AMD Radeon RX 5500M

The AMD Radeon RX 5500M belongs to the Radeon RX 5000 series and is built around the Navi 14 chip with RDNA 1.0 architecture. It is manufactured by AMD at TSMC on a 7 nm process, packing 6,400 million transistors into a 158 mm² die for a transistor density of 40.5M per square millimeter. The clock specification lists a 1375 MHz base, a 1448 MHz game clock, and a 1645 MHz boost. Memory is 4 GB of GDDR6 running at 1750 MHz with a 14 Gbps effective data rate across a 128-bit bus, producing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU contains 1408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs, with a pixel rate of 52.64 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 144.8 GTexel/s. Its average benchmark score is 9233, placing it at the 44th percentile of all GPUs. The product is end-of-life, was released on 2019-10-06, lists Polaris Mobile as its predecessor, and has no successor in the record.

How It Compares

Against the NVIDIA Quadro K5000, the RX 5500M is effectively tied. The Radeon’s average score is 9233 against the Quadro’s 9235, a delta of 0%. This places the two cards in the same performance tier in the database.

Against the AMD Radeon Vega 8, the RX 5500M is 0.2% ahead, posting 9233 versus 9215. That is the smallest positive delta in the nearest-rival group and indicates a marginal edge rather than a decisive gap.

Against the AMD Radeon R7 M380, the RX 5500M trails by 0.9%. The R7 M380 averages 9313, which is the highest average score among the four nearest rivals. This is the only negative delta recorded for the RX 5500M in this rival set.

Against the NVIDIA GeForce MX330, the RX 5500M is 1.4% ahead, scoring 9233 versus 9108. That is the largest advantage over any nearest rival. The four rival averages span from 9108 to 9313, so the RX 5500M sits inside a tightly packed competitive cluster.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The specification record contains null entries for both RT cores and tensor cores. The architecture is RDNA 1.0, and the compute and graphics pipeline is built around 1408 shading units, 88 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The resulting fill rates are 52.64 GPixel/s for pixels and 144.8 GTexel/s for textures. FP32 throughput is 4.632 TFLOPS, while FP16 throughput is 9.265 TFLOPS with a 2:1 ratio. Without dedicated RT or tensor core counts, the listed feature set rests on the shader array, the ROP/TMU units, and the API support.

On the API side, the card supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The bus interface is PCIe 4.0 x8. The power connector field is None, and the TDP is 85 W, so power is supplied by the host platform rather than external connectors. Display outputs are listed as portable-device dependent, meaning the physical display connectivity depends on the laptop implementation. The combination of no dedicated RT/tensor hardware and a 7 nm Navi 14 die defines the feature set available to applications.

Benchmark Performance

The RX 5500M’s average benchmark score is 9233, and its percentile rank among all GPUs is 44. In Geekbench, the OpenCL score is 38,164 and the Vulkan score is 36,150. The OpenCL result is higher than the Vulkan result, reflecting compute-oriented performance in that test path. In Passmark, the G3D score is 5,848, the G2D score is 414, and the GPU compute score is 2,316.

The Passmark DirectX sub-tests show a clear pattern across API generations. The DirectX 9 score is 100, the DirectX 10 score is 39, the DirectX 11 score is 35, and the DirectX 12 score is 28. The card is therefore strongest in the legacy DirectX 9 workload and progressively lower in the newer API workloads. Relative to its nearest rivals, the aggregate 9233 average is 0.2% above the Vega 8’s 9215, 1.4% above the MX330’s 9108, on par with the Quadro K5000’s 9235, and 0.9% below the R7 M380’s 9313. Every delta in the rival set is within 1.4 percentage points of the RX 5500M’s average score. The benchmark data shows a product that is not separated from its immediate competitors by large margins, but rather one whose profile is defined by the gap between its high DirectX 9 score and its low DirectX 12 score.

Who Should Consider It

The RX 5500M is a mobile Navi 14 part with an end-of-life status and no successor listed. Its 44th percentile placement and 9233 average score put it in the same bracket as the four nearest rivals. Users targeting workloads that resemble the DirectX 9 Passmark result of 100 will see the most favorable data, while users targeting DirectX 12 face a score of 28 in the corresponding Passmark test. The card carries modern API support in the form of DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, but the benchmark results indicate that performance headroom diminishes as the API level advances.

The memory configuration shapes the usage profile: 4 GB of GDDR6 means total frame buffer capacity is 4 GB, and settings must respect that limit. The 224.0 GB/s bandwidth is the transfer ceiling for textures and render targets. With an average score 0.9% behind the R7 M380 and up to 1.4% ahead of the MX330, the card fits applications that fall within this narrow performance band. The 85 W TDP, the None power connector field, and portable-device-dependent display outputs mean consideration is tied to the laptop platform rather than a standalone desktop card. The release date of 2019-10-06 and end-of-life production status also mean the recorded scores are the final state of the product.

Memory Subsystem

The RX 5500M uses 4 GB of GDDR6 across a 128-bit memory bus. The memory clock is 1750 MHz, and the effective data rate is 14 Gbps, yielding an aggregate bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s. This bandwidth is the hardware path for all texture and framebuffer data moving through the 1408 shading units and 32 ROPs. In the context of the listed compute rates of 4.632 TFLOPS FP32 and 9.265 TFLOPS FP16, the memory subsystem defines how quickly data can be fed into the shader array.

For high-resolution workloads, capacity is the first constraint. The 4 GB frame buffer is the total available memory for geometry buffers, textures, and render targets. The 128-bit bus width is matched to that capacity, while the 14 Gbps effective GDDR6 rate is what brings peak bandwidth to 224.0 GB/s. The PCIe 4.0 x8 interface connects the GPU to the host, and the absence of external power connectors means memory power behavior occurs within the 85 W platform power envelope. The data shows a memory subsystem that is compact but specifically defined by its 4 GB capacity and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth.