AMD Radeon RX 560 Mobile

AMD Radeon RX 560 Mobile

AMD Radeon RX 560 Mobile: Review and Capability Analysis in 2025

Introduction

Even in 2025, the AMD Radeon RX 560 Mobile graphics card remains a popular choice for budget laptops. Despite its age, it continues to attract users who do not require cutting-edge performance. In this article, we will explore who this GPU is suitable for, its strengths and weaknesses, and how it compares to competitors.


1. Architecture and Key Features

Polaris Platform: The Foundation of RX 560 Mobile

The RX 560 Mobile is built on the Polaris (4th generation GCN) architecture, released in 2016. The manufacturing process is 14 nm, which is considered outdated by 2025, but ensures a balance between cost and energy efficiency.

Unique Features

- FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR): Support for FSR 2.0 improves image quality in games while boosting FPS.

- FreeSync: A technology for synchronizing the frame rate with the monitor to eliminate screen tearing.

- Lack of Hardware Ray Tracing: Unlike modern GPUs, the RX 560 Mobile does not support RT cores, limiting its use in games with ray tracing.


2. Memory: Type, Capacity, and Performance

Memory Specifications

- Type: GDDR5 (not GDDR6 or HBM).

- Capacity: 4 GB — the minimum standard for games in 2025 at low settings.

- Bus Width: 128-bit.

- Bandwidth: 112 GB/s.

Impact on Performance

For gaming at 1080p, the memory capacity is sufficient, but in projects with high-detailed textures (e.g., Cyberpunk 2077), there may be stuttering. In professional tasks, 4 GB is a significant limitation for rendering complex scenes.


3. Gaming Performance

Average FPS in Popular Games (1080p, Medium Settings):

- CS:GO: 120–140 FPS.

- Fortnite (no RT): 45–55 FPS.

- Apex Legends: 40–50 FPS.

- Red Dead Redemption 2: 25–30 FPS (requires FSR to boost to 35–40 FPS).

Resolution Support

- 1080p: Optimal for most games.

- 1440p and 4K: Not recommended due to lack of power and memory.

Ray Tracing

Hardware ray tracing is not supported. In games with software-based RT emulation (e.g., Minecraft Bedrock), FPS drops to 15–20 frames.


4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing and 3D Modeling

- Premiere Pro/Blender: Basic tasks (rendering short videos, simple models) can be done, but slowly.

- OpenCL/Vulkan: Supported, but performance is lower compared to NVIDIA with CUDA.

Scientific Calculations

For machine learning or simulations, this GPU is weak — it's better to choose cards with higher memory capacity and support for specialized APIs.


5. Power Consumption and Heat Output

TDP and Recommendations

- TDP: 50–75 W (depends on the laptop manufacturer).

- Cooling: An effective ventilation system is required. Thin laptops may experience throttling under prolonged loads.

- Advice: Choose models with additional heat pipes and dual fans.


6. Comparison with Competitors

AMD vs. NVIDIA

- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile: Comparable in performance, but the GTX 1050 is more energy-efficient.

- NVIDIA MX450: Lags behind RX 560 in gaming but is better suited for office tasks.

- AMD Radeon RX 5500M: Features a newer architecture (RDNA), is 30–40% faster, but is more expensive.

Conclusion:

The RX 560 Mobile is a choice for those seeking a cheap laptop for casual gaming.


7. Practical Advice

Power Supply and Compatibility

- Laptop PSU: The standard one (65–90 W) is sufficient.

- Platforms: Compatible with both AMD and Intel processors.

- Drivers: Regularly update via AMD Adrenalin Edition. Avoid "custom" builds.

Nuances

- In Linux, there may be issues with proprietary drivers.

- The card is not suitable for VR (Oculus Rift S and similar).


8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price ($100–150 for new laptops in 2025).

- Support for FSR 2.0.

- Energy efficiency for basic tasks.

Cons:

- Weak performance in modern AAA games.

- No ray tracing.

- Only 4 GB of memory.


9. Final Conclusion: Who is RX 560 Mobile Suitable For?

This graphics card is an option for:

- Students: Office applications, browsing, light gaming.

- Budget Gamers: Games from 2015–2020 at medium settings.

- Users of Older Laptops: No upgrade needed if the goals are modest.

In 2025, the RX 560 Mobile is no longer relevant for professionals or enthusiasts of new technology, but it remains a reliable and affordable solution for less demanding scenarios.

Basic

Label Name
AMD
Platform
Mobile
Launch Date
January 2017
Model Name
Radeon RX 560 Mobile
Generation
Mobility Radeon
Base Clock
784MHz
Boost Clock
1032MHz
Bus Interface
MXM-B (3.0)
Transistors
3,000 million
Compute Units
14
TMUs
?
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.
56
Foundry
GlobalFoundries
Process Size
14 nm
Architecture
GCN 4.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size
4GB
Memory Type
GDDR5
Memory Bus
?
The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.
128bit
Memory Clock
1710MHz
Bandwidth
?
Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.
109.4 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate
?
Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.
16.51 GPixel/s
Texture Rate
?
Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.
57.79 GTexel/s
FP16 (half)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.
1.849 TFLOPS
FP64 (double)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
115.6 GFLOPS
FP32 (float)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
1.812 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units
?
The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.
896
L1 Cache
16 KB (per CU)
L2 Cache
1024KB
TDP
55W
Vulkan Version
?
Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.
1.2
OpenCL Version
2.1
OpenGL
4.6
DirectX
12 (12_0)
Power Connectors
None
Shader Model
6.4
ROPs
?
The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.
16

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)
Score
1.812 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS
1.862 +2.8%
1.756 -3.1%
1.675 -7.6%