# Sapphire Radeon RX 5500 XT Pulse 4 GB



## W1zzard (Dec 12, 2019)

Sapphire's factory-overclocked Radeon RX 5500 XT Pulse comes with an amazing cooler that delivers excellent temperatures and unbelievable noise levels at the same time. Idle fan stop and a dual BIOS are included, too, for a very reasonable price increase of $10.

*Show full review*


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## Dammeron (Dec 12, 2019)

W1zz - thanks for the review, as always. 

About the card - got a bit mixed feelings. While the performance is on par with 1650 Super, the latter wins in efficiency, which can matter when talking about low/mid-end.


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## ShurikN (Dec 12, 2019)

Simply too expensive for what it offers. Both 4 and 8GB should be launching at $20 less than current msrp.


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## kapone32 (Dec 12, 2019)

ShurikN said:


> Simply too expensive for what it offers. Both 4 and 8GB should be launching at $20 less than current msrp.



Well it is cheaper than the 580 was at launch.


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## Rowsol (Dec 12, 2019)

I'm amazed at how handily this beats the gaming X cooler, and for a mere 10 dollars over msrp. Nearly 10c cooler with the same noise level.


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## ShurikN (Dec 12, 2019)

kapone32 said:


> Well it is cheaper than the 580 was at launch.


Yeah but with current pricing it's $20 more expensive than a 580 for marginally more performance. Not impressive tbh.


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## kapone32 (Dec 12, 2019)

ShurikN said:


> Yeah but with current pricing it's $20 more expensive than a 580 for marginally more performance. Not impressive tbh.



I know what you mean and fully agree. That is why I am hoping for "Big Navi" tbh I would have got the 5700XT but I did not because of no Crossfire support.


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## mak1skav (Dec 12, 2019)

Looks like a 580 but with lower power consumption... I have mixed feelings about this even as an AMD fan.


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## TheinsanegamerN (Dec 12, 2019)

kapone32 said:


> Well it is cheaper than the 580 was at launch.


And it is no faster then the 580, hell at 4k its on average SLOWER then the 580!

Three years, a major die shrink, and a new arch later, and AMD has BARELY moved the price/perf bracket.  All for 20$ less. WOO000OOO!!11!

You could have bought a 1060 or 480 3 years ago and gotten this same performance for just a few $$$ more. Not even $100-150 more, just $20 more three years ago would have gotten you this. Hell you can get a 580 right NOW on newegg for $164, or a 590 for $179. Absolutely pathetic showing. 5500xt should have been $150 for 8GB, full stop. Anything higher is a ripoff.



kapone32 said:


> I know what you mean and fully agree. That is why I am hoping for "Big Navi" tbh I would have got the 5700XT but I did not because of no Crossfire support.


At this rate, "big navi" would probably offer 2080 super performance, at 2080 super pricing. Dont hold your breath.


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## kings (Dec 12, 2019)

So, basically a RX 580 level performance card, at the price we could already buy the RX 580. And this, more than two and a half years later.

Man, this GPU market is really upside down! No wonder so many people are turning to the gaming consoles.


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## kapone32 (Dec 12, 2019)

TheinsanegamerN said:


> And it is no faster then the 580, hell at 4k its on average SLOWER then the 580!
> 
> Three years, a major die shrink, and a new arch later, and AMD has BARELY moved the price/perf bracket.  All for 20$ less. WOO000OOO!!11!
> 
> ...



I don't look at the budget cards to garner performance of high end cards. The fact that the 5700XT is faster than the Vega 64 is what gives me hope for "Big" Navi card(s).


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## Totally (Dec 12, 2019)

Price is very disappointing, looks like pricing is tied directly to performance and not the tier of the card.


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## TheinsanegamerN (Dec 12, 2019)

kapone32 said:


> I don't look at the budget cards to garner performance of high end cards. The fact that the 5700XT is faster than the Vega 64 is what gives me hope for "Big" Navi card(s).


How about the fact that by the time Big navi stumbles out the door Nvidia's 7nm chips will be close to release? If you wanted 2080 super performance, you could have had it 3.5 years ago with the 1080ti, and likely for the same price that "big navi" will be sold at.

