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

[KompuKare]

A Linux NPI SW Architect at AMD now confirms the 6500XT (Navi 24) was in fact designed for the upcoming Ryzen 6000 laptops.
https://www.phoronix.com/forums/for...h-radeon-rx-6500-xt-support/page2#post1303444

That explains the missing H264/265/AV1 encoding (and PCIe 4.0 ×4) since the Rembrandt APU itself has encoding support, including AV1 decoding.

Spoiler: Picture

Nice to get it confirmed, but many of us already deduced this: only x 4 (=laptop) and only performs well with PCIe 4.0 x4 (so no existing AMD APUs, unsure about Intel but they'd hardly design for those, would they?), no decoder for AV1 (since the APU will have those).

The only question remains: when running at laptop clocks (as clocking it at nearly 3GHz consumes over 100W), how does it compare Rembrandt's iGPU?

Poorly I would think. So looks like it is aimed lower end laptop and OEM checklist: like those MX350 or similar paired with Intel Iris iGPU. Pointless

 

[Harlequin]

Unless its for on die

 

[willhub]

Is this GPU as disappointing as FX 5200?

 

[Harlequin]

Ofc if this IS the new APU, it is exactly what has been asked for on this forum just last month - a GTX 1060 on die

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

On the plus side , crypto continues to drop. If it keeps doing so and sits in "crypto winter" or so they call it, the graphics card market will come back to a semblance of normality. Recreational mining is already and the combination of falling crypto prices and rising electricity prices is meaning it is on the verge of not being worth it.

As soon as gpus arent pumping out free money , making themselves effectively free after a few months, normality will resume.

Hopefully but only if gamers also don't throw money at the cards too.

A Linux NPI SW Architect at AMD now confirms the 6500XT (Navi 24) was in fact designed for the upcoming Ryzen 6000 laptops.
https://www.phoronix.com/forums/for...h-radeon-rx-6500-xt-support/page2#post1303444

That explains the missing H264/265/AV1 encoding (and PCIe 4.0 ×4) since the Rembrandt APU itself has encoding support, including AV1 decoding.

Spoiler: Picture

Intel laptops had PCI-E 4.0 for nearly a year....so this helps Intel more than AMD.

 

[Jono8]

Hopefully but only if gamers also don't throw money at the cards too.

The GPU issue is nothing to do with gamers.

It is because for many parts of this year, GPU's have been effectively free/quite good money printers.

When crypto dumped in the summer, all of a sudden there was supply at ~RRP again.....

 

[Tired9]

Genuinely curios, do people think the shortages and manufacturing cost increases are fake?

Because as bad as this card is and as bad as the market in general is, I don't think AMD are releasing a card like this because they think its gonna line their pockets.

If anything its more like what's the cheapest thing we can make that will allow people who want to buy 5000 series CPUs be able to get a video out

There is a cutoff point where Vram is beneficial for Etherium mining or so I read , 8GB, so undercutting this mark makes it less interesting to miners.
'The PCI bandwidth cut makes no sense though and neither does using a 64-bit bus.

 

[JediFragger]

There is a cutoff point where Vram is beneficial for Etherium mining or so I read , 8GB, so undercutting this mark makes it less interesting to miners.

Etherium mining needs a minimum of 4.5GB atm I gather, goes up very slightly over time.

 

[Tired9]

Etherium mining needs a minimum of 4.5GB atm I gather, goes up very slightly over time.

Thank you for the better clarification.

 

[Harlequin]

eth dag calc says july this year it`ll pass 5gb

DAG size calculator and calendar | minerstat

 

[Tired9]

eth dag calc says july this year it`ll pass 5gb

DAG size calculator and calendar | minerstat

This is a very handy link. Thank you.

 

[pieman109]

Ok, got this 6500xt installed in the system below and just did a quick run of Heaven benchie at the settings also below:
system:
Intel i3 10100 4c/8t
16gb (2 x 8) ddr4 2666mhz memory
Gigabyte B510M H Mobo (running pcie Gen 3)

Heaven settings:
1080p
2 x AA
tessallation normal
high quality

and got: 2957 score, 117 fps. now this seems a bit high to me, so I might be doing summat wrong so I'm gonna try 3dmark and unigine Valley and see what I get with those.

 

[Harlequin]

As long as the texures fit into the ram buffer, and not need texture swapping to main ram, your performance is right (fast ram and a fast core). Its when it doesnt fit into the 4gb ram then pcie swapping occurs from main ram. You know, like Steve Wallton running games at 1440p with ultra high settings.....

 

[Uriel]

Is this GPU as disappointing as FX 5200?

I'd say comparable to that. It's a more similar situation to the FX 5200 than the Geforce 4 MX series, in that it's effectively too weak to run its generational features, rather than an older architecture being given a misleading name.

Edit: I would really like to see some in game comparisons with this and the Xbox Series S running the same new generation game at similar settings at 1080p. I think this card could be reasonably successful of it can manage that and the price stays near to the Series S price or below.

 

[Armageus]

The only question remains: when running at laptop clocks (as clocking it at nearly 3GHz consumes over 100W), how does it compare Rembrandt's iGPU?

Even downclocked back to sensible levels it's still going to perform better than any integrated graphics thanks to dedicated VRAM.

'The PCI bandwidth cut makes no sense though and neither does using a 64-bit bus.

As has been said numerous times so far - the 64bit bus and PCI-E lanes are related to this being intended primarily as a laptop part.

 

[pieman109]

As long as the texures fit into the ram buffer, and not need texture swapping to main ram, your performance is right (fast ram and a fast core). Its when it doesnt fit into the 4gb ram then pcie swapping occurs from main ram. You know, like Steve Wallton running games at 1440p with ultra high settings.....

Thats why I'm benching at what I consider to be "sensible" settings, this just isn't a 1440p, ultra settings card, though I will try it maxed out at 1080p out of curiosity

 

[Lightnix]

Pretty impressed that AMD are selling pretty much the cheapest card they could have put together for so much. Like seriously aggressively pared down. I bet the engineers who worked on it are like "you're selling this card as a WHAT?!" and the marketing folks are just like "yeah it's got good product market fit in these conditions, we've got slides and everything".

 

[Tired9]

Ok, got this 6500xt installed in the system below and just did a quick run of Heaven benchie at the settings also below:
system:
Intel i3 10100 4c/8t
16gb (2 x 8) ddr4 2666mhz memory
Gigabyte B510M H Mobo (running pcie Gen 3)

Heaven settings:
1080p
2 x AA
tessallation normal
high quality

and got: 2957 score, 117 fps. now this seems a bit high to me, so I might be doing summat wrong so I'm gonna try 3dmark and unigine Valley and see what I get with those.

Technically your card is close to the same value as a purchase as mine for the money if we keep it strictly to Heaven 4.0 and the 6500 XT's MSRP on those settings and the fact I paid 865 quid from Amazon for mine...
Hilariously Heaven see's my card as 4GB so lol.

 

[pieman109]

ok:

Heaven, x8 AA, ultra quality, extreme tessallation, 1080p........57.4fps...

Valley, x8AA, ultra quality.....54.3 fps, score 2270

fire strike, 1080p, preset settings, 15418, 13113, 5293
time spy, 1080p, preset settings, 15591, 13086, 5294

These where run using stock driver settings, fresh windows instal, no mucking about with hidden settings, etc.
Make of them what you will/want

 

[pc-guy]

do some DX12 benches