Friday, January 17th 2020

AMD Allegedly Bolstering Radeon RX 5600 XT in Response to RTX 2060 Price Cut

AMD has allegedly changed the specifications of its Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card through a BIOS update being pushed to manufacturers, according to an HKEPC report. According to the report, AMD has increased clock-speeds of the RX 5600 XT to 1615 MHz gaming and 1750 MHz boost, versus 1375 MHz gaming and 1560 MHz on AMD's CES press-event slides detailing the card. Confirmation of this comes from the product page of Sapphire's RX 5600 XT Pulse graphics card, which doesn't bear any "OC" marking in either the product name or box art, but yet has an updated specs tab, referencing the new clock speed.

Increased GPU (engine) clocks isn't all, Sapphire also increased memory clock speeds from 12 Gbps to 14 Gbps (a 15% increase in memory bandwidth). Also, the typical board power ("power consumption") value has gone up from 150 W to 160 W, indicating a possible power-limit increase. These last-minute changes could probably significantly change the performance numbers of the RX 5600 XT in a bid to make it more competitive to the GeForce RTX 2060. Earlier today, it was reported that NVIDIA formally cut prices of the RTX 2060 down to $299, which would put it within $20 of the RX 5600 XT with its launch price of $279.
Sources: HKEPC, VideoCardz
Add your own comment

98 Comments on AMD Allegedly Bolstering Radeon RX 5600 XT in Response to RTX 2060 Price Cut

#76
Vayra86
theoneandonlymrkNice rant there, i agree with your conclusion but would ask you to re read my posts.
They clearly mentioned that was my observation , they didn't attack Nvidia but you see what you see eh.
I would also point to my statement of this is a shit move but about the same as their competitors are doing too.

No red tint here ,calm yourself.
My apologies, sir. Rant is mostly directed at the state of things. Not you :)
Posted on Reply
#77
Berfs1
cj09beirathing has a certain die, that can have various performance levels depending on how much money they spend on vram, and how high they push the clocks, amd had chosen to keep power down with that one, and will now increase power to get a bit more performance to respond to nvidea's pricing changes, its not sandbagging, its not just limiting something as you are making a tradeoff, power efficiency vs performance
In this particular instance, I believe you get more performace/watt than the previous 5600 XT specs.

Just checked my database, yes, you get more performance/watt with the new updated specs. You go from 49.77 GFLOPS/Watt to 50.40 GFLOPS/Watt.
Posted on Reply
#78
cucker tarlson
AMD Allegedly Bolstering Radeon RX 5600 XT in Response to RTX 2060 Price Cut

I am still puzzled.
If this thing can run higher core clocks and 14gbps on memory just like that,why didn't it before nvidia dropped the price ?
Is this bolstering ?

weren't they just sandbagging your $280 card to sell more 5700s ?
Posted on Reply
#79
efikkan
Perhaps they wanted to space it more evenly between RX 5500 XT and RX 5700?
Posted on Reply
#80
IceShroom
cucker tarlsonAMD Allegedly Bolstering Radeon RX 5600 XT in Response to RTX 2060 Price Cut

I am still puzzled.
If this thing can run higher core clocks and 14gbps on memory just like that,why didn't it before nvidia dropped the price ?
Is this bolstering ?

weren't they just sandbagging your $280 card to sell more 5700s ?
You are talking as if AMD locked the overclocking feature of RX 5600 XT but forgetting RTX on the GTX 1660 Ti/1660 Super/ 1660/1650 Super/1650 - the sandbaged card which does not have any RTX feature or mobile card which have same name but performs like the lower tier version or older generation media engine.
Posted on Reply
#81
dirtyferret
cucker tarlsonAMD Allegedly Bolstering Radeon RX 5600 XT in Response to RTX 2060 Price Cut

I am still puzzled.
If this thing can run higher core clocks and 14gbps on memory just like that,why didn't it before nvidia dropped the price ?
Is this bolstering ?

