Sapphire
When AMD introduced its budget-friendly RX 6500 XT graphics card at CES early this month, the corporate recommended that the product had been designed with limitations that might make it unappealing to the cryptocurrency miners who’ve been exacerbating the continuing GPU scarcity for over a 12 months now. However now that critiques of the cardboard have began to hit, it is clear that its gaming efficiency is the collateral harm of these limitations.
Evaluations from Tom’s Hardware, PCGamer, TechSpot, Gamers Nexus, and a litany of different PC gaming YouTube channels are unanimous: the RX 6500 XT is steadily outperformed by previous-generation graphics playing cards, and it comes with different caveats past efficiency that restrict its enchantment even additional. (Ars hasn’t been supplied with a assessment unit.)
The core of the issue is a 64-bit reminiscence interface that limits the quantity of reminiscence bandwidth the cardboard has to work with. Plus, the cardboard has solely 4GB of RAM, which is starting to be a limiting consider fashionable video games, particularly at resolutions above 1080p. Many assessments noticed the RX 6500 XT outperformed by the 8GB variant of the RX 5500 XT, which launched on the tail finish of 2019 for a similar $199 (and you may truly discover and purchase it for that value).
The {hardware} limitations additionally make the GPU’s help for hardware-accelerated ray-tracing practically ineffective. Tom’s {Hardware} says that within the titles which are playable in any respect with ray-tracing enabled, the settings need to be turned down low sufficient that video games do not truly look that significantly better. The RX 6000-series’ ray-tracing efficiency lags behind the Nvidia RTX 3000 collection across the lineup, but it surely’s particularly disappointing right here.
Asus
The cardboard’s four-lane PCI Categorical 4.0 interface additionally poses an issue. When it has a PCIe 4.0 connection to work with, the RX 6500 XT appears superb, and even high-end playing cards do not usually want all of the bandwidth that the everyday 16-lane connection supplies. But it surely causes issues for PCs that use PCI Categorical 3.0; TechSpot’s assessment discovered that utilizing a PCIe 3.0 reference to the RX 6500 XT knocked off 10–15 p.c of the cardboard’s already lackluster efficiency. And PCIe 3.0 programs aren’t historical historical past: Intel’s Tenth-generation Core chips, any Ryzen processors nonetheless working in a 300- or 400-series motherboard, and the Ryzen 5000G processors with built-in graphics all use PCI Categorical 3.0 and are nonetheless being bought at most retailers. These are precisely the sorts of older and cheaper PCs that budget-minded avid gamers usually tend to be utilizing, limiting the RX 6500 XT’s enchantment amongst what should be its audience.
Even for individuals who do not play video games, the RX 6500 XT cuts some corners that make it much less helpful. The GPU solely helps a complete of two shows, down from the extra typical 4. The GPU’s video encoding and decoding capabilities have additionally been reduce down—the cardboard cannot decode AV1 video streams, which suggests it will not have the ability to deal with 4K video streams from a rising variety of streaming companies (AV1 help is one difficulty on the coronary heart of the latest Roku-Google dust-up). And the cardboard cannot encode both H.264 or H.265 video streams, options that assist cut back the load in your CPU in case you’re streaming stay video.
Gigabyte
By the use of clarification, an AMD staffer has indicated that the Navi 24 GPU on the coronary heart of the RX 6500 XT was intended for use in laptops, the place decrease quantities of VRAM, 64-bit reminiscence interfaces, and different limits are nonetheless widespread; these laptops additionally nearly at all times embrace an Intel- or AMD-integrated GPU that might deal with the lacking video encoding and decoding capabilities. However Navi 24 was retooled for launch on desktops, the place its limitations have change into extra obvious.
Sadly, the realities of as we speak’s GPU market are such that an RX 6500 XT at its $200 listing value may nonetheless be a good purchase for somebody on a finances or somebody who can stay with mediocre efficiency till the GPU market cools down (each time that’s—the GPU makers themselves have given incorrect estimates in regards to the difficulty so many instances that it is clear nobody truly is aware of for positive). Nvidia’s years-old, low-end GeForce GTX 1650 goes for round $300 when yow will discover it, and the RX 6500 XT beats it by a good margin more often than not.
It’s, after all, currently impossible to search out an RX 6500 XT at its retail value except you reside close to a Micro Heart or another brick-and-mortar retailer that does not promote GPUs on-line. So it goes.
