Gigabyte and MSI appear to be readying Radeon RX 5500 XT with 8GB GDDR6

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There's still some mystery involving AMD's Radeon RX 5500 series.

(Image credit: AMD)

When AMD introduced its Radeon RX 5500 series graphics cards last month, it made no overt mention of a 5500 XT model, only that the 5500 series would be offered with 4GB and 8GB of GDDR6 memory. Now it's looking like the 5500 will bear 4GB, and an unannounced 5500 XT will be the one with 8GB.

I'm speculating here, but given the weird way in which AMD launched the RX 5500 series, things are bit open ended right now. What AMD revealed is the 5500 series would manifest in both desktop and mobile (5500M) form. AMD said the desktop cards would show up first in pre-built desktop systems starting this month, with standalone cards to follow sometime in the fourth quarter. (Even though we're in the fourth quarter already.)

Meanwhile, if you head over to the Radeon RX 5500 product page on AMD's website and scroll down the specifications section, it lists the "max memory size" as 4GB. Contrast that with AMD's press release, which clearly states the 5500 series will be offered with up to 8GB of GDDR6 memory.

As spotted by PCGamesN last week, there's a separate EEC listing outlining a bunch of 5500 XT cards from MSI. These are less cryptic in nature, as they flat out say the name of the card. For example, one of the half dozen models is listed as a Radeon RX 5500 XT Gaming X card. There's nothing to decode there.

We'll have to wait and see how pricing shakes out. Timing will be important too—depending on when these cards launch, they could end up competing with Black Friday deals that are right around the corner.

Paul Lilly
Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).