AMD Graphics Cards Buyers Guide
What is an AMD Radeon GPU / Graphics Card?
Though many modern CPUs are equipped with integrated graphics, these are only really suitable for basic tasks such as web browsing and office applications. Therefore you should seriously consider buying a separate graphics card if you want to play GAMES or edit videos.
A key supplier of graphics cards is AMD, and its range of Radeon GPUs offer something at most price points. The key specs to look out for when choosing an AMD graphics card are the number of stream processors and amount of memory, with more powerful cards having more of both. A faster and more powerful graphics card will enable to run games at higher quality settings at a smooth frame rate and even allow you to take advantage of super sharp HIGH RESOLUTION MONITORS, making everything look better. In this buyers guide we’ll give a recommendation of the optimum monitor resolution for each graphics card.
AMD is constantly updating its product range which could make it confusing to know if you’re buying the latest and greatest version.
The easiest way to tell is to look at what series the graphics card is, this essentially refers to the generation of that product which you’ll always find in the product description. Right now, the latest series of AMD GPUs are from the RX 6000-series.
The Radeon RX Hierarchy
With prices ranging from £150, there’s an AMD Radeon GPU for most budgets. To make the selection process a little easier to discern, we’ve also divided all the GPUs into four main categories in descending performance: High-End, Mid-Range and Entry-Level.
AMD Radeon RX 6000 Graphics Cards
The most powerful and advanced AMD gaming graphics cards belong to the Radeon RX 6000-series, although you’ll still see some less powerful previous generation RX 5000 and RX 500-series graphics cards listed on our website.
DXR Real Time Ray Tracing
Radeon RX 6000-series GPU are based on the RDNA2 architecture. Launched in winter 2020, RDNA2 enables real time ray traced graphics in games. Unlike traditional rasterised graphics, ray tracing simulates how light beams and shadows actually work, providing far more rich and realistic graphics. While ray tracing as a technique has been used for decades in pre-rendered films, what makes RDNA2 GPUs unique is that they are powerful enough to produce ray traced graphics in real time.
The Ray Accelerators in Radeon RX 6000 GPUs work with Microsoft DXR to enable stunning ray traced graphics.
Radeon RX 6000-series GPUs also support the latest Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate standard, which further improves DXR ray tracing as well as adding three new rendering techniques.
Variable Rate Shading
VRS enables games to dynamically change the rate at which they shade different parts of a scene. For instance, as the human eye can’t pick up as much detail on fast moving objects as slower moving objects, fast moving objects can be shaded at a slower rate than the rest of the scene, freeing up the GPU to render the whole scene faster.
Mesh Shading
Mesh Shading is a similar concept to VRS and is a way of dynamically changing the amount of geometric detail on peripheral objects, freeing up the CPU to focus on other tasks.
Sampler Feedback
Sampler Feedback is a new method of saving the GPU from non-essential rendering. The concept is that rather than rendering every frame from scratch, there are frequently lots of objects that barely change in colour or size between several frames. Sampler Feedback analysis these objects and cuts down how often they are rendered, saving the GPU from rendering them every frame, and enabling it to focus on more visibly beneficial tasks.
AMD Smart Access Memory
In conventional gaming PC, the CPU can only access a fraction of graphics memory (VRAM) at once, limiting system performance.
AMD Smart Access Memory, which works when you combine a Radeon RX 6000 GPU with a Ryzen 5000-series CPU, the data channel gets expanded to harness the full potential of GPU memory, utilizing the bandwidth of PCIe to remove the bottlenecks and increase performance by up to 11%.
Radeon RX 6800 XT
The RX 6800 XT is the most powerful Radeon RX 6000-series gaming graphics card. This ultra-fast graphics card packs in 4,608 stream processors and 16GB of memory and provides stunning gaming experiences at the most demanding resolutions, 4K and UW-QHD.
| Gaming | 9 | |||||||||
Optimum Resolution4K or UW-QHD
Radeon RX 6800
The RX 6800 XT is the second most powerful Radeon RX 6000-series gaming graphics card. This superfast graphics card packs in 3,840 stream processors and 16GB of memory and provides a stunning gaming experience at 1440p.
| Gaming | 8 | |||||||||
Optimum Resolution1440p
Radeon RX 5700 XT
The RX 5700 XT is based on the previous generation RNDA architecture and so does not support real time raytracing. It packs in 2,560 stream processors and 8GB of memory and provides a great gaming experience at 1440p.
| Gaming | 7 | |||||||||
Optimum Resolution1400p
Radeon RX 5600 XT
The RX 5600 XT is based on the previous generation RNDA architecture and so does not support real time raytracing. It packs in 2,304 stream processors and 6GB of memory and provides a great gaming experience at 1440p.
| Gaming | 6 | |||||||||
Optimum Resolution1440p
Radeon RX 5500 XT
The RX 5500 XT is based on the previous generation RNDA architecture and so does not support real time raytracing. It packs in 1,408 stream processors and either 4GB or 8GB of memory and provides a great gaming experience at 1080p.
| Gaming | 5 | |||||||||
Optimum Resolution1080p
Radeon RX 580
The RX 580 is based on the previous generation Polaris architecture and so does not support real time raytracing. It packs in 2,304 stream processors and 8GB of memory and provides a great gaming experience at 1080p.
| Gaming | 4 | |||||||||
Optimum Resolution1080p
Radeon RX 570
The RX 570 is based on the previous generation Polaris architecture and so does not support real time raytracing. It packs in 2,048 stream processors and either 4GB or 8GB of memory and provides a good gaming experience at 1080p.
| Gaming | 3 | |||||||||
Optimum Resolution1080p
Summary
Still not sure which AMD graphics card is right for you? This table shows the key characteristics, rated out of 10, of the main models.
| RX 6800 XT | RX 6800 | RX 5700 XT | RX 5600 XT | RX 5500 XT | RX 580 | RX 570 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gaming | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | ||||||||
| RAY TRACING | Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
||||||||
| VR READY | Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
||||||||
| OPTIMUM RESOLUTIONY | 4K / UW-QHD | 1440p | 1440p | 1440p | 1080p | 1080p | 1080p | ||||||||
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There you have it, everything you need to know when choosing a new AMD Radeon graphics card for your gaming PC. We hope you've found this buyer’s guide helpful. Don't hesitate to contact one of our friendly advisors for more advice if you still have questions on how to select the perfect graphics card.
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