PC Gamer: RX 6500 XT looks worse on paper than AMD's $199 GPU from six years ago

Darujhistan · 8 Jan 2022 at 14:00

Absolute trash, this is just taking the p*** out of people.

Joxeon · 8 Jan 2022 at 14:41

Zoroaster said:
I bought a VEGA56 from Overclockers in 2019 for £250 that came with Division 2, saving me £50 I was going to spend anyway.

My VEGA56 is now worth almost £600 used, which I will sell next week, and I have a 3080 in the post that cost me £650.

I fully understand peoples frustration, I am one of those frustrated people, but if you are able to get on a RRP drop, and sell your old card at mining prices, there are opportunities out there for big gains.

I'm not a wealthy person, and I could never normally afford a 3080 even at RRP, but the current situation has landed me with an awesome deal. Maybe I was just lucky, I dunno...

You have to remember though this card will not be sold at the MSRP like the 3080FE and only the jacked up AIB versions will be available and likely be priced much higher. Also the 3080 is a big upgrade over the 56 which amounts to over 100% extra performance while for someone on a 480 4gb then your probably only going to see a 15-20% improvement.

The people in this budget range are unlikely to have pcie gen 4.0 aswell so the card will only run pcie 3.0 x4 and this could further reduce the performance.

Purgatory · 8 Jan 2022 at 14:52

Joxeon said:
You have to remember though this card will not be sold at the MSRP like the 3080FE and only the jacked up AIB versions will be available and likely be priced much higher. Also the 3080 is a big upgrade over the 56 which amounts to over 100% extra performance while for someone on a 480 4gb then your probably only going to see a 15-20% improvement.

Well they are already priced 100 Euro more than msrp in France.

300 euros for a card not worth even half the msrp price. Even consoles of last gen had 8GB VRAM and can be had for half the price of the msrp. AMD is taking the micky. 4GB new gpus should not exist in 2022.

https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-rx-...as-card-reportedly-costs-299-euros-in-france/

gpuerrilla · 8 Jan 2022 at 15:29

Sadly have to agree. If you have to go 4Gb then the price should be what it got advertised at and very little more. Of course if people are desperate/stupid enough to part with their cash for the regressive 2022 tech then its their own fault, but it could be a naïve influence thinking it will stop crypto mining buyers or something..

muon · 8 Jan 2022 at 15:38

AMD trying to sell bottom end laptop performance for £200.

How much better than the MX450 will this be?

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-mx450-30-5w-10gbps.c3641

Raelgun · 8 Jan 2022 at 15:54

Are these the same people that think 30000 DPI better then a 2500 DPI mouse cos on paper its a higher number?

dumb ***** I say, people need to learn how things work architecturally and if people find it offensive they dont understand well be offended.

rare · 8 Jan 2022 at 15:56

A truly awful product, at that price point at least.

gpuerrilla · 8 Jan 2022 at 16:38

I daresay the 3050 will be much better but will definitely appeal to miners so..

CuriousTomCat · 8 Jan 2022 at 17:03

If the 3050 is much better than the 6500 XT then I'm sure the 3050 will be much more expensive.

AMD know what they're doing. They wouldn't let their competitor release a better product for a better price.

shankly1985 · 8 Jan 2022 at 17:25

End of the day is a GPU is rated on its performance and price.

Why not least wait for reviews before writing it off?

It's a GPU for low end 1080p midium setting and it should be priced for that.

It's spec on paper is very capable of doing just that.

muon · 8 Jan 2022 at 17:43

shankly1985 said:
End of the day is a GPU is rated on its performance and price.

Why not least wait for reviews before writing it off?

It's a GPU for low end 1080p midium setting and it should be priced for that.

It's spec on paper is very capable of doing just that.

It has a memory bandwidth of 64 bit. No card in history with that memory interface has been a 1080p card without severe compromise.

Even the Xbox Series S RDNA2 GPU with only 4 TFlops has a 128 bit memory interface. Even that struggles to push 1080p at 60fps in a lot of next generation games.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/xbox-series-s-gpu.c3683

The problem here is that RDNA2 was likely never intended to scale down to 4GB RAM. Otherwise they would have built it to at least maintain 128bit interface at that level. Instead they are just having the number of memory modules and therefore the bandwidth.

The 6600 and 6600XT were uncompromising 1080p cards, delivering 5700XT performance at the same price point.

