Hot on the heels of the release of the Radeon RX 580 and RX 570 launched earlier this week, AMD have released a new Polaris 12 GPU, the Radeon RX 550. It is a sub-$100 entry level GPU, targeted at those who want an inexpensive, low profile, low power and low performance component for mini desktop PCs or a minor upgrade on integrated GPUs. It has just 8 compute units, a boost clock of 1183 MHz and comes with either 2 or 4 Gb of GDDR5 memory capable of delivering up to 112 GB/s bandwidth. As expected from a discrete GPU, the RX 550 wipes the floor with Intel’s current best desktop iGPU (HD 630 (Kaby Lake). The RX 550 is expected to be around 70% as fast as the only $20 dearer RX 560 (the successor to the RX 460 to be released next month), however this should be sufficient for an okay gaming experience for many games on non-demanding settings. It is anticipated, that AMD will tailor the form of the 550 more towards the laptop market as the year progresses. [Apr '17GPUPro]
AMD’s new 7900 series GPUs received a lot of pre-launch hype. There were claims of 50-70% performance improvements over the previous flagship. Our benchmarks show that the 7900-XTX leads the 6950-XT by around 30%. AMD overhype their product launches because it is effective at getting first-time buyers to pay over MRSP. After an initial burst in sales, prices often drop rapidly, as with the 6900 XT and the recently launched Zen 4 7950X, which are now both 30% cheaper. AMD’s domination of social media platforms has historically resulted in millions of users purchasing sub standard products, those users will be very hard, if not impossible for AMD to win back. If this trend continues, semiconductors may become a secondary business line for AMD, who appear more focused on developing “Advanced Marketing” relationships with select youtubers and media outlets. Based on the volume of social media/press coverage, you would never guess that the combined market share for all of AMD’s Radeon 5000 and 6000 GPUs amongst PC gamers is just 2.12% (Steam stats). Be wary of sponsored reviews (golden samples+cherry picked games) that showcase the wins and gloss over the losses whilst conveniently ignoring frame drops. Despite steady price cuts, an increasing number of seasoned gamers simply have no interest in buying AMD products. They know from bitter experience that headline average fps are worthless when they are accompanied with stutters, random crashes, excessive noise and a limited feature set. Most gamers, who are better off playing at 1080p, will do well to wait for Nvidia’s upcoming 4060/4070 series cards (est. early 2023). Even brand fans that wish to be in AMD’s “2%” club, will find better deals after the launch hype settles. Shoppers should avoid AMD’s reference design as many users are reporting thermal issues. [Dec '22GPUPro]
We calculate effective 3D speed which estimates gaming performance for the top 12 games. Effective speed is adjusted by current prices to yield value for money. Our figures are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top GPUs. [GPUPro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.