AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT review: A weird graphics card you might actually afford

AMD’s $199 Radeon RX 6500 XT breaks new floor for desktop graphics cards, and most of the GPU’s achievements imply very good issues for PC avid gamers. At a time when it’s close to unimaginable to discover a competent graphics card at an inexpensive value, the Radeon RX 6500 XT is the primary GPU underneath $200 that packs real-time ray tracing capabilities. All of that is taking place three lengthy years after real-time ray tracing debuted in Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 20-series.

The Radeon RX 6500 XT can also be the primary GPU to interrupt the two.8GHz barrier (wild), and it marks the debut of TSMC’s 6nm manufacturing know-how. But the true story right here is AMD’s supply of a severe price-to-performance worth proposition: The Radeon RX 6500 XT is the primary affordably priced graphics card of its technology, which has been rocked by shortages and excessive costs due to a mix of a chip crunch, logistics woes, and booming demand by cryptocurrency miners, amongst different components. Indeed, when you’ve been hoping to get your arms on an inexpensive GPU in the course of the pandemic, you’ve been out of luck up to now. But this graphics card might—might—change that.

AMD took some bizarre twists and turns to reach on the Radeon RX 6500 XT. For starters, this budget-priced graphics card comes with simply 4GB of onboard reminiscence to evade the attention of crypto miners. Beyond that, different {hardware} compromises have been required to hit the sub-$200 value level, and a few of these tweaks can have an effect on efficiency, relying in your PC’s general {hardware} profile and the way you play your video games. And past that, the GPU doesn’t considerably transfer the efficiency needle past previous generations of equally priced graphics playing cards.

Yes, the Radeon RX 6500 XT is a extra sophisticated beast than it seems at first look. But make no mistake: It’s a really succesful entry-level, 1080p graphics card when you hold its limitations in thoughts. In an period the place ageing, beforehand used, low-end GPUs are going for $300 or extra, the Radeon RX 6500 XT looks like an oasis within the desert—if costs stay sane on the streets over the approaching weeks, that’s. Let’s dig in.

Radeon RX 6500 XT options, specs, and value

The Radeon RX 6500 XT is constructed round a brand new 6nm AMD GPU that makes use of the corporate’s RDNA 2 structure, which paves the way in which for energy effectivity and trendy options beforehand unavailable at this value level. You can discover a listing of uncooked specs within the AMD-supplied chart under.

The sky-high 2.8GHz increase clock and a pair of.6GHz typical Game Clock ought to instantly catch your eye. AMD tuned this GPU so it’s buzzing (earlier than this technology, you cheered if a graphics card broke 2GHz). It’s additionally price noting the inclusion of 16 ray accelerators, or one in every compute unit. That means the Radeon RX 6500 XT can flip on real-time ray tracing in video games that assist it, although with so few accelerators in tow, you’ll wish to keep on with lower-end ray-tracing choices, and ideally use them along with AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution in suitable video games. FSR makes use of sensible upscaling methods to enhance efficiency. The know-how is just enabled in choose titles, however someday quickly, AMD will roll out a brand new driver-level Radeon Super Resolution feature that can allow you to delight in quicker body charges in 1000’s of video games.

Don’t let these ultra-fast clock speeds idiot you, although. This remains to be an entry-level graphics card, and that’s pushed residence by a better take a look at the specs. With 16 compute items, 32 ROPs, and 16MB of AMD’s radical Infinity Cache, the Radeon RX 6500 XT provides half the uncooked {hardware} horsepower of the $375 Radeon RX 6600 XT, and fairly a bit lower than the $300 Radeon RX 6600, as effectively. Those modest internals, mixed with AMD’s RDNA 2 enhancements, imply this graphics card sips a mere 107 watts of complete board energy (or a barely increased 120W in overclocked variants). This lets it slip simply into most current PCs with a free 6-pin energy connection.

AMD

In different areas, AMD made some key compromises to hit the Radeon RX 6500 XT’s juicy $199 value level. Most notably, AMD outfitted this GPU with simply 4GB of GDDR6 reminiscence (albeit clocked at blazing-fast 18Gbps speeds). 4GB is lower than you’d wish to see in a contemporary graphics card, however the modest capability means the cardboard can’t be used for Ethereum cryptocurrency mining, which provides the 6500 XT a shot at really staying in inventory on retailer cabinets.

