VII 16GB
• AMD RX Vega 64 Air 8GB
• AMD RX Vega 56 8GB
• Sapphire RX 590 Nitro+ SE 8GB
• Sapphire RX 580 Pulse 8GB
• ASUS RX 570 ROG Strix Gaming OC 4GB

Software and Games List

• 3DMark Fire Strike & Fire Strike Ultra (DX11 Synthetic)
• 3DMark Time Spy (DX12 Synthetic)
• Battlefield V (DX12)
• The Division 2 (DX11)
• F1 2019 (DX12)
• Far Cry New Dawn (DX11)
• Gears 5 (DX12)
• Ghost Recon: Wildlands (DX11)
• Metro: Exodus (DX12)
• Middle Earth: Shadow of War (DX11)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Total War: Three Kingdoms (DX11)

We run each benchmark/game three times, and present averages in our graphs.

3DMark Fire Strike is a showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for today’s high-performance gaming PCs. It is our [FutureMark’s] most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today.

 

Kicking things off with our 3DMark scores, there's a fair bit of variation between the three benchmarks – the 5500 XT produces, comparatively speaking, its best result in Fire Strike Ultra but its Time Spy score is less impressive.

Battlefield V is a first-person shooter video game developed by EA DICE and published by Electronic Arts. Battlefield V is the sixteenth instalment in the Battlefield series. It was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 20, 2018. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Ultra preset, DX12 API.

Our first game of the day is Battlefield V, and here we see the Sapphire 5500 XT 4GB coming in 2% faster than the ASUS Strix 1650 SUPER at 1080p resolution.

Tom Clancy's The Division 2 is an online action role-playing video game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft. The sequel to Tom Clancy's The Division (2016), it is set in a near-future Washington, D.C. in the aftermath of a smallpox pandemic, and follows an agent of the Strategic Homeland Division as they try to rebuild the city. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Ultra preset, but with V-Sync disabled, DX11 API.

 

Both 5500 XT models average just under 60FPS in The Division 2 at 1080p, with this Sapphire card just 3% behind the 1650 SUPER. The Sapphire card also holds a healthy lead over the older RX 580.

F1 2019 is a racing video game based on the 2019 Formula One and Formula 2 Championships. The game is developed and published by Codemasters and is the twelfth title in the Formula One series developed by the studio. The game was announced by Codemasters on 28 March 2019. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Ultra High preset, with TAA and 16x Anisotropic Filtering, DX12 API.

The Sapphire 5500 XT falls slightly further behind GTX 1650 SUPER when testing F1 2019, but the 5% performance deficit works out at a difference of just 3.9FPS.

Far Cry New Dawn is an action-adventure first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. The game is a spin-off of the Far Cry series and a narrative sequel to Far Cry 5. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on February 15, 2019. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Ultra preset, with the  HD Textures pack, DX11 API.

Far Cry New Dawn is one of the few titles we tested where there is a big enough variation in performance between the 4GB and 8GB 5500 XT models, that we have to attribute it to a memory bottleneck – here, the 4GB Sapphire card is 5% slower than the 8GB ASRock model.

Gears 5 is a third-person shooter video game developed by The Coalition and published by Xbox Game Studios for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One. It is the sixth instalment of the Gears of War series, and is the second Gears of War game not to be developed by Epic Games.

We test using the Ultra preset, with Best Animation Quality (instead of Auto), DX12 API.

Gears 5 sees both RX 5500 XT cards edge out the 1650 SUPER, with the 4GB Sapphire model holding a 4% advantage over the ASUS ROG card at 1080p. That's a difference of 2.3FPS.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is a tactical shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Paris and published by Ubisoft. It was released worldwide on March 7, 2017, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as the tenth instalment in the Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon franchise and is the first game in the Ghost Recon series to feature an open world environment. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Very High preset, DX11 API.

Wildlands is a bit more favourable to Nvidia hardware, and here we see a slightly larger 6% performance deficit for the 4GB RX 5500 XT. It's still averaging over 60FPS at 1080p, though.

Metro Exodus is a first-person shooter video game developed by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver in 2019. It is the third instalment in the Metro video game series based on Dmitry Glukhovsky's novels, following the events of Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Ultra preset, but with Hairworks and Advanced PhysX turned off, DX12 API.