Most 5700xts are going for north of $400. The vega 64 could easily be found for $400 when it was new, and the 5700xt is hardly an upgrade.  A whopping 15-20% increase in performance for the same price isnt worth it, again see turing. Navi so far is a dissapointment, for a new arch on 7nm it really isnt showing up nvidia, and seems to have trouble showing up previous AMD cards! I was expecting more kepler VS fermi, or GCN VS evergreen numbers, instead of microwaved GCN.


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## N3M3515 (Dec 12, 2019)

Same price than 2 year old rx 590, and performs less? tell me about a shoot in the foot.

Edit, price.


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## HD64G (Dec 12, 2019)

The RX5500 series need a $20 price reduction to become super competitive.


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 12, 2019)

I've been using the 8 GiB variant of the card for a while now and despite playing lots of games at 1920x1200 60 Hz, I have not heard the fans spin once.  I'm very impressed with it.  RX 590 fans would run about half of the time.

From my experience, I think RX 5500 XT 8 GiB has smoother frame times than RX 590 8 GiB so even though the RX 590 may be able to churn out 3-4% more frames, it is not a better experience compared to the RX 5500 XT.

If you game a lot (like me), you'll save your $20 cost difference on the power bill.  RX 5500 XT consumes about half the power RX 590 does.


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## Totally (Dec 12, 2019)

TheinsanegamerN said:


> How about the fact that by the time Big navi stumbles out the door Nvidia's 7nm chips will be close to release? If you wanted 2080 super performance, you could have had it 3.5 years ago with the 1080ti, and likely for the same price that "big navi" will be sold at.
> 
> Most 5700xts are going for north of $400. The vega 64 could easily be found for $400 when it was new, and the 5700xt is hardly an upgrade.  *A whopping 15-20% increase in performance for the same price isnt worth it, again see turing. *Navi so far is a dissapointment, for a new arch on 7nm it really isnt showing up nvidia, and seems to have trouble showing up previous AMD cards! I was expecting more kepler VS fermi, or GCN VS evergreen numbers, instead of microwaved GCN.



While I agree the that pricing should be lower. Turing was a 15-20% increase for a 50% increase in price, not the same price. I don't see an angry mob storming that figurative castle, Shouldn't you be bashing Nvidia, instread of AMD that delivered same perf for the same money?


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## kapone32 (Dec 12, 2019)

TheinsanegamerN said:


> How about the fact that by the time Big navi stumbles out the door Nvidia's 7nm chips will be close to release? If you wanted 2080 super performance, you could have had it 3.5 years ago with the 1080ti, and likely for the same price that "big navi" will be sold at.
> 
> Most 5700xts are going for north of $400. The vega 64 could easily be found for $400 when it was new, and the 5700xt is hardly an upgrade.  A whopping 15-20% increase in performance for the same price isnt worth it, again see turing. Navi so far is a dissapointment, for a new arch on 7nm it really isnt showing up nvidia, and seems to have trouble showing up previous AMD cards! I was expecting more kepler VS fermi, or GCN VS evergreen numbers, instead of microwaved GCN.



I would love to have been able to buy a Vega 64 for $400 when they were new. Perhaps you mean the Vega 56? It must be nice to be able to buy a Vega 64 for the same price as the 5700XT though because they have always been more expensive in Canada. Is there a $400 Nvidia card that can compete with the 5700XT? The fact that the 5700XT is much less powerful in terms of Specs than the Vega 64 is my thought process on why "Big Navi" is what I am waiting for. The last Nvidia card I owned was the GTS 450. The reason I don't buy NVidia cards is because they disabled SLI on my GTS 450(s). 20% is nothing to scoff at. I will put it to you like this. The 580s felt to me no different than my 7950(s) when I actually felt a performance lift was gong from the 580 to Vega 64. If the 5700XT is 15% to 20% faster than the Vega 64 and "Big Navi" is a further 15% to 20% faster than the 5700XT would that not be in the range of the 2080TI?







