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

[Alan McFall]

I don't think we are seeing that. We've just been told that there is 20% price hike in TSMC chip costs. And you should certainly be looking at price you can purchase now when doing comparisons of price to performance if you was trying to buy a card unless you've got a time machine to prepurchase accordingly.

20% cost increase on everything accross the board with no negotiation ?

 

[pieman109]

I wonder how it looks if you compare the 6500XT to the 5600XT.. I'd guess about 10-20% performance regression depending on the game

I reckon the 5600xt would be a better deal, if you can find one at a reasonable price, even 5500xt are going for over £300 second hand, theres 3 on F/B at the moment going for £330 each

Bottom line in my opinion, is at least you've got an option around £200 ish, albeit, its a dog, but an option never the less. Alternatives are 1650/super, 5500xt, 580 4gb, 1060 6gb, all are probably more expensive, used, unknown history, no warranty, overall better performing htough, its not much of a choice, but still an option

 

[RavenXXX2]

5500 xt easily had for under £300 on the bay. Mining is declining and so are used prices.

 

[Joxeon]

I don't think we are seeing that. We've just been told that there is 20% price hike in TSMC chip costs. And you should certainly be looking at price you can purchase now when doing comparisons of price to performance if you was trying to buy a card unless you've got a time machine to prepurchase accordingly.

We've been told a lot of things and it's all part of the marketing push by the industry to gaslight consumers into accepting that this level of price performance is now normal going forward so once the crypto craze dies down they can maintain these same prices for gamers and keep the record profits rolling in.

 

[Jono8]

We've been told a lot of things and it's all part of the marketing push by the industry to gaslight consumers into accepting that this level of price performance is now normal going forward so once the crypto craze dies down they can maintain these same prices for gamers and keep the record profits rolling in.

Indeed.

People need to use reason here.

The only reason for the situation is because these are literal money printers and have been paying for themselves within months.

Mining profitibilty collapses = normal gpu market again.

Don't listen to any manufacturer or retailer that says otherwise.

 

[Alan McFall]

We've been told a lot of things and it's all part of the marketing push by the industry to gaslight consumers into accepting that this level of price performance is now normal going forward so once the crypto craze dies down they can maintain these same prices for gamers and keep the record profits rolling in.

Agreed, you can't maintain growth when the profit margins of the previous 8 quarters have been anomalous unless you can perhaps shift the narrative.

 

[KompuKare]

I don't think we are seeing that. We've just been told that there is 20% price hike in TSMC chip costs. And you should certainly be looking at price you can purchase now when doing comparisons of price to performance if you was trying to buy a card unless you've got a time machine to prepurchase accordingly.

Thing is we would never be party to the true details of what the terms are when $billions corporations negotiate deals.

I've no doubt that TSMC prices have gone up. At least for new contracts. Or urgent contracts. And AMD like all big customers has a mix of "fixed" prices (things they negotiated years ago) and almost "spot" prices. Knowing how over cautious they have been over the years ("we'd rather underorder than get caught again. We'd rather sell little and make a higher margin, rather than actually get a return on our sunk costs of design/masks etc."), AMD's share of "fixed" and "spot" may be rather poor but while I don't doubt that if you want a new 7nm wafer you may pay $20k, they must have plenty in their mix where they paid $10k or even less.

 

[pieman109]

5500 xt easily had for under £300 on the bay. Mining is declining and so are used prices.

I've had quick look and the ones I've seen went for around 250 -300 and over, a few earlier sales were less than that are 4gb versions

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

We've been told a lot of things and it's all part of the marketing push by the industry to gaslight consumers into accepting that this level of price performance is now normal going forward so once the crypto craze dies down they can maintain these same prices for gamers and keep the record profits rolling in.

The issue is we in the west,have not learnt that tying all our financial systems to speculation on short-term profits/margins and this is causing longterm damage. Hence the accountants just concentrate on jacking up prices,and servicing less and less customers. At the same time they want to cut cost on R and D,to make the margins higher so you have stagnation which is what you saw with Intel for years with their quad core CPUs.You are seeing it with our hobby - lower margin customers are now not considered of any importance.

The reason for the dotcom crash and subprime was because everyone was more worried about short term bets instead of looking longer term. Its leading to situations where our own companies are giving up lower end and middle range customers worldwide. Just look decades ago with cars and how Japanese car companies started from the bottom,or Chinese companies especially with smartphones,when Apple/Samsung ignored lower margin markets. So what happens is new competitors arrive. Its why Japan/SK/China centred companies have taken so much business from our own companies over the last 50 years. Its even why TSMC and Samsung eventually stole a march on our own companies like Intel,etc.

The problem is now with consoles,smartphones,etc being so common and relatively cheap something like 75% of 2020 gaming revenue was not on the PC.

 

[KompuKare]

W1zzard now review the Sapphire 6500 XT Pulse and it consumes a bit less power compared to yesterday's Asus 6500 XT TUF review.
Gaming / Max / V-Sync 60Hz went from 101W / 112W / 92W down to 89W / 108W / 79W.

Still not good, but it's interesting how little it takes to move up TPU's perf/watt chart:

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/sapphire-radeon-rx-6500-xt-pulse/36.html

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

W1zzard now review the Sapphire 6500 XT Pulse and it consumes a bit less power compared to yesterday's Asus 6500 XT TUF review.
Gaming / Max / V-Sync 60Hz went from 101W / 112W / 92W down to 89W / 108W / 79W.

Still not good, but it's interesting how little it takes to move up TPU's perf/watt chart:

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/sapphire-radeon-rx-6500-xt-pulse/36.html

The RX6600 is 44% more efficient though!

 

[Ross Thomson]

I wonder how it looks if you compare the 6500XT to the 5600XT.. I'd guess about 10-20% performance regression depending on the game

I posted a stock 5600xt above using heaven

 

[pieman109]

Theres only one or two ways things will return to anything resembling how things were 2 years ago, mining crashing totally and/or people refusing to buy these products at current prices

 

[pieman109]

just remember than a a lot of those benchmark scores are dependant on the CPU as well.


Stock 5600XT
Stock ryzen 1700

Score 3216
FPS 127.7
max 243.6
min 9.3

Interesting, is that on gen 3 or 4 pcie?

 

[Alan McFall]

Interesting, is that on gen 3 or 4 pcie?

5600XT has 16 lanes so will not make a difference but Ryzen 1700 is PCIE 3.0.

 

[pieman109]

5600XT has 16 lanes so will not make a difference but Ryzen 1700 is PCIE 3.0.

So if the 6500xt was benched on a gen 4 mobo, with gen 4 capable cpu, ie, B550/B560 mobo and 5600x/intel 11400, the overall score, I reckon would be a fair closer

 

[Alan McFall]

So if the 6500xt was benched on a gen 4 mobo, with gen 4 capable cpu, ie, B550/B560 mobo and 5600x/intel 11400, the overall score, I reckon would be a fair closer

Not sure tbh, I would have thought that everything is loaded in VRAM for Heaven and seeing as 8GB card's show as 4GB i'm presuming that's the max amount it needs.

 

[pagepack]

For all the hate, this is a 1080p card for medium settings, at a reasonable price.

It's about making it passable for the majority, which is 1080p gamers. Without making it too attractive to miners.

So if anyone thinks they are picking up a bargain 3050, 10 seconds after launch, should think again.

 

[Ross Thomson]

Interesting, is that on gen 3 or 4 pcie?

gen 3 so probably a few % slower. for ***** and giggles I overclocked the 5600XT

core 2200mhz
mem 1900

score 3755
ave 149.1
max 272.7
min 31.9

 

[Joxeon]

For all the hate, this is a 1080p card for medium settings, at a reasonable price.

It's about making it passable for the majority, which is 1080p gamers. Without making it too attractive to miners.

So if anyone thinks they are picking up a bargain 3050, 10 seconds after launch, should think again.

The trouble is with the 6500XT having such a poor showing everyone now will want the 3050.