Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB vs. 4GB Gaming Review

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Ghost Recon Breakpoint 1080p

Another game we have included in this round of testing is Ghost Recon Breakpoint.  This game is also listed on AMD’s 8GB slide for showing a +20% performance increase with 8GB.  We also wanted to use it for another reason.  It supports several graphics presets we can easily use, plus it shows a VRAM counter and how much VRAM is being used with each preset so we know if we are exceeding 4GB with any setting. 

Because this game supports many quality settings, and we experienced what we experienced in this game we are going to show 5 quality settings tested at 1080p and 1440p, yes 10 total.  Therefore, we will break this up into two pages.  On this first page will be 5 graphics settings compared at 1080p, on the next page will be 1440p. 

The graphics settings tested are (going from highest to lowest) “Ultimate,” “Ultra,” “Very High,” “High,” and “Medium.”  What you should know is that every setting except “Medium” showed that it used over 4GB of VRAM.  Only “Medium” showed that it used under 4GB.

We are just going to post all 5 graphs in a row here, and then talk about it.  Look at it from a whole as you look down to the last one and you’ll see an interesting pattern.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint
Ghost Recon Breakpoint
Ghost Recon Breakpoint
Ghost Recon Breakpoint
Ghost Recon Breakpoint

The first thing you will notice is that the first four graphs that showed above 4GB VRAM usage all showed big performance differences between 8GB and 4GB Radeon RX 5500 XT.  However, once you get to the last graph, at “Medium” settings, which showed under 4GB usage the performance on that graph was exactly the same, no change.

This shows that this game is very sensitive to the VRAM capacity.  The 8GB Radeon RX 5500 XT shows big advantages to the 4GB Radeon RX 5500 XT, as long as the framebuffer used is over 4GB. 

This made a big gameplay experience difference.  At “Ultimate” quality we were able to play this game on the 8GB Radeon RX 5500 XT smoothly with good performance.  We were not able to do this with the 4GB Radeon RX 5500 XT.  That’s a real gameplay advantage.  The 4GB Radeon RX 5500 XT was playable starting at “Very High” settings while clearly the 8GB Radeon RX 5500 XT was playable at “Ultra” and “Ultimate.” 

Brent Justicehttps://www.thefpsreview.com
Former managing editor of GPUs at HardOCP for 18 years, Brent Justice has been reviewing computer components since the late 90s, educated in the art and method of the computer hardware review, he brings experience, knowledge, and hands-on testing with a gamer-oriented and hardware enthusiast perspective. You can follow him on Twitter - @Brent_Justice You can sub to his YouTube channel - Justice Gaming https://www.youtube.com/c/JusticeGamingChannel You can check out his computer builds on KIT - @BrentJustice https://kit.co/BrentJustice

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