Earlier this week, AMD out of the blue put up a load of clean product pages for what appeared to be a brand new sequence of graphics playing cards on its web site. The so-called RX 500X series seemed as if they is perhaps barely fancier, quicker variations of AMD’s present RX 500 line-up, such because the Radeon RX 580 and Radeon RX 570. Sadly, it seems they’re nothing of the kind, as AMD’s newly revealed specs for the RX 500X sequence present they’re just about similar to their non-X predecessors. Booo.
As you may see from my screengrabs under, the whole lot in regards to the RX 500X sequence is kind of precisely the identical as its non-X variant, from the bottom and increase clock speeds to the variety of stream processors. In one fell swoop, AMD has dashed any hopes of the RX 580X doubtlessly changing the common RX580 as one among immediately’s best graphics cards for 1440p gaming.
Instead, the one actual change is that there are actually two kinds of RX 550X playing cards – one with barely fewer compute models and stream processors and one with a pair extra.
So why is AMD releasing a brand new set of RX 500X playing cards which can be mainly the identical as the present RX 500 ones? According to VideoCardz, it seems as if the X variants are destined for pre-built PCs and laptops slightly than store cabinets. As a consequence, it appears such as you received’t really have the ability to purchase an RX 500X card instantly – you’ll solely discover one in a ready-made system from an OEM.
That’s truthful sufficient, you may say, however it additionally introduces a good quantity of confusion into the combination, notably for these seeking to purchase an RX 550X or RX 560X-based system. Now that there are two kinds of card accessible for these fashions, consumers will should be additional vigilant about precisely which one they’re really getting, because the lesser card isn’t more likely to be as highly effective or ship the identical sort of gaming efficiency as its higher-specced sibling.