AMD Announces Radeon RX 5600 Series: A Lighter Navi To Rule 1080p Gaming
by Ryan Smith on January 6, 2020 5:46 PM ESTRadeon RX 5600 For OEMs, & Radeon RX5600M For Mobile
While the biggest part of today’s Radeon RX 5600 series launch is the retail desktop for obvious reasons, this is not the only market AMD will be addressing. The company believes they have a winning part in the works, and to that end they are going to extend the Radeon RX 5600 series over the entire market, covering OEM desktop and mobile as well.
Starting things off for the OEM desktop side, AMD will also be releasing the Radeon RX 5600 for that market. Similar to what we saw with the OEM-only Radeon RX 5500, the Radeon RX 5600 is a similar, but slightly slower part. The big difference here is that while clockspeeds and TBPs remain unchanged, these OEM parts will only ship with 32 CUs enabled instead of 36 CUs enabled.
| AMD Radeon RX OEM Specification Comparison | ||||||
| AMD Radeon RX 5600 (OEM) | AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT | AMD Radeon RX 5500 (OEM) | AMD Radeon RX 5700 | |||
| CUs | 32 (2048 SPs) |
36 (2304 SPs) |
22 (1408 SPs) |
36 (2304 SPs) |
||
| Texture Units | 128 | 144 | 88 | 144 | ||
| ROPs | 64 | 64 | 32 | 64 | ||
| Base Clock | 1265MHz? | 1265MHz? | ? | 1465MHz | ||
| Game Clock | 1375MHz | 1375MHz | <=1670MHz | 1625MHz | ||
| Boost Clock | 1560MHz | 1560MHz | <=1845MHz | 1725MHz | ||
| Throughput (FP32) | 6.4 TFLOPs | 7.2 TFLOPs | <=5.2 TFLOPs | 7.95 TFLOPs | ||
| Memory Clock | 12 Gbps GDDR6 | 12 Gbps GDDR6 | 14 Gbps GDDR6 | 14 Gbps GDDR6 | ||
| Memory Bus Width | 192-bit | 192-bit | 128-bit | 256-bit | ||
| VRAM | 6GB | 6GB | 4GB/8GB | 8GB | ||
| Transistor Count | 10.3B | 10.3B | 6.4B | 10.3B | ||
| Typical Board Power | 150W | 150W | 150W | 180W | ||
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 7nm | ||
| Architecture | RDNA (1) | RDNA (1) | RDNA (1) | RDNA (1) | ||
| GPU | Navi 10 | Navi 10 | Navi 14 | Navi 10 | ||
| Launch Date | 01/21/2020 | 01/21/2020 | Q4 2019 | 07/07/2019 | ||
| Launch Price | N/A | $279 | N/A | $349 | ||
On paper, this gives the Radeon RX 5600 somewhere around 90% of the retail Radeon RX 5600 XT’s performance. The precise performance gap will vary with games and whether they’re compute/shader bound or pixel/bandwidth bound, but again, it’s a ballpark figure.
Meanwhile in the mobile space, the 5600 series will be rounded out by the Radeon RX 5600M. Unlike the OEM desktop card, AMD isn’t holding back any punches here, and the 5600M will ship with the same 36 CUs as the retail card.