The remainder of the reminiscence configuration is simply as bizarre. Previous trendy generations of low-end GPUs from AMD and Nvidia used a 128-bit reminiscence bus. The Radeon RX 6500 XT comes outfitted with a meager 64-bit bus, although AMD’s Adam Kozak advised reporters that along with the 16MB of onboard Infinity Cache and lightning-quick 18Gbps VRAM clock, the cardboard provides successfully twice the reminiscence bandwidth you’d usually get from such a small bus dimension.  

AMD is pitching the 6500 XT as an excellent 1080p possibility with Medium to High graphics card settings. As you’ll see in our benchmarks later, the cardboard holds up simply high-quality underneath these masses. But the modest GPU and weird reminiscence configuration imply you’ll have to be cautious in regards to the settings you employ. If you crank visuals as much as extremely or run right into a recreation with particularly excessive reminiscence calls for, the restricted reminiscence capability and bus width might lead to jarring frame-time spikes when your PC exceeds the 4GB barrier and must faucet into your system’s basic RAM pool for assist. Don’t push this GPU more durable than it’s meant for and you ought to be high-quality.

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Perhaps extra vexingly, AMD solely slapped 4 PCIe categorical lanes on the Radeon RX 6500 XT. Most graphics playing cards use a full x16 PCIe interface, with price range playing cards generally dropping right down to x8. Four lanes is unheard-of in gamer-grade desktop playing cards. Fewer PCIe lanes present much less bandwidth for GPUs to strut their stuff, however these are PCIe 4.0 lanes, that are a lot quicker than PCIe 3.0 lanes. In a really trendy system with a PCIe 4.0-compatible motherboard and CPU (e.g., AMD Ryzen 3000-series or increased and Intel 11th-gen Core collection or increased), the Radeon RX 6500 XT has no drawback working at its meant Medium to High graphics settings. However, when you’re dropping the cardboard into an older PCIe 3.0 system, the restricted PCIe lanes undoubtedly scale back your efficiency—although the 6500 XT stays a succesful price range possibility even then. We’ll embrace outcomes for each situations in our benchmark part.

Finally, in its quest to hit the sub-$200 value level, AMD wanted to take away {hardware} options that aren’t utilized by the overwhelming majority of entry-level avid gamers, Kozak mentioned. (He mentioned the choice to make use of 4 PCIe lanes was made for a similar purpose.) As such, the Radeon RX 6500 XT lacks assist for AV1 decoding, in addition to H.264 and H.265/HEVC encoding. That, paired with the Radeon RX 6500 XT solely supporting singular HDMI and DisplayPort connections, limits its enchantment for residence theater PCs or for avid gamers who wish to stream their adventures on Twitch.

Phew. That’s much more caveats and compromises than you’ll usually see with a desktop graphics card. So, does the Radeon RX 6500 XT nonetheless maintain up as a strong entry-level gaming GPU? Spoiler alert: Yes. To take a look at its chops, the corporate despatched over an XFX Qick 210 Radeon RX 6500 XT Black for evaluation.

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The Qick 210 options the identical glossy blacked-out design aesthetic as XFX’s different RDNA 2 GPUs, with nary an RGB LED to be discovered on its pockmarked shroud. It encompasses a fetching steel backplate; two 100mm followers with 13 blades every (therefore the “210” within the identify); a pair of 6mm heatpipes; and a copper GPU coldplate. XFX additionally gave its card a 5+2 section digital VRM. All in all, it seems to be nice for an entry-level card. An XFX spokesperson declined to provide a agency MSRP as a result of fluid nature of right now’s GPU market, however mentioned he expects real-world pricing to settle in barely above AMD’s $199 value after the preliminary launch mud settles. Considering that the four year-old Radeon RX 570 goes for $200 to $300-plus used on Ebay, that’s no shock. But precise avenue pricing for the Radeon RX 6500 XT will make up an enormous a part of its potential allure.

Let’s get to the benchmarks.

Our take a look at system

We take a look at graphics playing cards on a AMD Ryzen 5000-series take a look at rig to have the ability to benchmark the impact of PCIe 4.0 assist on trendy GPUs, in addition to the performance-boosting AMD Smart Access Memory and Nvidia Resizable BAR options (that are each based mostly on the identical underlying PCIe normal). Currently, we’re testing it on an open bench with AMD’s Wraith Max air cooler. Most of the {hardware} was offered by the producers, however we bought the storage ourselves.

