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The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 is a little more disappointing than we expected, particularly when you consider that its main competition is now a couple of generations behind the latest NVIDIA GPU architecture (which hasn't been released for professionals at this price yet). For most content creation tasks, the NVIDIA Quadro P2200 is faster, consumes less power, and costs around the same.
However, there are some areas where the W5500 might be a better choice. If you are working exclusively with Siemens NX, the AMD alternative is ahead. It's also clearly a much better choice if your work involves VR visualisation. If you are using larger texture sets, the 8GB of GDDR6 frame buffer will be beneficial too.
Overall, though, while it isn't all bad news for AMD, NVIDIA still mostly wins at the mid-range sub-£400 professional price level. Unless you work with Siemens NX or use VR extensively, the NVIDIA option is still the better one, despite being older GPU technology.
AMD may have a dominant CPU product for professional content creation across the gamut of prices, but for graphics acceleration, it looks like we'll have to wait until the next AMD workstation GPU generation arrives.
The AMD Radeon W5500 is available from Box for £404.30.
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Pros:
- Keen price for a professional graphics card with 8GB memory.
- Faster than NVIDIA Quadro P2200 with Siemens NX.
- Much faster than the NVIDIA Quadro P2200 with VR.
- Extensive multi-monitor options with four DisplayPort outputs.
- 8K 60Hz support.
Cons:
- Beaten by the NVIDIA Quadro P2200 in most professional applications.
- Higher power consumption than the NVIDIA Quadro P2200.
KitGuru says: The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 has some strengths, with VR and Siemens NX, but in most areas it falls behind the NVIDIA competition for performance.