weren't they just sandbagging your $280 card to sell more 5700s ?
That's what is sounds like. Obviously not the first time Intel, AMD, or Nvidia have done something like this.
Posted on Reply
#82
cucker tarlson
dirtyferretThat's what is sounds like. Obviously not the first time Intel, AMD, or Nvidia have done something like this.
I can't remember raising core and memory clocks before launch.
but this is expected.
however,this is just pushing stock performance higher,would decrease oc headroom in favor of out of the box performance.good news,not everybody overclocks.
Posted on Reply
#83
medi01
Pardon my ignorance, but could one just "boost mem" like that, without planning it ahead?
Posted on Reply
#84
cucker tarlson
medi01Pardon my ignorance, but could one just "boost mem" like that, without planning it ahead?
they were probably 14bgps to begin with,just gimped.
Posted on Reply
#85
Assimilator
cucker tarlsonAMD Allegedly Bolstering Radeon RX 5600 XT in Response to RTX 2060 Price Cut

I am still puzzled.
If this thing can run higher core clocks and 14gbps on memory just like that,why didn't it before nvidia dropped the price ?
Is this bolstering ?

weren't they just sandbagging your $280 card to sell more 5700s ?
Of course they were. If NVIDIA had pulled that trick, the AMD fanboys here would be screaming blue murder. But AMD does it and they're quiet as mice, except when AMD's nonsense gets called out - in which case they resort to whataboutism to try and divert the conversation back to NVIDIA (see post #81).
Posted on Reply
#86
medi01
AssimilatorIf NVIDIA had pulled that trick
This is a bad example as it is played against The Leather Man.
A good example, in my opinion, would be 5700 flashing to XT.
Posted on Reply
#87
Camm
This is pretty mild as far as AMD goes for increasing TDP for better clocks in order to better compete.

But thats the key word, TDP. Yes, performance was being left on the table, but to fit a TDP envelope. AMD is specifically going past that here in this move.
Posted on Reply
#88
kapone32
If nothing else (for me) AMD is starting to do what they did in the CPU space. I know we got some info in the summer on more cards and there was a reconfirmation last week. Intel had a similar market share at the start of 2017 but with product launches they have made Intel economically 2nd best (Except X299). There is a real oppurtunity between $500-$800 if they can release a card that is 2080TI like in performance. With this bump we simply got the transition from the 7970 to the R9 280X in weeks instead of months in response to the 2060. The $200-$400 market is the GPU market after all. There is absolutely nothing wrong from an ethical or financial standpoint it is part of the GPU market and has been since before AMD/ATI had the market share lead.
Posted on Reply
#89
Totally
AssimilatorOf course they were. If NVIDIA had pulled that trick, the AMD fanboys here would be screaming blue murder. But AMD does it and they're quiet as mice, except when AMD's nonsense gets called out - in which case they resort to whataboutism to try and divert the conversation back to NVIDIA (see post #81).
Why would AMD fanboys cry bloody murder in regard to the abusive relationship Nvidia has between itself and it's customers? ofc you're not going to hear a peep.
Posted on Reply
#90
QUANTUMPHYSICS
so with the 2060 and the 5600 at the same price...now we get to see which one the market buying low-end GPUs will choose.

I stick with Nvidia - and have since I upgraded from my Voodoo 3 3000 to a Geforce MX400. A long with Intel CPU, I have never been disappointed.

Now I am rolling a 2080Ti FTW3 and a 2080Ti Black.

I love Nvidia's regular updates, bug fixing turnaround and their style.
Posted on Reply
#91
Berfs1
cucker tarlsonAMD Allegedly Bolstering Radeon RX 5600 XT in Response to RTX 2060 Price Cut

I am still puzzled.
If this thing can run higher core clocks and 14gbps on memory just like that,why didn't it before nvidia dropped the price ?
Is this bolstering ?

