Details of AMD's new RX 5500 XT have leaked just hours before the embargo is set to lift, giving us a close look at what the cards will be capable of and how much they will cost. The RX 5500 XT will come in two versions, 4GB and 8GB (along with all of the aftermarket cooling and overclock options) launching today, on December 12, with prices that start at $169 and $199, respectively.
The AMD RX 5500 XT is slated to have 1,408 stream processors, a game clock of 1,717MHz, and a boost clock of 1,845MHz. With 4 and 8GB of RAM over a 128-bit memory bus, both running at 14Gbps. This should put the performance of the cards at roughly better than a GTX 1650 Super, and around a GTX 1660, or better than an RX 580, and chasing the tail of the Vega 56.
Price is a huge factor at this level and though $169 makes the 4GB version more expensive than the 1650 Super, it should be the more powerful card. At $200 the 5500 XT 8GB undercuts the 1660 and should be roughly comparable in terms of performance. It has 8GB of VRAM too, which should give it a big leg-up in certain games at certain detail settings and makes it a decent 1440p budget card.
All of this is coming very late in the year with little time before the holidays and on the tail end of a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales period that sapped many GPU stocks at major retailers. But the 5500 XT looks set to be a competitive pair of GPUs. With a rumored 5600 XT landing sometime early next year, AMD's graphics lineup is looking far more competitive all of a sudden.
