AMD Radeon RX 5500M vs AMD Radeon RX 6500M

AMD Radeon RX 5500M

The AMD Radeon RX 5500M (or RX 5500 Mobile Graphics) is a mobile mid-range graphics card based on the Navi 14 chip (RDNA architecture) manufactured in the modern 7nm process. It features 1,408 cores clocked at 1,645 MHz (max. Boost, 1448 MHz max game clock) and fast GDDR6 graphics memory (14 Gbps).

The Navi 14 chip uses the new RDNA (Radeon DNA) microarchitecture which is a successor the the GCN instruction set. It features a new processor design, a multi-level cache hierarchy and an improved rendering pipeline with support for GDDR6 memory.

The performance of the RX5500M should be between the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q and the normal GeForce GTX 1660 Ti according to AMD. That means it should be best suited for Full HD (1920x1080) with high or maximum settings in demanding games. AMD states that the 5500M should be able to hit a performance of up to 4,6 TFLOPS (theoretical) versus 5,2 (+12%) of the desktop Radeon 5500. In our gaming benchmarks with the MSI Alpha 15, the RX 5500M however was slightly slower on average than the older GTX 1060 (mobile) and therefore between GTX 1650 and GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q.

The chip is specified with a TDP of 85 Watt and therefore 20 Watt more than the slower clocked Radeon RX5300M. In games the power consumption of the chip ranges between 64 and 105 Watt (Ghost Recon gameplay recorded with HWInfo64). In the MSI Alpha 15 the power consumption was clearly higher than the GTX 1060 and GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q and only slightly below a normal GTX 1660 Ti (measured in The Witcher 3 with an external monitor).

AMD Radeon RX 6500M

The AMD Radeon RX 6500M is a mobile entry-level graphics card based on the Navi 24 chip (RDNA 2  architecture) manufactured in the modern 6nm process. It features 1024 cores (16 CUs - compute units) and 4 GB of fast GDDR6 graphics memory connected with a 128 Bit memory bus. The chip also includes 16 MB Infinity Cache. The game clock speed is specified at 2191 MHz. AMD specifies the theoretical performance at 9.97 TFLOPS (half precision +60% vs 6300M) and 4.98 TFLOPS (single precision). The 6500M supports Smart Access Memory and SmartShift Technology.

The performance should be similar to a mobile RTX 3050 (according to AMD) and therefore best suited for 1080p gaming with high settings.

The Navi 24 chip is manufactured at TSMC in the modern 6nm process and should offer a good energy efficiency. The RX6500M is specified at a TDP of 50 Watt and therefore best suited for normal multimedia laptops.