weren't they just sandbagging your $280 card to sell more 5700s ?
The only thing with that statement is, AMD reserves the right to change the specs without prior notice. One thing that should be noted is, the [updated] RX 5600 XT is actually not as fast as the 5700. GAME FREQUENCY is different from MAX BOOST FREQUENCY. The game frequency is lower, by 10 MHz, so it is a tiny difference, however this means the RX 5700 will not only have more VRAM, but will also have a consistently higher frequency. Max boost may help in low load scenarios, but in high load scenarios (this is usually what non-competitive gamers do, high quality graphical settings), the game frequency is what you want to look at. And, the 12GBps is probably running on a lower memory voltage, that is *probably* why AMD could do 14GBps, with higher VRAM voltage. If anything, its still a great value card, and it just got even more value. Hopefully there won't be as many issues driver wise.
QUANTUMPHYSICSso with the 2060 and the 5600 at the same price...now we get to see which one the market buying low-end GPUs will choose.

I stick with Nvidia - and have since I upgraded from my Voodoo 3 3000 to a Geforce MX400. A long with Intel CPU, I have never been disappointed.

Now I am rolling a 2080Ti FTW3 and a 2080Ti Black.

I love Nvidia's regular updates, bug fixing turnaround and their style.
Funny thing is, NVIDIA has 5 xx60 cards (mid-range). 1660, 1660 Super, 1660 Ti, 2060, and 2060 Super. So what is the 5600 XT supposed to compete with lol?
Posted on Reply
#92
HwGeek
Smart move IMO, because this 5600XT lineup doesn't need extra R&D money from AIB partners, they just use current 5700 models and just solder 6 mem chips instead of 8 to save ~$20 and print new Box packaging with 5600XT name on it and can sell it under 300$.
Posted on Reply
#94
agentnathan009
kingsYes of course, Nvidia is dumb, AMD is smart. It's amazing how Nvidia manages to be the market leader, if they are so dumb... The thing was so genius, that AMD in the same quarter of the RX 5700XT launch, lose market share to Nvidia. (AMD loses 5% of GPU market to Nvidia in Q3 despite the RX 5700-series launch). Clearly Nvidia was trolled by AMD and Navi stole all the thunder, right?

Only the naive people believe in these jebaited BS. AMD has positioned the first Navi prices according to certain competitior products, but when the competition responded with performance gains for the same price, AMD had to position their cards with lower prices. Simple as that!

The same is happening now, Nvidia when cutting the price of the RTX 2060, forced AMD to work on the RX 5600XT, in order to improve the competitiveness of the card. Be it performance increase through clocks or price reduction. This time they chose the first route, because it was probably the easiest. It´s the same Navi 10 chip and so they had some scope to increase clocks and avoid lowering the price.
I'm not suggesting that AMD is smart, but they are being smarter and aggressive with products lately. I wouldn't call 5600 XT being within 10% performance of 5700 smart, but nvidia needs some competition, we as gamers need that competition.

nvidia isn't the market leader, Intel is with IGP... Oh, did you mean innovation? Well, they are leading in some innovative ways, but not in all aspects.

I don't think nvidia forced AMD to do anything, I think they upscoped their card to compete against a higher tier product because they could, and offer it for $20 less than competition. The 5600 was originally (so I have read anyway) set to compete against 1660 series cards, not the 2060. nvidia 1st gen raytracing performance is so bad that you can only play it on lowest setting on 2060 at 1080 res anyway, so that is hardly a selling point for that card. 2nd gen ray tracing on Ampere on 3060 (if they make such a card) might be quite a bit better and worth the consideration compared to an AMD card.

The $300 plus priced 5700 series of cards is not the hottest performing market segment for gamers, the $200-$300 is a much higher selling segment than $300 plus. What you said is like saying nvidia launched the 2080 Ti and AMD gained 5% market share. How many people are running out to spend so much on a video card? Not very many. You also have to give people time to buy products. 5600 cards should have higher sales volume than 5700, though not by significant margins since 5600 is hardly below $300.
Posted on Reply
#95
Berfs1
HwGeekSmart move IMO, because this 5600XT lineup doesn't need extra R&D money from AIB partners, they just use current 5700 models and just solder 6 mem chips instead of 8 to save ~$20 and print new Box packaging with 5600XT name on it and can sell it under 300$.
Also improves yields because there are less functioning parts (ie memory controller and actual memory chips).
agentnathan009I'm not suggesting that AMD is smart, but they are being smarter and aggressive with products lately. I wouldn't call 5600 XT being within 10% performance of 5700 smart, but nvidia needs some competition, we as gamers need that competition.

nvidia isn't the market leader, Intel is with IGP... Oh, did you mean innovation? Well, they are leading in some innovative ways, but not in all aspects.

