Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Rumored AMD Radeon RX 5600 could compete with Nvidia’s GTX 1660 Ti

AMD Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT review
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and 5700 Navi cards. Dan Baker/Digital Trends

AMD positioned its new Navi RX 5700 cards against Nvidia’s RTX 2060 and 2070, but they turned out to be pretty solid competitors for the new RTX 2060 Super and 2070 Super. Now there are rumors of a new RDNA-based card in the works that’s a little lower down the spectrum. An RX 5600 could be under development and if and when it launches, it could go head to head with Nvidia’s best non-RTX graphics card, the GTX 1660 Ti.

Leaked specifications of a new card AMD is working on come from CompuBench (via The Inquirer) and show a card that is based on the Navi 14 GPU — a lower-end alternative to the Navi 10 used in the RX 5700 XT and 5700. It has 24 compute units (12 less than the 5700) for a total of 1,536 stream processors. It has a high maximum boost frequency of 1,900 MHz, but pairs the GPU with just 4GB of GDDR6.

Considering that AMD already has competitive cards for Nvidia’s midrange RTX cards, it makes sense that any sort of RX 5600 would compete with Nvidia’s more modest GTX GPUs. AMD’s existing RX 500-series cards do a reasonable job there already, with the RX 580 and 590 offering credible competition to the GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1660, while the RX 570 is a far more capable card than the GTX 1650.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!

The 1660 Ti does quite often pip AMD cards with a few extra frames per second, though, so we’d expect the RX 5600 to target that Nvidia card at a competitive price. The 4GB of GDDR6 is of mild concern, as the 1660 Ti’s 6GB of GDDR6 could give it a stiff advantage in some games. Considering the RX 590 and 580 have 8GB a piece, too, we could see the RX 5600 fall behind them in some scenarios, depending on game requirements.

There is no indication at this time about when any such graphics card might release, so we’ll need to hold off for now on making any kind of firm judgments about its potential capabilities. But we would be surprised if AMD didn’t flesh out its RDNA-GPU line in 2019, as two models for a new generation is very restrictive compared to the generations of graphics cards it has released in the past.

Editors' Recommendations

Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is the Evergreen Coordinator for Computing, overseeing a team of writers addressing all the latest how to…
Here’s how AMD counters Nvidia’s big RTX Super launch
RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT on a pink background.

Well done, AMD. Today is a big day for Nvidia -- after all, today is when the RTX 4070 Super hits the shelves. So what does AMD do? It serves up a huge price cut on one of its top graphics cards in this generation to strike back at Nvidia and counter its big release. Coincidence? No way. But will this price tag be low enough when Nvidia launches the RTX 4070 Ti Super?

AMD's RX 7900 XT is the GPU that's now a lot cheaper, with an official price of $750, but some models are as cheap as $710. It initially launched at $900 and was never the most popular option out of AMD's two flagships. The RX 7900 XTX, priced at just $100 more, often made more sense due to its greatly improved performance. As such, the RX 7900 XT was a bit of a forgotten entry in AMD's lineup. Its price quickly plummeted to $800 and even lower at certain retailers.

Read more
RTX 4080 Super vs. RTX 4070 Ti Super vs. RTX 4070 Super: Nvidia’s new GPUs, compared
Nvidia RTX 4080 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and RTX 4070 Super over a dark background.

Nvidia's RTX 40-series refresh is officially here, serving up three of the best graphics cards we've seen in a while -- the RTX 4080 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and the RTX 4070 Super. The new GPUs, while still belonging to the RTX 40-series, deliver significant changes in specs, making them an interesting choice for PC enthusiasts.

While all three of these cards are on the upper end of the spec and price spectrum, they're not all the same. How do they stack up against each other? Let's find out with a thorough comparison of Nvidia's RTX 4080 Super, RTX 4070 Ti, and RTX 4070 Super.
Pricing and availability

Read more
AMD just announced the graphics card everyone has been waiting for
AMD announces RX 7600 XT at CES 2024.

AMD just launched the RX 7600 XT at CES 2024. It's a graphics card that makes sense, and one that AMD fans have been waiting on ever since the launch of the original RX 7600. It might not do enough in the hotly contested market of graphics cards around $300, however.

Between the RX 7600 and the RX 7600 XT, not much has changed. These two graphics cards are based on the same GPU, and they come with the same number of cores. The XT model, however, boosts the clock speed by up to 10%, and it comes with a higher power draw at up to 190 watts.

Read more