• AMD Ryzen 5900X, inventory settings
• AMD Wraith Max cooler
• MSI Godlike X570 motherboard
• 32GB G.Skill Trident Z Neo DDR4 3800 reminiscence
• EVGA 1200W SuperNova P2 energy provide
• 1TB SK Hynix Gold S31 SSD

As far as our aggressive testing set, we’re doing issues somewhat in another way as a result of price range nature of this card, and its uncommon configuration. Normally, we take a look at video games on the highest attainable graphics presets and temporal anti-aliasing enabled to push them to their limits. But the Radeon RX 6500 XT is constructed for medium to excessive gaming at 1080p, on a price range. So we skipped our traditional strategies and as an alternative determined to check AMD’s new GPU in opposition to prior-gen GPUs in the same $200 value bracket, plus or minus $50 in both route, with every recreation’s Medium graphics preset.

The charts under pit the newcomer in opposition to AMD’s last-gen Radeon RX 5500 XT, which launched at $180 in 2019 (and price $30 an excessive amount of on the time), in addition to the Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX 580 8GB, an enthusiast-class model of the wonderful GPU that launched in 2017 for $250. We’ve matched that on Nvidia’s facet with the Asus ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1650 Super, which launched for $170 in 2019, and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Founders Edition GPU, a $250 graphics card in 2016. We selected these playing cards as a result of they’re the everyday used choices that the Radeon RX 6500 XT will compete in opposition to in right now’s wacky GPU market.

Of all of the playing cards we’re testing, solely AMD’s new 6500 XT helps real-time ray tracing. However, we determined to skip ray tracing benchmarks right now to focus in on one thing that’s maybe extra vital: Performance in each new and older PCs. We additionally included efficiency outcomes for the Radeon RX 6500 XT working in each PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 modes, given its 4 restricted PCIe lanes, to be able to see what kind of efficiency to count on when you drop this GPU into an older system as an improve.

We take a look at quite a lot of video games spanning varied engines, genres, vendor sponsorships (Nvidia, AMD, and Intel), and graphics APIs (DirectX 11, DX12, and Vulkan). When testing, we disable VSync, body charge caps, real-time ray tracing or DLSS results, and FreeSync/G-Sync, together with some other vendor-specific applied sciences like FidelityFX instruments or Nvidia Reflex. We additionally disable AMD’s Smart Access Memory and Nvidia’s rival PCIe Resizable BAR options, since they’re extremely depending on how the remainder of your system is configured. We run every benchmark not less than 3 times and listing the typical outcome for every take a look at.

Gaming efficiency benchmarks

Watch Dogs: Legion

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Watch Dogs: Legion is without doubt one of the first video games to debut on next-gen consoles. Ubisoft upgraded its Disrupt engine to incorporate cutting-edge options like real-time ray tracing and Nvidia’s DLSS. We disable these results for this testing, however Legion stays a strenuous recreation even on high-end {hardware} with its optionally available high-resolution texture pack put in.

Horizon Zero Dawn

Yep, PlayStation exclusives are coming to the PC now. Horizon Zero Dawn runs on Guerrilla Games’ Decima engine, the identical engine that powers Death Stranding.

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Gears Tactics

Gears Tactics places it personal brutal, fast-paced spin on the XCOM-like style. This Unreal Engine 4-powered recreation was constructed from the bottom up for DirectX 12, and we love with the ability to work a tactics-style recreation into our benchmarking suite. Better but, the sport comes with a plethora of graphics choices for PC snobs. More video games ought to dedicate such loving care to explaining what flipping all these visible knobs imply.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is extra enjoyable when you possibly can play cooperatively with a buddy, however it’s a fearless experiment—and an absolute technical showcase. Running on the Vulkan API, Youngblood achieves blistering body charges, and it helps all kinds of cutting-edge applied sciences like ray tracing, DLSS 2.0, HDR, GPU culling, asynchronous computing, and Nvidia’s Content Adaptive Shading. The recreation features a built-in benchmark with two totally different scenes; we examined Riverside.

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Metro Exodus

One of one of the best video games of 2019, Metro Exodus stays one of many best-looking video games round, too. The newest model of the 4A Engine offers extremely luscious, ultra-detailed visuals, with some of the gorgeous real-time ray tracing implementations launched but. We take a look at in DirectX 12 mode with ray tracing, Hairworks, and DLSS disabled.

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Borderlands 3

Borderlands is again! Gearbox’s recreation defaults to DX12, so we do as effectively. It offers us a glimpse on the ultra-popular Unreal Engine 4’s efficiency in a conventional shooter. This recreation tends to favor trendy AMD {hardware}.

