Final words and conclusion
Final words
It has been an interesting launch for the 5500 series. The 5500 XT will become available starting today, albeit we do not precisely know what volume availability will be as several boards aren't available until the 19th. That means that the 5500 XT missed Black Friday, Cyber Monday and, well, one week away from Christmas it's not likely that you'll quickly be ordering a 5500 XT (in such a short timeframe). AMD claims they have plenty of volume available though, fingers crossed.
Performance
If you focus in at the target resolution of 1920x1080 then I'd say AMD has got a super fun new product. Games like Battlefield V will make you aim, shoot and smile. Games like Metro: Exodus will make you cry and here you'll find yourself lowering image quality fast and swiftly. We do recommend the 8GB version over 4GB, however, that is a bit of opinionated advice from us as, in the Full HD domain, 4GB might just be enough. If you are a little more savvy with high-quality textures etc., then hey... 8GB man. Realistically the 5500 XT card makes good sense in the Full HD space (monitor resolution of 1920x1080) and can even handle games at a resolution of 2560x1440 (Wide Quad HD) if you opt for 8GB. While results with a 4GB card might look close to the 8GB version, you'll get far more irritating stutters, etc. Results vary per game title though. Overall the product is faster than that 1650 Super and sits at the Radeon RX 580/590 level of performance, not bad eh?
Relative performance under the condition that the application does not run out of graphics memory
Pricing
The 5500 XT overall as a reference product is priced in that 150~200 USD space depending on brand and model exclusivity. A premium board should be roughly 20 bucks more expensive, and if you opt for 8GB over 4GB that total might be running up to an extra 50 bucks. The card MSRP product pricing is as follows: $169 - €185 for the 4GB models, $199 - €219 for the 8GB models.
Cooling & acoustics
The cooler certainly holds its ground, the acoustics are downright silent at a measured 33 dBA, which I consider to be a very good operating value. Temperature-wise we're looking at roughly 65 Degrees C under full load, which I am perfectly fine with as well. So for an MSRP product, the lights are green here.
Energy
The TDP for this XT we measure to be roughly 125 Watts. That number varies a bit per game title, workload, resolution and even refresh rate of course. It's a really fair wattage and brings AMD to a level where the competition sits as well. That's mainly thanks to the architecture, but of course also that 7nm fabrication node.
Conclusion
Where I can recommend the 8GB cards if you need to purchase a new PC or upgrade from something significantly slower, I do have strong reservations about the 4GB versions. Only if you stick to Full HD as game resolutions and are willing to forfeit on image quality settings with the modern games it would make sense. It's not a bad card at all with 4 GB, but to be a little more future proof, we really would like to steer you towards the 8GB models. That, however, does come at a bit of a price premium of course. I mention it in the 8GB review already, what AMD really needs is a product that sits in-between the 5500 and 5700 at the price of what Polaris currently is doing, which would have made sense. And considering I am still seeing a gap in the model range, the 5600 series is going to need to address that, hopefully, sooner rather than later. So yeah, there you have it, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this product all by itself and, in fact, I think the 5500 XT performs better than I would have expected with terrific wattage. It's just smack-down in the middle of a performance bracket that people have been buying for many years now. With few feature advantages, there's just little reason to upgrade. The flip-side of the coin is that if you need to build a new system and need a power-friendly easy add-in card with enough oomph for 1920x1080, here it's a proper alternative in an affordable segment. The Sapphire card as tested offers normal temperatures at very silent operation, As such that is very much so recommended. Tweaking wise all cards will hit roughly 5% extra perf from what we are seeing right now on several AIB samples. I think I've said enough on the 4GB / 8GB argument. Your call, of course. If it were up to me, I'd happily pick this Sapphire Pulse with 8GB smacked on it. Drop it in your PC, and then performance will be really good without making compromises.
- Download MSI AfterBurner
- 3DMark FireStrike + Time Spy + Port Royale)
- Download AMD Radeon drivers
- Download NVIDIA GeForce drivers
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