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Radeon RX 550 vs Radeon RX 590

Intro

The Radeon RX 550 uses a 14 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1100 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1750 MHz on this specific model. It features 512 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 590, which features a core clock frequency of 1469 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 2000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 12 nm design. It is made up of 2304 SPUs, 144 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 550 50 Watts
Radeon RX 590 175 Watts
Difference: 125 Watts (250%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon RX 590 should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon RX 550 in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 590 262144 MB/sec
Radeon RX 550 114688 MB/sec
Difference: 147456 (129%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 590 will be quite a bit (more or less 501%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon RX 550. (explain)

Radeon RX 590 211536 Mtexels/sec
Radeon RX 550 35200 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 176336 (501%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 590 is superior to the Radeon RX 550, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon RX 590 47008 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 550 17600 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 29408 (167%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

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Radeon RX 550

Amazon.com

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Radeon RX 590

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon RX 550 Radeon RX 590
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year April 2017 November 2018
Code Name Polaris 12 Polaris 30
Memory 2048 MB 8192 MB
Core Speed 1100 MHz 1469 MHz
Memory Speed 7000 MHz 8000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 50 watts 175 watts
Bandwidth 114688 MB/sec 262144 MB/sec
Texel Rate 35200 Mtexels/sec 211536 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 17600 Mpixels/sec 47008 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 512 2304
Texture Mapping Units 32 144
Render Output Units 16 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 14 nm 12 nm
Transistors 2200 million 5700 million
Bus PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 12.0 DirectX 12.0
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.5 OpenGL 4.5

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon RX 550

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon RX 590

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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