						ASUS Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB Overclocked 2048-Bit HBM2 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready Video Card (STRIX-RXVEGA64-O8G-GAMING) : Amazon.ca: Electronics
					

ASUS Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB Overclocked 2048-Bit HBM2 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready Video Card (STRIX-RXVEGA64-O8G-GAMING) : Amazon.ca: Electronics



					www.amazon.ca
				










						ASUS ROG STRIX AMD Radeon RX 5700XT Overclocked 8G GDDR6 HDMI DisplayPort Gaming Graphics Card (ROG-STRIX-RX5700XT-O8G-GAMING) : Amazon.ca: Electronics
					

ASUS ROG STRIX AMD Radeon RX 5700XT Overclocked 8G GDDR6 HDMI DisplayPort Gaming Graphics Card (ROG-STRIX-RX5700XT-O8G-GAMING) : Amazon.ca: Electronics



					www.amazon.ca
				









						ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080 Super Advanced Overclocked 8G GDDR6 HDMI DP 1.4 USB Type-C Gaming Graphics Card (ROG-STRIX-RTX-2080S-A8G) : Amazon.ca: Electronics
					

ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080 Super Advanced Overclocked 8G GDDR6 HDMI DP 1.4 USB Type-C Gaming Graphics Card (ROG-STRIX-RTX-2080S-A8G) : Amazon.ca: Electronics



					www.amazon.ca
				









						ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2060 Super Advanced Overclocked 8G GDDR6 HDMI DisplayPort USB Type-C Gaming Graphics Card (ROG-STRIX-RTX-2060S-A8G) : Amazon.ca: Electronics
					

ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2060 Super Advanced Overclocked 8G GDDR6 HDMI DisplayPort USB Type-C Gaming Graphics Card (ROG-STRIX-RTX-2060S-A8G) : Amazon.ca: Electronics



					www.amazon.ca


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## Deleted member 158293 (Dec 12, 2019)

Card looks ok, needs market forces to push pricing down to a proper level which usually happens with AMD.  Just not at launch apparently.


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## danbert2000 (Dec 12, 2019)

I thought that maybe I was making a mistake by buying my SO a 570 4GB back in March, since I knew that other cards were around the corner. I don't have that concern anymore. At $130, that card is still approximately 15% better performance per dollar. And since this was mainly a Civ 6 build for her, it doesn't bother me that the Polaris cards will probably be missing out on extra optimizations in the future. I was really expecting AMD to put out something with a bit more of a competitive advantage, such as the 5700 XT vs 2060 Super or 2070 Super situation. The fact that they can only approximate Nvidia's card in the bunch is a bit sad. I know that AMD forced Nvidia to put out the 1650 Super and eat their own 1660 lunch, but still. AMD was supposed to be the king at this price range.

The only saving grace is that the Navi 14 chip is, for the first time, letting AMD put out some competitive laptop designs. I can see this chip slotting in where the old laptop king, the 1050 Ti, did. AMD may get a share of the market in the desktop space by providing a comparable product to Nvidia, and be able to enter a market where they've been honestly as good as nonexistent for 5+ years. Unfortunately, this is not a good sign for the new consoles. The Xbox One X has a GPU component that can be broadly compared to an RX 580, which has 5700 million transistors. This chip has 6400 million transistors and isn't performing any better. All the improvement has been on power efficiency and fabrication node cost savings, and those cost savings are suspect with 7 nm being so popular, and with the increase in video RAM adding to the overall cost of the console as well.

We may be looking at a chip that will be broadly comparable to the cheaper Xbox Scarlett option. If that's true, then targeting 1080p on that console instead of 4k could lead to a 3-4x relative increase in graphics performance, but where does that leave the top Scarlett option? AMD doesn't have a 4x faster chip. So they could instead use a cut down or even smaller version of this chip and target 2x performance increase over the Xbox One S at 1080p, but then they would be forced to put the full Navi 10, or something similar, in a console to equal the same performance at 4k. Which means those consoles are going to be very expensive (let's not forget they're supposed to have raytracing silicon too), or AMD is going to take one hell of a haircut on the sales of the chips.

This is all pretty far out speculation, but I think my main point stands. The fact that AMD didn't increase performance per transistor at the lower end means that they're going to have to offer bigger chips for the consoles. And that means that without Navi 2 pulling a rabbit out the hat, these new consoles aren't going to provide any better results than last time, when the PS4 and Xbox One ended up being about as powerful as a budget graphics card.