Things swing back the other way in Metro Exodus, this time the Sapphire 5500 XT has a 6% lead over 1650 SUPER. This title is so tough to run, that the 6% margin is just a 2.2FPS difference at 1080p.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is an action role-playing video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It is the sequel to 2014’s Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on October 10, 2017. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Very High preset, DX11 API.

With Middle Earth Shadow of War, the gap between the 4GB 5500 XT and GTX 1650 SUPER closes to just 3%. That said, we see the 4GB model fall 5% behind the 8GB 5500 XT, again suggesting memory limitations are at play here.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game developed by Eidos Montréal in conjunction with Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix. It continues the narrative from the 2013 game Tomb Raider and its sequel Rise of the Tomb Raider, and is the twelfth mainline entry in the Tomb Raider series. The game released worldwide on 14 September 2018 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Highest preset, with AA disabled, DX12 API.

It's no surprise to see 1650 SUPER scoring its biggest performance lead over the RX 5500 XT in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, with 10FPS gap at 1080p. Here, the 4GB 5500 XT is 7% behind the 8GB ASRock model tested, again showing a memory bottleneck – this is also the biggest gap between the two cards that we observed.

Total War: Three Kingdoms is a turn-based strategy real-time tactics video game developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega. As the 12th mainline entry (the 13th entry) in the Total War series, the game was released for Microsoft Windows on May 23, 2019.

We test using the Ultra preset, DX11 API.

Rounding off our games testing, after falling a fair way behind GTX 1650 SUPER in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, things go the other way in Total War: Three Kingdoms – the 4GB 5500 XT takes a 9% performance lead at 1080p.

Here we present the average clock speed for each graphics card while running the 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra stress test for 30 minutes. We use GPU-Z to record the GPU core frequency during the Fire Strike Ultra runs. We calculate the average core frequency during the 30 minute run to present here.

With the Sapphire 5500 XT 4GB averaging 1804MHz under load in our testing, this is 24MHz slower than the ASRock 5500 XT we have also reviewed for launch. While far from a big gap, this does explain why – where memory limitations are not a factor – we saw the Sapphire card performing ever so slightly slower in our games.

Still, this clock speed is well above the rated game clock of 1717MHz, so we have little cause for complaint.

For our temperature testing, we measure the peak GPU core temperature under load, as well as the GPU temperature with the card idling on the desktop. A reading under load comes from running the 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra stress test for 30 minutes. An idle reading comes after leaving the system on the Windows desktop for 30 minutes.

Temperatures are very healthy for the Sapphire Pulse, with edge temperature peaking at just 65C. Junction and memory results peaked at 87C and 72C respectively, which is absolutely fine for a card of this calibre.

Just confirming that, we didn't see hot spots on the card exceeding 61C using our thermal gun, so Sapphire has definitely produced the goods in terms of this card's operating temperatures.

We take our noise measurements with the sound meter positioned 1 foot from the graphics card. I measured the noise floor to be 32 dBA, thus anything above this level can be attributed to the graphics cards. The power supply is passive for the entire power output range we tested all graphics cards in, while all CPU and system fans were disabled.

A reading under load comes from running the 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra stress test for 30 minutes. An idle reading comes after leaving the system on the Windows desktop for 30 minutes.

It's looking at noise levels where the Pulse really shines. Under 100% load, the fans wouldn't spin past 1050rpm – or 32% – resulting in this being one of the quietest graphics card I have tested in recent months. It's quiet enough that once installed in a case, you would be very hard pressed to actually hear its fans spin.

We measure system-wide power draw from the wall while the card is sat idling at the Windows 10 desktop for 30 minutes. A reading under load comes from running the 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra stress test for 30 minutes.

Power draw is another interesting area to look at, and right away we can see AMD has improved its overall efficiency significantly – total system power draw is down by 70-odd watts compared to the RX 580, despite 5500 XT also proving the faster card.

Then again, this is still almost 50W higher than our figures for 1650 SUPER, so Nvidia clearly still has the edge here with its Turing architecture.

Just a quick note on overclocking – I was unable to properly test this due to time limitations and experiencing some erratic behaviour during what testing I was able to do. In essence, I found manually overclocking either the GPU core or memory for 5500 XT would occasionally result in higher performance in my testing, but then – without changing any settings – performance would often fall the next time I ran the same benchmark. This is something that will require further investigation in the weeks to come.