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Strange Brigade

Strange Brigade is a cooperative third-person shooter the place a workforce of adventurers blasts by hordes of mythological enemies. It’s a technological showcase, constructed across the next-gen Vulkan and DirectX 12 applied sciences and infused with options like HDR assist and the flexibility to toggle asynchronous compute on and off. It makes use of Rebellion’s customized Azure engine. We take a look at utilizing the Vulkan renderer, which is quicker than DX12.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Total War: Troy

The newest recreation within the fashionable Total War saga, Troy was given away free for its first 24 hours on the Epic Games Store, shifting over 7.5 million copies earlier than it went on correct sale. Total War: Troy is constructed utilizing a modified model of the Total War: Warhammer 2 engine, and this DX11 title seems to be gorgeous for a turn-based technique recreation. We take a look at the extra intensive battle benchmark.

Brad Chacos/IDG

F1 2020

F1 2020 is a gem to check, supplying a wide selection of each graphical and benchmarking choices, making it a way more dependable (and enjoyable) possibility that the Forza collection. It’s constructed on the most recent model of Codemasters’ buttery-smooth Ego recreation engine, full with assist for DX12 and Nvidia’s DLSS know-how. We take a look at two laps on the Australia course, with clear skies on and DLSS off.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider concludes the reboot trilogy, and it’s nonetheless completely attractive a number of years after its debut. Square Enix optimized this recreation for DX12 and recommends DX11 provided that you’re utilizing older {hardware} or Windows 7, so we take a look at with DX12. Shadow of the Tomb Raider makes use of an enhanced model of the Foundation engine that additionally powered Rise of the Tomb Raider and contains optionally available real-time ray tracing and DLSS options.

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Rainbow Six Siege

Rainbow Six Siege nonetheless dominates the Steam charts years after its launch, and Ubisoft helps it with frequent updates and occasions. The builders have poured a ton of labor into the sport’s AnvilNext engine through the years, finally rolling out a Vulkan model of the sport that we use to check. By default, the sport lowers the render scaling to extend body charges, however we set it to 100 % to benchmark native rendering efficiency on graphics playing cards. Even nonetheless, body charges soar.

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Power draw, thermals, and noise

We take a look at energy draw by looping the F1 2020 benchmark at 4K for about 20 minutes after we’ve benchmarked the whole lot else after which be aware the very best studying on our Watts Up Pro meter, which measures the facility consumption of our whole take a look at system. The preliminary a part of the race, the place all competing vehicles are onscreen concurrently, tends to be essentially the most demanding portion. 

This isn’t a worst-case take a look at; this can be a GPU-bound recreation working at a GPU-bound decision to gauge efficiency when the graphics card is sweating arduous. If you’re taking part in a recreation that additionally hammers the CPU, you possibly can see increased general system energy attracts. Consider your self warned.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Entry-level graphics playing cards all the time have modest energy calls for—all the examined items solely want a single 6- or 8-pin energy connector—however the super energy effectivity of AMD’s RDNA 2 structure shines although right here, particularly when you think about that the Radeon RX 6500 XT holds a strong efficiency lead in uncooked body charges on this recreation as effectively. Good stuff.

We take a look at thermals by leaving GPU-Z open in the course of the F1 2020 energy draw take a look at, noting the very best most temperature on the finish.

Brad Chacos/IDG

The vary of cooler designs differs a lot on these examined GPU fashions that you simply shouldn’t look too deeply into these outcomes. Still, it’s clear that cooling isn’t a difficulty by any means with any of those mainstream graphics playing cards.

Should you purchase the Radeon RX 6500 XT?

The 6500 XT is a strong buy when you’re on the hunt for an inexpensive entry-level graphics card that delivers strong 1080p gaming efficiency once you dial again some eye sweet. Considering that 2-year-old GTX 1650 graphics playing cards are going for $200 used to $350 new on Ebay after launching at $170, and the traditional Radeon RX 570 is in a similar boat, the $199 asking value for a model new Radeon RX 6500 XT—full with its killer vitality effectivity, ray tracing capabilities, and trendy options—sounds downright delectable for avid gamers determined for something inexpensive. It’s actually an unserved market proper now.

The Radeon RX 6500 XT’s true measure can be revealed within the coming days and weeks, nevertheless. It wants to remain across the $200 value level to stay essentially the most interesting, although it’s nonetheless price contemplating anyplace underneath $300 in right now’s wild market.

The Radeon RX 6500 XT flies by video games at 1080p Medium settings, as our benchmarks confirmed, and activating options like Smart Access Memory, Radeon Boost, FidelityFX Super Resolution in supported video games, in addition to the forthcoming almost-universal Radeon Super Resolution, ought to solely pace issues up much more on suitable methods.