These cards will perform similar to the RX 5500XT, which performed the same as the RX 480/580, if even that.

Zoroaster · 8 Jan 2022 at 20:11

muon said:
It has a memory bandwidth of 64 bit. No card in history with that memory interface has been a 1080p card without severe compromise.

Even the Xbox Series S RDNA2 GPU with only 4 TFlops has a 128 bit memory interface. Even that struggles to push 1080p at 60fps in a lot of next generation games.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/xbox-series-s-gpu.c3683

The problem here is that RDNA2 was likely never intended to scale down to 4GB RAM. Otherwise they would have built it to at least maintain 128bit interface at that level. Instead they are just having the number of memory modules and therefore the bandwidth.

The 6600 and 6600XT were uncompromising 1080p cards, delivering 5700XT performance at the same price point.

These cards will perform similar to the RX 5500XT, which performed the same as the RX 480/580, if even that.

5500XT is selling for up to £400 second hand, RX 580 £250, and neither are available new with a warranty for a young person trying to build their first PC with cheap parts.

The possibility for a new games enthusiast to buy an entry level graphics card for 1080 gaming does not exist right now, and (hopefully!) it will exist in a few weeks time.

I understand people's concerns, but I'm holding some faith that AMD know what they are doing here.

Zoroaster · 8 Jan 2022 at 20:11

I found this article really informative
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...zed-to-be-good-for-gaming-and-bad-for-mining/

you’ll notice a few things that stick out compared to the last-gen RX 5500 XT. For starters, there isn’t an 8GB version of the 6500 XT. The 6500 XT also uses a 64-bit memory interface, which is exceedingly rare in modern GPUs—you’ll sometimes see it in low-end dedicated laptop GPUs like the GeForce MX 450, but discrete GPUs released within the last couple of generations have mostly stuck to 128-bit memory interfaces at a minimum. Both of these decisions make the 6500 XT bad for Ethereum mining in particular, since it needs more than 4GB of video RAM and really likes memory bandwidth.

To make up for the slower memory interface and help the card compete with the RX 570-class cards that AMD wants it to replace, AMD has boosted the clock speed of the RX 6500 XT way up. Its maximum boost frequency is 2815 MHz, up from 1845 MHz in the RX 5500 XT. Even the top-tier 6900 XT only boosts up to 2250 MHz—it just has a lot more GPU hardware and much more memory bandwidth to work with in the first place.

muon · 8 Jan 2022 at 20:16

Zoroaster said:
5500XT is selling for up to £400 second hand, RX 580 £250, and neither are available new with a warranty for a young person trying to build their first PC with cheap parts.

The possibility for a new games enthusiast to buy an entry level graphics card for 1080 gaming does not exist right now, and (hopefully!) it will exist in a few weeks time.

I understand people's concerns, but I'm holding some faith that AMD know what they are doing here.

So AMD are scalping? Why would they price an RX 480 level card at £200 after 6 years? What bearing does the used market have for their pricing?

Intel were crucified for years for doing the same (not even as egregiously), giving the same performance for gradually increasing prices. Suddenly AMD are simply the saviour for gamers. If they were the card would be cheaper corresponding to the cheap components it uses, small die, only 2 memory modules, low power delivery.

Kelt · 8 Jan 2022 at 20:17

When all is said and done, no matter if this card boosts to infinity and beyond, it only has 4GB of memory, and that wasn't enough five years ago, never mind now.

Alt0153 · 8 Jan 2022 at 20:33

Kelt said:
When all is said and done, no matter if this card boosts to infinity and beyond, it only has 4GB of memory, and that wasn't enough five years ago, never mind now.

its a new era of 720p gaming

NinjaCool · 8 Jan 2022 at 20:37

With the way prices are going up, 720p gaming is coming back with a vengeance

Poneros · 8 Jan 2022 at 21:03

Imo this is just very obviously an esports card which you'll be able to get for cheap in a rough GPU market. For that it is perfect, but for anything else it's going to be woeful.

Grim5 · 8 Jan 2022 at 23:36

Nintendo switch is a 720p machine and it gets bay with 4GB ram, that's why 6500xt can look forward too

Man-In-A-Teapot · 9 Jan 2022 at 01:35

Kelt said:
When all is said and done, no matter if this card boosts to infinity and beyond, it only has 4GB of memory, and that wasn't enough five years ago, never mind now.

4GB was enough 5 years ago, but 5 years ago ain't now so bit of a moot point.