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## damric (Dec 12, 2019)

The last time there was an Apple exclusive variant, the shaders were able to be unlocked on the non-apple version.


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## TesterAnon (Dec 12, 2019)

Looks a bit too expensive to be worth it for the performance it gives.


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## xkm1948 (Dec 12, 2019)

No need to get worked up on this piss poor pricing. W1zzard wrote it in the article. This pricing will help clearing out the super overstocking of Polaris due to mining crash.


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## medi01 (Dec 12, 2019)

ShurikN said:


> Same price than 2 year old rx 590


No.  MSRP of RX 590 was $279.


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## Juankato1987 (Dec 12, 2019)

580 was a mid-hig tier card, this is an mid-entry level card, but with this prices it's fair to compare them.
saddly this should be an $130-140 card, that now goes up to $210, same for the 1650 super just a little cheaper.


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## N3M3515 (Dec 12, 2019)

medi01 said:


> No.  MSRP of RX 590 was $279.



Irrelevant. Or you want it priced $280? lol...
This should be at the same price that is replacing and offer more performance. If i would get the same 2 year old perf for the same price i would be insane to buy it.


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## Solid State Soul ( SSS ) (Dec 13, 2019)

Would this card be fine for video editing, or is more Vram necessary  ?


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## Freelancer (Dec 13, 2019)

As a current RX580 Nitro+ user, the fans do need to spin to noisy levels when I play The Outer Worlds at Very High, 1080p 58 fps capped.  (I haven't fully optimised my undervolting and underclocking experiment yet though).  So an upgrade with lower temps and noise than my RX580 is attractive, but I might be more interested in a RX 5600 XT, so I would wait longer and see.


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## jgraham11 (Dec 13, 2019)

Its too bad these reviews only look at max performance, that's not what they are designed for.  Look at the combination of technologies they have and look where they are going with it.  AMD chill, and that new anti lag tech:  Designed for smoothness and opportunistic usage to maintain smoothness which is what consoles want.  Think about that new Nvidia article talking about higher FPS means a better K/D ratio...  The two companies are diverging with their gaming strategies but the tech press is still maintaining absolute performance as the metric.  It should be instead smoothness with the FPS capped at 60FPS and AMD chill enabled, which cards give you a better experience...


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## rruff (Dec 13, 2019)

N3M3515 said:


> This should be at the same price that is replacing and offer more performance. If i would get the same 2 year old perf for the same price i would be insane to buy it.



Seems that a lot of people don't understand how this works. The days of big generational performance/$ improvements are over. Silicone has been squeezed near the limit.

AMD needs to price their products competitive to Nvidia and vice versa.  That is where they have failed, but don't worry the market will naturally fix that soon enough; either Nvidia's cards will get a little more expensive or AMDs will be discounted (probably the later). Compared to the currently discounted price of the 590, this card is a better deal. Buying the 590 would "be insane" unless it gets even cheaper (which it probably will).


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## Freelancer (Dec 14, 2019)

rruff said:


> Seems that a lot of people don't understand how this works. The days of big generational performance/$ improvements are over. Silicone has been squeezed near the limit.
> 
> AMD needs to price their products competitive to Nvidia and vice versa.  That is where they have failed, but don't worry the market will naturally fix that soon enough; either Nvidia's cards will get a little more expensive or AMDs will be discounted (probably the later). Compared to the currently discounted price of the 590, this card is a better deal. Buying the 590 would "be insane" unless it gets even cheaper (which it probably will).


Agreed.  If I want to buy an AMD card soon (but not "right now"), I would wait for prices to come down.  I prefer to buy newer, more energy-efficient models and not just looking at the raw prices alone.  The energy savings may be significant in the long run.  Also, for a new PC, maybe the case doesn't need as much cooling and that also saves costs.


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## medi01 (Dec 14, 2019)

N3M3515 said:


> [MSRP price should not be compared to MSRP price, but to a whatever random price that better fit's my flawed argument]










N3M3515 said:


> This should be at the same price that is replacing and offer more performance.


