Radeon RX 5600 XT will launch January 21st

In a surprise to no one given recent leaks, AMD has officially announced the Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card at CES 2020, and it's available later this month.

The card aims to fill the gap between the cheaper RX 5500 XT and the pricier RX 5700 meaning no matter what your budget, there's a Radeon card out there for you. In recent times, there have been a series of rumours suggesting its imminent arrival but now, we have concrete details on what to expect. 

Base clock rates haven't been officially confirmed yet, but the game clock rate will be 1,375MHz with a boost clock of up to 1,560MHz. That makes it a little slower than the Radeon 5700. 

When it comes to memory, the Radeon RX 5600 XT looks a lot like a cut down version of the Radeon RX 5700 with its memory speed listed at 12Gbps and 192-bit compared to the 5700's 14GBps and 256-bit interface. On the plus side, it offers more GDDR6 with 6GB than many 5500 XT variants. It's resting between the two quite neatly with its improved bandwidth over the 5500 XT no doubt benefiting its performance. 

AMD is positioning the RX 5600 XT as the 'ultimate' card for 1080p, leaving the 5700 series as best for 1440p and the 5500 series for 1080p gamers on a budget. That's the hope at least. While AMD has maintained increasing dominance in the processor market, it hasn't seen similar success when it comes to GPUs, with Nvidia keeping a hold thanks to its GeForce range. 

Tests by AMD have stated that the Radeon RX 5600 XT is - on average - up to 55% faster than the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB with up to 20% higher performance than the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti in some titles. Ultimately though, we really need to see how real world performance turns out as AMD obviously has a vested interest in ensuring the card looks the best in its tests. Scant details have been provided in terms of what games were tested too, although The Division 2 and Gears of War 5 were referenced. 

The Radeon RX 5600 XT will be available from January 21st, priced at $279. Expect similar pricing in the UK once you take into account exchange rates, taxes and so forth. AMD has estimated that there will be at least two SKUs from different third-party vendors when it releases. Given many graphics cards manufacturers have already leaked info on the Radeon 5600 XT, we suspect everyone is keen to get going now.