The Radeon RX 560 was an entry-level card introduced by AMD in April 2017 as a part of their GCN 4th generation-based lineup, The graphics card was a bigger brother of the basic RX 550 and was much (much) weaker than the next entry in the lineup, the RX 570. The RX 560 was mostly a response to Nvidia’s GTX 1050 and the GTX 1050 Ti cards. Also, it was almost equivalent to the GPU found on the PlayStation 4, making it a sensible choice for gamers not willing to spend bonkers of money behind their rigs.
Is the Radeon RX 560 a Good Option in 2022?
You might still be able to pick an RX 560 up these days. The card was a superb option for budget gamers because it matched the performance of a PS4 when coupled with entry-level six-core processors like the Intel Core i5-7400 or the AMD Ryzen 5 1600. The RX 560 could easily handle all modern AAA titles. Although the framerate was not optimal, the performance might be considered “sub-optimal” by several gamers. The situation was much like how the original PS4 from 2013 would overheat and falter in several modern games like RDR 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
Also, if you intend to play some of the recent 9th generation games like Watch Dogs: Legion and Cyberpunk 2077, you might have to lower the resolution from 1920×1080 to 1600×900 or lower.
Also, before you buy an RX 560, there is an important fact to consider. AMD had released two versions of the card. One of these variants has 14 Compute Units (CUs) and the other has 16 CUs. Both of these cards are marketed and sold as the RX 560 4GB with no clear explanation of whether it is the 14 CU model or the 16 CU. The 2 extra Compute Units differ in performance by a huge margin, and can easily set the barrier between unplayable titles and playable ones in modern games.
Conclusion
The RX 560’s days are over. It is already over five years old and is based on an aging architecture that AMD is not proud of anymore. The card has a couple more years in support after which it will become irrelevant and outdated. However, if all you intend to do is play some PS4-era games and do not care about the visual fidelity and eye candy, you can easily pick this card up.