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That memory bandwidth is around 231 GB/s when the VRAM is combined with the 16MB of Infinity Cache. That’s similar to what you would find in the RX 570, although the GCN card relied entirely on the speed of the memory and the interface – and the Radeon RX 6500 XT can’t really compete there. The new GPU is equipped with just 4GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 64-bit bus, which is both a low capacity and speed for a graphics card releasing in 2022. As for memory configurations, pending AMD’s confirmation, I’m expecting this card to have a 64-bit memory bus. This would be in line with halving the other resources on the card, as well as consistent with AMD’s design goals to use smaller memory busses on Navi 2x parts than their Navi 1x predecessors. In that case we’re looking at just 128GB/second or so of external memory bandwidth, assuming AMD is using standard 16Gbps GDDR6 here. And as previously mentioned, the Infinity Cache has been cut down to 16MB as well. So the RX 6500 XT is going to be in the interesting position of trying to make the most of its small-but-fast Infinity Cache before bandwidth drops off significantly when going off-die. Even with so many compute resources halved, it will be interesting to see if 6500 XT can be properly fed with such a small memory bus. If we break down the technical specifications of both GPUs, then the RTX 3050 vs RX 6500 XT bout has a clear winner, at least on paper. We'll start with Nvidia's latest graphics card, with its 8GB GDDR6 VRAM and 128-bit memory interface width. Making use of 8GB memory in the latest titles is going to be more than enough for 1080p gaming, generally speaking. I dipped into the performance numbers Jacob and I grabbed from the old RX 5500 XT and RX 580 cards in a previous life and they don't look like great reading. Effectively you're getting RX 580 performance, sometimes lower because of having half the VRAM. It's also worth noting that if you like to play single player more and target 40-60 fps, with a priority on visual quality rather than high fps, the 6500 XT isn't going to be for you, at least if you're limited to PCIe 3.0. Here the very high quality preset ran 29% faster using PCIe 4.0 with 44 fps at 1080p, opposed to just 34 fps using PCIe 3.0.
Put these two head-to-head in the arena, and it's clear: Between the Nvidia RTX 3050 and the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT, the RTX 3050's performance is a walk-off winner. On February 3, 2021, Gigabyte registered a range of RX 6700 XT graphics cards with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), with the filing indicating that all seven would ship with 12 GB of memory. [11] On March 3, 2021, AMD officially announced the RX 6700 XT card, set to compete with Nvidia's RTX 3060 Ti and 3070 cards. [12] It launched on March 18, 2021. [4] Finance is only available to permanent UK residents aged >18, subject to status, terms and conditions apply.
After tinkering with my test PC’s BIOS to use PCIe 3.0 instead, I re-ran a few games benchmarks, and found an often nasty downgrade from PCIe 4.0. Metro Exodus was the only one to get away practically unscathed, averaging 37fps at 1080p/Ultra – just a 1fps drop. Horizon Zero Dawn, on the other hand, stumbled from 54fps on 1080p/Ultimate to 46fps, a noticeable drop in smoothness. The Radeon RX 6800 and 6800 XT were released on November 18, 2020, and the RX 6900 XT was released on December 8, 2020. [9] [10] Even worse is that the 6500 XT was 17% faster using PCIe 4.0 compared to 3.0, with the previous bus spec dropping the average frame rate to just 64 fps, less than what you'll receive from the GTX 1650, a GPU I once thought to be an embarrassment in this segment. AMD's somehow gone and managed to make Nvidia look good 2 years later.
Exceeding the memory capacity of a graphics card can really tank performance, and that's precisely what happens with our 1080p ultra test suite, at least in some of the games. Both the RX 6500 XT and GTX 1650 Super averaged just 37 fps this time, less than half of their 1080p medium results. The good news is that the 4GB cards are generally penalized equally, but the bad news is that cards with 6GB or 8GB VRAM now look much better. The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT model we tested runs at just 107 watts, while certain OC options will push that to 120 watts. The model we tested required one six-pin power connector lead from the PSU.
Comparative Chipset Specs Table - AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT, RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, RX 6800 and RX 6750 XT Allan, Darren (May 11, 2021). "AMD RX 6600 and 6600 XT GPUs could have less VRAM than expected". TechRadar . Retrieved July 15, 2021.
Cutting down the PCIe lanes on the 5500 was a problem. Cutting it even more for the 6500 was a mistake. btarunr (June 10, 2021). "AMD Navi 23 Silicon Detailed, Higher Transistor Count than RX 5700 XT". TechPowerUp . Retrieved April 12, 2022. Ridley, Jacob (May 11, 2021). "Manufacturer hints at 8GB VRAM for AMD's unreleased RX 6600-series". PC Gamer . Retrieved July 15, 2021. Even though other 4GB graphics cards are just fine, the 6500 XT isn't. Here it's gimped by PCIe bandwidth even in the PCIe 4.0 x4 mode. When compared to the GTX 1650 Super, which is a 4GB graphics card, but uses PCIe 3.0 x16, the 6500 XT was 27% slower. But even more incredible, and I certainly mean incredible in a very bad way, even more incredible is the fact that when using PCIe 3.0 the 6500 XT was 46% slower than the GTX 1650 Super and wait for it, 53% slower than the RX 590. AMD Announces Ryzen "Zen 3" and Radeon "RDNA2" Presentations for October: A New Journey Begins". anandtech.com. AnandTech. September 9, 2020 . Retrieved October 25, 2020.Smart Access Memory, however, is limited to the RDNA 1 and 2 architectures, and is the tech which allows AMD CPUs to access all the memory built into an AMD GPU, delivering slight performance gains when you're running an entirely AMD-based gaming rig. Still, slight gains are better than no gains. On May 31, 2021, AMD announced the RX 6000M series of GPUs designed for laptops, [13] [14] including the RX 6600M, RX 6700M, and RX 6800M. They became available on June 1. [13]
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