| AMD Radeon RX Series Mobile Specification Comparison | ||||||
| AMD Radeon RX 5600M | AMD Radeon RX 5500M | AMD Radeon Vega Pro 20 | AMD Radeon RX 560X | |||
| CUs | 36 | 22 | 20 | 14/16 | ||
| Texture Units | 144 | 88 | 80 | 64 | ||
| ROPs | 64 | 32 | 32 | 16 | ||
| Game Clock | <=1375MHz | <=1448MHz | N/A | N/A | ||
| Boost Clock | <=1560MHz | <=1645MHz | 1300MHz | 1275MHz | ||
| Throughput (FP32) | <= 7.2 TFLOPs | <=4.6 TFLOPs | 3.3 TFLOPs | 2.6 TFLOPs | ||
| Memory Clock | 12 Gbps GDDR6 | 14 Gbps GDDR6 | 1.5 Gbps HBM2 | 7 Gbps GDDR5 | ||
| Memory Bus Width | 192-bit | 128-bit | 1024-bit | 128-bit | ||
| Max VRAM | 6GB | 4GB | 4GB | 4GB | ||
| Typical Board Power | N/A (Min: 60W) | 85W | ? | ? | ||
| Architecture | RDNA (1) | RDNA (1) | Vega (GCN 5) |
GCN 4 | ||
| GPU | Navi 10 | Navi 14 | Vega 12 | Polaris 11 | ||
| Launch Date | 01/21/2020 | 10/2019 | 10/2018 | 04/2018 | ||
But, like AMDs other Navi mobile parts, the clockspeeds and TDPs are up to the OEMs. So OEMs will be free to dial them up and down (to a degree) to hit the specific performance/power consumption they’re looking for in a laptop. Consequently, AMD doesn’t have a maximum TBP here, but they have set a minimum: 60 Watts. Radeon RX 5600M will not be a light chip.
It won’t be a small chip either, which is what makes this announcement particularly interesting. Since this is all based on Navi 10, any OEM using the RX 5600M will have to accommodate the moderately sized chip and its accompanying 6 GDDR6 chips. This shouldn’t be a challenge for OEMs, who already regularly include NVIDIA’s even larger chips, but to date AMD’s laptop wins have almost exclusively been their mobile-focused GPUs like Polaris 11 and Navi 14, which are available in low z-height packages. So the RX 5600M will require a greater commitment from laptop partners than what we’ve seen in the past, both with respect to power/cooling as well as sheer board space.
The OEM Radeon RX 5600 and the Radeon RX 5600M should be available soon. And with CES in full swing, there shouldn’t be any shortage of partners announcing systems with the new video cards over the next couple of days.
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jabber - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
I'll be keeping my old RX480 for another 6 months at least.C'mon AMD you've had at least 18 months or more to tempt me and all you've given me are warmed up left-overs to look at.
sing_electric - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
I've got a 580 and have been thinking the same thing. Even if you're not sticking with AMD, getting a real generational bump (where you can upgrade, spending less money and still getting better performance) really hasn't happened for that part of the market. I've got hopes for the next-gen RDNA bringing more to the table, and at the very least, it seems like AMD's put enough pressure on NVIDIA where they won't be able to take a breather for hte next gen like they've done so far...jabber - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
Yeah the RX480 was a real "Wow that's great 1080p performance for a good price!" card. We hadn't really had one for a few years.I'm waiting for the next version of that, where it's quite clear it gives a decent leap for a good price.
The 5700/5600 just seem a bit overpriced and underwhelming. That and I don't fancy going back to 6GB after having 8GB for three years.
flyingpants265 - Saturday, January 11, 2020 - link
RX 480 was first released around June 2016. And remember, we've been holding onto our GTX1080 for ages as well.Things haven't been moving very fast in the GPU market lately..
1600AF/16GB/5700 seems to be the best value combo right now, you can build a 1440p gaming system for $650, (even less if using old case/PSU/SSD etc.)
Spunjji - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
The RX 5700 series aren't exactly "warmed up leftovers". They're solid offerings for the money - no more exciting than that for sure, but still...jabber - Wednesday, January 8, 2020 - link
But not a great enough leap for those of us with 480/580/590 cards which this is meant to replace.Plus a backwards step to 6GB...
Warmed up...
Ironchef3500 - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
How many "ultimate" 1080p cards do we need....The_Assimilator - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
> with the only difference is 15% lower average clockspeedsHi ho proofreading, AWAY!
Lee.Danny - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
I would like to see a comparison with the Vega 56 when it releasessing_electric - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
While I'm glad AMD is filling out their product stack, can we talk about how many chips they end up creating masks for? It now REALLY looks like the Navi 14 die will only be used in one product - and I'm wondering, since the 5600 series is almost certainly based on 5700 rejects - why they didn't launch this sooner.They shrunk both the Vega die (to 7nm for Radeon VII) and the Polaris one (for the 12nm RX 590), and created a Navi 14 die... It seems like the "throw spaghetti at the wall, see what sticks" strategy.