Being that Apple version is 24CU, I am not sure the 22 CU 5500 XT is a cut version or an actual different skew.I expect it will be a fairly low end part. Flagship parts will remain TSMC, because they can likely wring more performance from TSMC. On the low end where it doesn't matter they can throw Samsung a bone.
I see no evidence that FudZ is right. It's just aimless click-baiting IMO.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd-rx-5500-xt-samsung-tsmc-performance
I am more incline to suspect TSMC 7nm and 7nm+ is swamped. RUMORS, has Samsung 7nm EUV at 30% yield on 100mm size chips, if that is true all those customers will try to flock to TSMC as well. Qualcomm Snapdragon had yield issues at Samsung. Jest is that only TSMC has a viable 7nm process now and many want access. Does not help that Intel can't get their 10nm process working well enough making even more wanting AMD processors. Basically a perfect storm for shortages for everyone.I am getting the impression that if Big Navi is announced at CES, it won't be shipping for quite a while. Pretty much every recent AMD release has been telegraphed by appearances in some of the online benchmark tools.
We have seen zilch on Big Navi, which leads me to believe it's launch isn't anytime soon.
Long lead pre-announcing works for AMD, because they don't have a product competing in the upper tier to stall, so they can attempt to stall sales of NVidia 2080-2080Ti parts, by talking up something coming in the future...