AMD announced the Radeon RX 5500 in early October, and since then, they've been completely silent about the product, even to where everybody started wondering what's going on. Apple recently released products using the Navi 14 GPU, but no news for PC gamers. We acquired our own reference design card (not provided by AMD) produced by PCPartner, the same company that makes most of the other AMD Radeon reference design cards. In terms of specifications, our Radeon RX 5500 matches AMD's published specifications exactly, so it's not some cheap OEM board; looking at the topnotch cooler internals confirms that, too.

We tested the card using AMD's latest Radeon Software 19.11.3, which includes official support for the Radeon RX 5500 since this card is already shipping in some OEM systems. Looking at our performance results, at 1080p Full HD, we see the Radeon RX 5500 beat NVIDIA's GTX 1650 with ease, by a solid 27% margin. However, NVIDIA released the GTX 1650 Super today exactly for that reason, to counter the RX 5500. The GTX 1650 Super is 5% faster than the RX 5500. Another noteworthy data point is the RX 570 4 GB, which has been the price/performance king for a long time, and it seems to be obsoleted by the RX 5500. AMD's aging Radeon RX 580 is 2% faster than the RX 5500, which isn't much. What makes this an impressive feat is that the RX 5500 achieves the same performance with a much smaller silicon die (= cheaper), and it does so with almost half the power consumed (= less heat/noise). Overall, we can definitely recommend the Radeon RX 5500 for all games at 1080p Full HD.

AMD's reference design cooler looks simple from the outside, but packs a punch as you can see from our teardown pictures—this is not some cheap OEM shit. You get a copper baseplate, two heatpipes, and well-built heatsinks for memory and VRM that are integrated into the main cooler. All this obviously has a positive effect on temperatures and noise levels. We measured only 66°C during heavy gaming, which is impressive for such a compact card. Not only temperatures are good, noise levels impressed me even more. I think most of you remember the dreadful thermal performance of Vega and Navi 10 reference cards—the RX 5500 is completely different. Noise levels are only 32 dBA, which ensures competitiveness in the market. No longer will people think they have to choose between affordable (AMD) and quiet (NVIDIA). Considering this is a reference cooler, I look forward to testing custom designs from AMD's various board partners, which will definitely reduce noise levels even further. I'm 100% certain that board partners will also add the idle-fan-stop capability not included on the reference design (as expected).

Not only the cooler is good as the PCB design is a marvel in engineering, especially for such a compact board. AMD has overengineered their VRM quite a bit. With six phases for the GPU alone, it is much more powerful than what the card could possibly demand in power delivery capability. GPU and memory voltage are both managed by high-quality IRF and OnSemi voltage controllers. I do have to wonder why AMD picked an 8-pin power input for this card. In our testing, the card gently sipped power, between 110 and 130 W, for which a 6-pin would be sufficient as an 8-pin goes up to 225 W, almost twice as much. Maybe this same PCB will be used on the Radeon RX 5500 XT further down the road.

Back in July, Navi 10, which is used on the Radeon RX 5700 series, confirmed that AMD has made substantial improvements in power efficiency, and Navi 14 on the RX 5500 is no different. Looking at performance per watt, we see the RX 5500 match the RX 5700 XT almost exactly. Only the RX 5700 non-XT is more power efficient, but it is a special undervolted design. Compared to NVIDIA, this means the RX 5500 is roughly as power efficient as NVIDIA's Pascal architecture, which is a good improvement. NVIDIA's Turing architecture is still more efficient, and NVIDIA is still on 12 nanometer, while Navi uses the more efficient 7 nanometer tech. Still, looking at what the RX 5500 delivers in terms of power/heat/noise, it seems the differences aren't that major anymore.

Overclocking using Wattman worked much better than in my early Navi 10 reviews. It seems AMD is actively working on getting all the issues fixed. During testing, I didn't encounter a single bluescreen. Just like on previous Radeon cards, overclocking is limited to a maximum range AMD decides, no idea why as these cards definitely can take more. Our maximum overclock was decent, reaching around +6% on GPU and memory, each, which turned into a +5.3% real-life performance improvement—enough to beat the RX 580.

AMD hasn't communicated any pricing for their Radeon RX 5500 as they probably haven't even decided themselves and are waiting for the GeForce GTX 1650 Super results. We have those results in this review, and I also plotted price/performance at some price levels I picked arbitrarily, but seem realistic given the positioning. At $180, the card is simply way too expensive. It would only match the RX 580 and end up a significantly worse investment than the competition from NVIDIA, too. $160 is the level where things start getting interesting. Here, the RX 5500, GTX 1660 Super, GTX 1650 Super, and RX 570 are all within a few percentage points from each other, giving customers choices based on their personal preferences. If AMD can pull off $140, on the other hand, the card would immediately take the markets in a heartbeat because it would offer the best price/performance ever seen. AMD does have one ace up its sleeve, and that's the tiny die size of the Navi 14 GPU, which measures only 158 mm², compared to the 284 mm² of the NVIDIA TU116 (GTX 1650 Super, 1660, and 1660 Super). If AMD is willing to pass along that significant cost advantage, they could bring down pricing so much it would hurt NVIDIA. What does concern me is the reference design PCB and cooler. It's extremely well engineered, but that also makes it expensive, probably too expensive to sell at those price points. The RX 5500's VRM configuration is not cheap, and neither is the cooler—compare it to the coolers in today's GTX 1650 Super reviews.

Overall, the RX 5500 is a solid entry in this market segment. Just its announcement was disruptive enough to force NVIDIA to change its plans and release new updated products. The Radeon RX 5500 reference design can definitely impress, so let's hope AMD figures out retail channel availability soon, and board partners can release their custom designs. Assuming pricing will end up at $150 or below, I'm giving this card "Recommended" and "Great Value".