AMD RX 460/550/560 were all x8. Nvidia seems to only do it on their entry level GT cards, e.g. GT 1030 was x4.
Cards like the RX 560 are pretty much entry level too, with a $100 MSRP, whereas here we have an x8 connection sneaking into cards priced more in the mid-range. That wouldn't be as much of a problem if PCIe 4.0 was already readily available on lower-end motherboards that such a card might get paired with, but its not. And even once it is, the card still won't be an ideal option for anyone upgrading an older system.
One interesting thing that's come from this though, is a better look at how PCIe bandwidth can potentially affect graphics card performance. Prior investigations looking into this have shown that a PCIe 3.0 x8 or 2.0 x16 connection won't noticeably impact anything but the highest-end graphics cards, so it shouldn't actually be a significant problem for cards in the mid-range. Those tests are naturally done with cards with plenty of VRAM though. With the 5500XT 4GB, we run into a situation where some of the most demanding games are beginning to exceed the card's VRAM, and when that happens, the limited bandwidth actually does become a notable concern.
Then, its also tested in maximum details?? Look at those frame rates. You think its playable?? Even you get an increase, its still unplayable. So yea...pretty useless to anyone. (unless it 50 increase to 60 then its good).
While that could be true for some games, they got very playable results at max settings in most of the games tested there, at least with the PCIe 4.0 connection. AC:Odyssey had the worst performance of the bunch, averaging 31fps with a minimum of 24 in their test run, which might seem quite low for a PC game, but is actually similar to the framerates the game runs at on consoles. The consoles are limited to 30fps, with similar dips into the low 20s at times on the base-model PS4 and Xbox One (despite running at lower than 1080p resolution, with reduced settings). There are plenty of people who would be fine with a roughly 30fps experience like that for a non-competitive third-person game, who are willing to trade smoother performance for better visuals. On a PCIe 3.0 connection, however, the card only manages to average 25fps with a 16fps minimum, which would be considerably less playable. It's also possible to lower a number of settings to improve framerates in that game without substantially affecting visuals, but it will likely be necessary to lower texture quality and make everything a bit blurry to keep the VRAM usage in check.
Battlefield V's average framerates drop from 63 down to 50 in their test, though in that case the 4GB card had some issues with minimums using either setup. Far Cry: New Dawn, however, went from getting 75fps with 58 minimum down to 42fps with 32 minimum on PCIe 3.0, nearly halving performance in that game and taking it from having very good performance nearly on par with the 8GB model, to having rather poor performance for a first-person game. And while the hit to performance was not as bad in Shadow of the Tomb Raider (at least in their test run), it still cut performance by more than 10%. Wolfenstein also saw a further halving of performance on the 4GB card using a 3.0 connection, but even on the faster connection performance was still relatively poor with that amount of VRAM. And this is only going to get worse as VRAM requirements rise with the next generation of games, and people may find that they need to drop texture quality to blurry low settings just to get the games to be playable on this card.
Another thing to point out though, is that there's a smaller but noticeable impact on performance in these games even with the 8GB version of the card. Odyssey saw a 6% hit to averages with a 12% hit to minimums, Battlefield saw a 9% hit with 15% to minimums, Wolfenstein saw a 13% hit with 16% to minimums, and the other two saw a less significant hit of 1-2% with a 4-5% hit to minimums. The games might still be plenty playable even with those reductions in performance, but they would run a bit smoother without them. And for a card that comes off as having kind of mediocre performance for the money, any improvement would have been welcomed.
Again guys, I'll believe this about ALL 5500 XTs if I get some confirmation from somewhere else...
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