AMD announces RX500 series desktop graphics cards

After about a year of announcing the RX 400 series of budget and mid-range graphics cards, AMD is back with the RX 500 series. Based on an updated Polaris architecture, the RX 500 series is meant to replace the RX 400 and for those who are planning on upgrading from the R9 series or the NVIDIA equivalent graphics cards from over two years ago or more. Meanwhile, RX 400 series owners need not pay attention as the performance gain here is not worth upgrading to.

The RX 500 series consists of four cards for now, the RX 580, the RX 570, the RX 560 and the RX 550.

The RX 580 has the same 2304 stream processors as the RX 480 but ups the base clock speed to 1257MHz and the boost clock speed to 1340MHz. Memory is the same 4/8GB 8Gbps GDDR5 configuration with 256-bit memory bus width. The TDP has gone up from 150W to 185W. AMD calls this a 1440p card, which might be overreaching a bit. AMD won't say how much faster it is than the RX 480 (probably because the difference is likely very small) but it does claim a 57% improvement in performance over the R9 380X. The RX 580 will be available in 4GB and 8GB configurations for $199 and $229, respectively. There won't be any reference design cards available so you will mostly just be getting factory overclocked cards at a higher price.

The RX 570 is an overclocked RX 470 with the same 2048 stream processors but base clock speed boosted to 1168MHz and the boost clock speed boosted to 1244MHz. It comes with 4GB 7Gbps 256-bit GDDR5 VRAM. The TDP has once again gone up from 120W to 150W. The RX 570 is priced at $169. Along with the RX 580, the RX 570 will be available starting today.

The RX 560 has 1024 stream processors, 128 more than the RX 460, as well as 64 texture units and 16 ROPs, both more than the 460. The base clock speed has gone up to 1175MHz and the boost clock speed to 1275MHz. It will have 4GB 7Gbps GDDR5 128-bit memory and 60-80W TDP and will be available with or without PCIe power connectors depending upon the wattage and card. The RX 560 is priced at $99 and will be available in May.

The RX 550 has 512 stream processors, 32 texture units, 1183MHz boost clock speed, 128-bit memory bus, 2GB VRAM and 50W TDP. The RX 550 is priced at $79 and will be available on April 20.

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