I don't think nvidia forced AMD to do anything, I think they upscoped their card to compete against a higher tier product because they could, and offer it for $20 less than competition. The 5600 was originally (so I have read anyway) set to compete against 1660 series cards, not the 2060. nvidia 1st gen raytracing performance is so bad that you can only play it on lowest setting on 2060 at 1080 res anyway, so that is hardly a selling point for that card. 2nd gen ray tracing on Ampere on 3060 (if they make such a card) might be quite a bit better and worth the consideration compared to an AMD card.

The $300 plus priced 5700 series of cards is not the hottest performing market segment for gamers, the $200-$300 is a much higher selling segment than $300 plus. What you said is like saying nvidia launched the 2080 Ti and AMD gained 5% market share. How many people are running out to spend so much on a video card? Not very many. You also have to give people time to buy products. 5600 cards should have higher sales volume than 5700, though not by significant margins since 5600 is hardly below $300.
NVIDIA forced AMD to redo their architecture since they took gargantuan amounts of power (at a relative performance range). A little off topic but, the 5600 XT has slightly lower game clock by 10 MHz, higher boost clock (no word on the base clock yet), and 2 GB less VRAM (2 or 4 chips less), and TBP is lowered by 20W. That 20W means you get more gaming performance/watt, and not to mention at this point in the production, there are going to be better yields since they know how to optimize the production line after a few months of making the GPUs.
Posted on Reply
#96
agentnathan009
Berfs1Also improves yields because there are less functioning parts (ie memory controller and actual memory chips).


NVIDIA forced AMD to redo their architecture since they took gargantuan amounts of power (at a relative performance range). A little off topic but, the 5600 XT has slightly lower game clock by 10 MHz, higher boost clock (no word on the base clock yet), and 2 GB less VRAM (2 or 4 chips less), and TBP is lowered by 20W. That 20W means you get more gaming performance/watt, and not to mention at this point in the production, there are going to be better yields since they know how to optimize the production line after a few months of making the GPUs.
I read an article recently that was saying that AMD got ~50% efficiency improvement tweaking something with the GCN 4 architecture and that same tweak works with RDNA architecture. That is how they could lower the CU number from 11 to 8 for new Ryzen 4000 laptop parts while using the same Vega GPU and get better performance.
Posted on Reply
#97
Berfs1
agentnathan009I read an article recently that was saying that AMD got ~50% efficiency improvement tweaking something with the GCN 4 architecture and that same tweak works with RDNA architecture. That is how they could lower the CU number from 11 to 8 for new Ryzen 4000 laptop parts while using the same Vega GPU and get better performance.
Yes, and in recent times, AMD has dramatically improved the performance/watt ratio, most likely due to the nodes being used (7nm). AMD card's had good performance, NVIDIA of course had better cards, but AMD GPUs usually took much more power, and that's why AMD cards were for budget users since they were priced lower. Oh and, about the Ryzen 4000 laptops, the reason they have 40% more perf isn't all due to just the architecture, also has to do with the fact that the GPU clock speed was bumped up from 1400 MHz on the 3780U (Vega 11) and 3700U (Vega 10) to 1750 MHz on the 4800U (Vega 8) and 1600 MHz on the 4700U (Vega 7). That clock speed jump is a 25% and 14.3% increase respectively.
Posted on Reply
Add your own comment
Nov 22nd, 2024 11:36 EST change timezone

New Forum Posts

Popular Reviews

Controversial News Posts