GPU RELEASES tend to follow a pattern.
First, come the ‘halo’ cards that pull out
all the stops. Then, come the slightly
lower spec, but still fast high-end cards,
followed by mainstream GPUs, and
eventually the budget options. The RX
6500 XT aims for the latter, trimming
down pretty much every conceivable
spec in pursuit of a lower cost but still an
acceptable design. Unfortunately, AMD
has gone too far in its pursuit this time,
cutting away too much of the juicy meat
and leaving meager scraps behind.
In the past, budget GPUs such as AMD’s
Navi 14 (RX 5500 XT) and Nvidia’s TU116
(GTX 1650 Super) have stopped cutting
features at a 128-bit memory interface.
Thanks to Infinity Cache, AMD could get
away with a mere 64-bit interface, which
is normally reserved for extreme budget
solutions like the RX 530 and GT 1030.
Unfortunately, the net result is a new
budget GPU that often ends up slower
than the previous generation RX 5500 XT
it’s supposed to replace.
It’s not just the memory interface,
however. AMD delivers a card with just
4GB VRAM—technically still enough for
most games, but certainly not enough to
handle many of the games in our new test
suite at ultra-quality settings. Ironically,Trimming the fat, and then some
XFX Radeon RX 6500 XT
5
VERDICT XFX Radeon RX 6500 XTLEAN Theoretically
affordable; decent at 1080p
medium; Infinity Cache.
SKINNY 4GB VRAM; x4 PCIe connection;
64-bit interface.
$200, http://www.xfxforce.comSPECIFICATIONS
Architecture Navi 24
Lithography TSMC N6
Boost Clock 2,815MHz
GPU Cores 1,024
Memory 4GB GDDR6
TFLOPS FP32 5.8
Bandwidth 144GBps
TDP 107W
Connectors 1x HDMI 2.1,
1x DisplayPort 1.4at the time the RX 5500 XT launched
back in late 2019, AMD posted a blog
titled ‘Game Beyond 4GB’, highlighting
the benefits of having more than 4GB of
memory. It did so because the competition
at the time was the GTX 1650 and 1650
Super, both of which had 4GB. Now, more
than two years later, it feels like AMD has
gone backward, especially considering
Nvidia’s RTX 3050 comes with 8GB (see
review on page 74).
AMD also cut support for the AV1
codec and even dropped H.264 and H.265
video encoding, which makes the card a
poor choice for budget streaming. Next,
AMD limits the PCIe interface to just
four lanes. Given its budget nature, this
card could end up in older PCs that only
support PCIe 3.0, which in our testing
dropped performance another 10 percent
on average, and up to 25 percent in some
games. Finally, the GPU only supports
two video outputs—not that driving dual
displays is a likely use case for this card.
The inclusion of ray tracing hardware
almost feels laughable. You can see the
“WNR” (would not run) scores for Control
in our benchmarks. That’s because the
game wouldn’t recognize the GPU as
being ray-tracing capable, due to its lack
of VRAM. That’s probably for the best,as you can see in Cyberpunk 2077 and
Minecraft that enabling RT effects often
drops framerates into the single-digits.
We don’t think you need a ray-tracing
capable GPU, but if you have one, you’re
only likely to notice the visual benefits
with more demanding effects, which the
RX 6500 XT simply can’t handle.
It’s not a complete loss, however. In
overall performance, the RX 6500 XT
tends to trade blows with Nvidia’s GTX
1650 Super. Stick to medium or high
settings and you can still break 60fps.
But we can say the same for the GTX 1650
Super and RX 5500 XT 4GB, and the 5500
XT 8GB was 10 percent faster than the
newcomer in our 1080p medium tests.
The best thing about the RX 6500 XT is
that it’s unfit for cryptocurrency mining—
and slow enough in games that demand
isn’t as high as for other recent GPUs. The
official MSRP starts at $200, and while
cards at retail tend to sell for more than
that, you can at least find the RX 6500 XT
in stock starting at $270. The GTX 1650
Super tends to cost around $300 on eBay,
while the RX 5500 XT 8GB goes for $350
or more. We’d rather take a new card
purchased from a reputable retailer than
a used card off eBay. –JARRED WALTONBENCHMARKS
RX 6500 XT RX 6600 RTX 305010 Game Average (fps) 56 / 27 106 / 61 80 / 48
Borderlands 3 (fps) 81 / 37 166 / 83 113 / 54
Control (DXR) WNR / WNR 48 / 30 52 / 33
Cyberpunk 2077 (DXR) 7 / 3 22 / 17 27 / 21
Far Cry 6 (fps) 83 / 44 142 / 100 98 / 74
Flight Simulator (fps) 65 / 39 96 / 58 75 / 47
Forza Horizon 5 (fps) 80 / 28 155 / 77 95 / 55
Horizon Zero Dawn (fps) 71 / 56 141 / 97 103 / 72
Minecraft (DXR) 13 / 7 25 / 19 36 / 31
Red Dead Redemption 2 (fps) 86 / 30 142 / 63 103 / 50
Watch Dogs Legion (fps) 74 / 26 120 / 64 94 / 47
Best scores are in bold. All testing conducted with a Core i9-12900K, MSI Pro Z690-A Wi-Fi DDR4, 2x16GB DDR4-
3600 CL16, 2TB Crucial P5 Plus M.2 SSD, Cooler Master MWE 1250 Gold V2. Scores are average framerates
at 1920x1080 medium / 1920x1080 ultra, with ray tracing enabled in Control, Cyberpunk, and Minecraft.in the lab
80 MAXIMU MPC APR 2022