Brad Chacos/IDG

But AMD made a number of key compromises to hit this juicy value level: shedding PCIe lanes, trendy encoders, and even dropping right down to a scant 4GB of reminiscence to evade the attention of cryptocurrency miners. Those all have an effect on efficiency and also you’ll must work throughout the confines of the low-end GPU and unorthodox reminiscence configuration to keep away from bottlenecks. Some video games will be capable of present a {smooth} expertise on Ultra settings—particularly aggressive e-sports titles—however you’ll must hold expectations modest and tinker with settings to keep away from exceeding the cardboard’s 4GB body buffer. Blowing previous that may introduce jarring, arduous body time spikes. So, begin at Medium graphics presets in your chosen video games, and work up from there. You’ll additionally wish to keep away from going past 1080p decision, as shifting to 1440p and better in trendy video games is very more likely to exceed this card’s 4GB VRAM buffer and result in lag spikes, particularly when you’re utilizing a PCIe 3.0-based pc.

Its bizarre configuration makes the Radeon RX 6500 XT’s efficiency versus older GPUs unusually variable. Generally, it’s both higher than, or aggressive with, prior-gen choices in efficiency, particularly in video games that use the fashionable DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs that RDNA 2 excels at. Still, it will possibly range wildly relying on the sport. The Radeon RX 6500 XT brings up the rear in Total War: Troy, for instance, however performs exceedingly effectively in Borderlands 3. Nonetheless, it nonetheless offers very playable body charges throughout the board at Medium settings.

There’s no query that the restricted PCIe lane rely hinders efficiency when you drop AMD’s new GPU into an older PCIe 3.0 system (which means, all however essentially the most trendy PCs). Again, it’s variable—Rainbow Six Siege performs identically in each, whereas Total War is a whopping 18.4 % slower on PCIe 3.0—however excluding these uncommon outliers, the Radeon RX 6500 XT is a mean of 6.4 % slower throughout our take a look at suite when working in PCIe 3.0 mode. That’s not too unhealthy all issues thought of, and a lot better than you’d count on with a traditional GPU configuration wielding these specs, so it’s clear that AMD’s Infinity Cache is doing work right here. Given that, the marginally slower efficiency on PCIe 3.0 methods doesn’t change our general impressions of the graphics card, although it’s definitely price noting.

Unless you need trendy options like ray tracing and variable charge shading, the Radeon RX 6500 XT isn’t a compelling efficiency improve over last-gen entry-level GPUs just like the Radeon RX 5500 XT or GeForce GTX 1650 Super. Nor does it present sufficient of an uplift to think about upgrading from a Radeon RX 580 or GTX 1060 6GB when you’re nonetheless rocking these ever-popular choices from yesteryear. This basic value phase has been rocked by market circumstances and remained largely stagnant over the past half a decade. Siiiiiiiiiigh.

AMD

But when you’re seeking to construct a brand new gaming PC from scratch, or improve from an even-more-ancient GPU, a brand new $199 Radeon RX 6500 XT is much more interesting than a used GTX 1650 or Radeon RX 570 for $300-plus, particularly once you issue within the AMD card’s assist for contemporary options like ray tracing.

Yes, getting the Radeon RX 6500 XT to the $200 value level took some vital compromises on AMD’s half. And, sure, these compromises can hold you from cranking eye sweet to the max in lots of video games. But don’t lose sight of the forest for the bushes. The world wants inexpensive graphics playing cards proper now, and the Radeon RX 6500 XT delivers strong 1080p gaming efficiency with out brutalizing your pockets. A brand new technology of avid gamers launched to the glory of the PC in the course of the pandemic is clamoring for {hardware} to energy their Fortnite machines. If AMD can provide sufficient chips to maintain the Radeon RX 6500 XT on retailer cabinets, this humble, weird graphics card might wind up being a unusual savior throughout very arduous occasions.

That’s an enormous “if” in right now’s world. Prices want to remain sane for the Radeon RX 6500 XT to meet its potential and graphics card pricing has been something however sane over the past couple of years. The lack of a significant efficiency improve over prior-gen GPUs coupled with issues stemming from its unorthodox configuration stop us from giving the Radeon RX 6500 XT the next rating or an Editors’ Choice award. However, if issues go proper—AMD CEO Lisa Su told PCWorld “we intend to have a lot of product” for this launch—this graphics card might be precisely what the PC gaming plenty want proper now, warts and all.

Fingers crossed.