It has been a fairly long wait to get our hands on AMD's Navi 14-based GPUs. The RX 5500 series was announced over two months ago, but it has taken until today for reviews of the RX 5500 XT to become available. In this review, we have assessed the 4GB Sapphire Pulse model, but if you want to see our review of the 8GB ASRock Challenger, head over HERE.

Getting right to our performance summary, I don't think it is a huge surprise to see RX 5500 XT performance rivalling that of the GTX 1650 SUPER. Across the ten games we tested today, the results came in like a see-saw – in one title, the 1650 SUPER would edge ahead, but then in the next game things swung back in the 5500 XT's favour. That means, across all of our testing at 1080p, this Sapphire 5500 XT is just 1% slower on average than our ASUS ROG Strix 1650 SUPER.

To give a few more general comparisons, the Pulse 4GB is also 4% faster than RX 580 8GB, while it is 7% slower than RX 590 8GB and 11% slower than Nvidia's GTX 1660 (non-SUPER.)

It's also going to be worth directly comparing this Sapphire 4GB 5500 XT to the 8GB ASRock Challenger model. By and large, the difference in memory capacity is inconsequential, as the Pulse 4GB is just 2% slower when averaged across all of our games. However, in three of the ten titles we tested, we saw performance differences between 5-8% at 1080p. This is a much larger gap between the two cards than what would be explained by the very small difference in operating clock speed, so it does suggest in some cases there is a benefit to having more than 4GB VRAM for 1080p gaming.

Of course, this argument can easily go both ways. Some may say a 8% performance gap – at most – is not very significant at all, and they would be happy saving the £20 and buying a 4GB model. On the other hand, there is an argument to be made for ‘future-proofing' your purchase, as if AAA games today are benefiting from more than 4GB VRAM, who knows what the situation will be like in a year or two.

It's also worth touching on the specific thermal and noise performance of this Sapphire Pulse card. In a nutshell, it is a very proficient model which ran cool – with edge temperatures peaking at 65C – and also very quiet, producing less than 39db of noise based on our testing.

Nvidia does still have an advantage in terms of Turing's power efficiency, however, as we saw total system power draw coming in around 50W higher with this 5500 XT than with 1650 SUPER. AMD has still made large strides in this area as its efficiency is greatly increased over the RX 580, but there is still a way to go to catch up with Nvidia.

So, should you buy the AMD RX 5500 XT 4GB? This new GPU is in a real dog fight with the GTX 1650 SUPER, and arguments can be made for either card. On the one hand, Nvidia's card is more power efficient and I had also more success overclocking that GPU. Then again, AMD has some good software features we like – including Radeon Image Sharpening, while the company also debuted its new ‘Boost' feature this week. Additionally, AMD is also including a free copy of Monster Hunter World Iceborne Master Edition, plus 3 months Xbox Game Pass, but I don't like to place much weight on game bundles as they don't last forever.

If it were me choosing which GPU to buy, I'd first look at the games I play most and see if there is any performance benefit by going with the 5500 XT or 1650 SUPER. Gears 5 and Metro Exodus, for instance, favour the 5500 XT, but Shadow of the Tomb Raider and F1 2019 favour the 1650 SUPER.

Failing that, as the GPUs are so close in terms of overall performance, it really is a toss of a coin. 1650 SUPER does start at £149.99, so £10 less than the 5500 XT, which for some might be the only difference that matters. Then again, recent history tells us AMD could well adjust pricing sooner than we'd think. Either way, whichever GPU you choose, you're going to get a very solid card that will do the business for 1080p gaming.

The RX 5500 XT will be available from Overclockers UK, with prices starting at £159.99 for the 4GB model. This Sapphire Pulse 4GB model is currently up for pre-order for £169.99 HERE.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

Pros

• Very competitive 1080p gaming performance.
• Power efficiency greatly improved over RX 580.
• Smart design.
• Runs cool.
• Very quiet under load.
• On-board dual-BIOS.

Cons

• Still less efficient than 1650 SUPER.
• Testing shows 4GB VRAM can be a limiting factor in some scenarios.
• £10 more expensive than 1650 SUPER – it's not much, but it could be the difference for some.

KitGuru says: AMD's RX 5500 XT is a strong competitor to the 1650 SUPER. Both are essentially matched in terms of their 1080p gaming performance – if you're buying a new graphics card at the end of 2019, it's hard to go wrong in this ~£150 market segment.

Become a Patron!