What it is replacing has lower price, because AMD wants to clear up the inventory, genius.
*What other reason to buy older tech could possibly exist, if not the better perf/price, isn't it bloody obvious???*


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## EarthDog (Dec 14, 2019)

jgraham11 said:


> Its too bad these reviews only look at max performance, that's not what they are designed for.  Look at the combination of technologies they have and look where they are going with it.  AMD chill, and that new anti lag tech:  Designed for smoothness and opportunistic usage to maintain smoothness which is what consoles want.  Think about that new Nvidia article talking about higher FPS means a better K/D ratio...  The two companies are diverging with their gaming strategies but the tech press is still maintaining absolute performance as the metric.  It should be instead smoothness with the FPS capped at 60FPS and AMD chill enabled, which cards give you a better experience...


These are designed for 'max performance '. Like I said in a different thread, that is the point is to test out of box performance. If users can and want to enable chill, they can do so. But to run benchmarks like this mixed in with others, wont show it in a much better light outside of a bit less power use at the expense of some performance. 

I'd imagine more users are trying to get more out of their GPUs than to limit them. Many can't afford to overspend and cut back.


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## Turmania (Dec 18, 2019)

I like the design and low noise levels of this particular card. but as we all agree the pricing has to be revized to be competitive, 1650 super just cheaper, performs a bit better and consumes less power. they need to drop it below 1650 price levels to be competitive.


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## tajoh111 (Dec 19, 2019)

AMD cannot price themselves as the premium brand and price themselves above nvidia. They are being called out more and more and losing fans. AMD is fighting not only the Nvidia brand but fighting strong partners like Evga who have developed strong loyalty and have strong support. This Sapphire card is priced 20 dollars above the equivalent Evga.. That is significantly more money at this level of card. At the bare minimum to gain marketshare they need to price this 10 dollars less with ideally 20 dollars less considering the nvidia brand strength. At 20 dollars, above they are scalping their fans and it is showing with the feedback of the card with only the most hardened fans defending the price premium.


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## HwGeek (Dec 20, 2019)

so looks like that the 4gb 5500xt benefits from PCIe Gen 4 and gets better FPS then PCIe Gen3








						PCI-E 3.0 vs. PCI-E 4.0: Was bringt PCI-Express 4.0 mit einer RX 5500 XT wirklich?
					

Welche Vorteile bietet PCI-Express 4.0 wirklich? PCGH hat eine RX 5500 XT getestet und die Ergebnisse sind beeindruckend!




					www.pcgameshardware.de


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## EarthDog (Dec 20, 2019)

HwGeek said:


> so looks like that the 4gb 5500xt benefits from PCIe Gen 4 and gets better FPS then PCIe Gen3
> 
> 
> 
> ...











						PCI-e 3.0 x8 may not have enough bandwidth for RX 5500 XT
					

As title suggest, RX 5500 XT 4GB may be bottlenecked by PCI-e 3.0. Here is a article in (german) : https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Radeon-RX-5500-XT-Grafikkarte-275529/Specials/PCI-Express-3-vs-PCI-E-4-GPU-1339415/




					www.techpowerup.com


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## marcotti (Apr 21, 2020)

Hi All,
I don’t know if this is the right place to post this, but I wanted to share with you my issue, hoping that some of you may find a solution.

Yesterday I bought a Sapphire Radeon RX 5500 XT Pulse 8GB graphic card.
I installed it and yesterday everything was working fine.
I have 2 monitors Philips 278E9Q, one (let’s call it Monitor 1) linked with DisplayPort and the other (Monitor 2) with HDMI.
This morning I switch on my PC and Win10 didn’t find “Monitor 2”.
After having reboot a couple of times, everything looked back to normality.

After a while a switched on my second PC, also connected with the same monitors, in the opposite way (Monitor 1 through HDMI and Monitor 2 through DisplayPort).
When I had to go back to work on my first PC (changing the “source” to the monitors) the Monitor 1 (connected through the DisplayPort to the PC with the Radeon) didn’t receive signal anymore.
After several attempts, I managed to open the “Adrenalin” tool and just switching off and back on the “Virtual Super Resolution”, the Monitor 1 came back to life.

Any idea of what this can depend from?

Thanks
Marco


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## Kursah (Apr 21, 2020)

marcotti said:


> ...



Please make your own topic. Thanks!


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## marcotti (Apr 23, 2020)

Sure thing!
Done here

Thanks
Cheers


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