Meanwhile, the first tests of the RX 6500 XT from AMD are online. However, the reviewers are disillusioned by the graphics card. Yet, the release of the RX 6500 XT shows what is going wrong in the market right now.
What it’s about: AMD has today, on January 19, 2022, released the RX 6500 XT, the smallest official Radeon graphics card. Furthermore, the first independent reviews of the graphics card are now online.
However, the enthusiasm for the smallest Radeon model is quite limited. What the problems of the graphics card are, and what it means for potential buyers, we explain here.
The RX 6500 XT is supposed to be AMD’s smallest and cheapest graphics card
What kind of graphics card is this anyway? AMD presented the RX 6500 XT at CES 2022 as the cheapest RX 6000 series graphics card. Regarding performance, it stands at the bottom end of the model range.
Our colleagues at GameStar have already reported that AMD wants to protect the RX 6500 XT from extreme prices by equipping the graphics card with only 4 GB of video memory. This makes the graphics card quite unattractive for miners, as the VRAM is too limited.
However, many users believe that 4 GB of video memory could also be too little for gaming in 2022. The release and the tests of the RX 6500 XT now show that this is exactly one of the many problems with the graphics card.
The performance of the 6500 XT barely holds up against the previous generation
We are used to new hardware like graphics cards or processors meaning more performance. Manufacturers like AMD or Nvidia use better chips or apply other technical tricks to generate more power.
However, something happened with the RX 6500 XT that left many testers bewildered. The RX 6500 XT hardly matches the performance of the RX 5500 XT from 2019 and struggles in many rankings with the GeForce GTX 1650. After all, that’s a 3-year-old graphics card. This is reported by the online magazine HardwareLuxx (via hardwareluxx.de).
Similarly, colleagues from PC Games Hardware see it (via pcgameshardware.de). In the test benchmarks, the RX 6500 XT barely matches the RX 570 in games like Anno 1800 and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla – and that’s almost 6 years old.
The online magazine Techspot is also disillusioned (via techspot.com). Here, it states right at the beginning, “a really bad graphics card.” Older accelerators like the RX 470 pose fewer limitations than the RX 6500 XT and still deliver better performance in benchmarks.
What is the problem with the graphics card? In most tests, the RX 6500 XT fails to render modern games at full details. To make the graphics card affordable and above all, well available, AMD has made some compromises.
- AMD has deliberately limited the video memory to 4 GB to make the card unattractive for miners.
- To save costs, the Radeon RX 6500 XT only offers hardware-based H.264 and H.265 decoding, but no encoding. Therefore, certain AMD features like ShadowPlay and ReLive cannot be used. However, the 6-year-old RX 470/570 offers these features.
- The PCIe interface is limited to version 4.0 and ×4 (four so-called lanes), while new cards like the RTX 3080 provide PCIe-4.0 x16, which offers a significantly higher, though not necessarily required, bandwidth. A small memory interface can become problematic, especially with large data volumes.
Such a graphics card would never have existed before the Corona crisis
This is why the situation is so dramatic: In my opinion, such a graphics card would probably never have come to market before the Corona pandemic and the resource shortages. It simply would not have been competitive, and customers would have instead opted for the similarly priced but better-equipped predecessor graphics card or an alternative from the competition.
In the current situation, however, this is not possible, as most users want to be able to get a graphics card at a reasonable price. The current situation ensures that gamers have hardly any chances to buy a graphics card:
- Due to the Corona pandemic, too few semiconductors are currently being produced. For this reason, there are currently too few semiconductors for graphics cards, consoles, and many other devices.
- The little hardware that is currently available to buy is really expensive. Retailers either demand a high price or so-called scalpers add a hefty premium to the purchase price of a graphics card. After all, they want to make a profit.
- A third problem is crypto miners, who are also after graphics cards. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are currently worth a lot. It makes sense for many to invest.
With the possible compromises, AMD makes the graphics cards unattractive for miners. On the other hand, the chip of the smallest graphics card fits on a single wafer (via computerbase.de). Wafers are the discs in semiconductor production on which microchips are manufactured. This step could at least lead to a better supply than with previous models.
Unfortunately, the unattractive starting position is compounded by a catastrophic price-performance ratio. Although AMD’s official recommended price is $199 (209 euros), manufacturers have already announced prices of over 300 euros. The currently high demand for graphics cards is likely to push prices even higher. And 500 euros for a Full HD card that offers as much performance as a graphics card from 5 years ago is simply too much.
Nevertheless, there is still hope for gamers: Other manufacturers want to offer affordable graphics cards starting in 2022, and they might have some surprises in store. Among them is a manufacturer that hardly anyone in Germany may know. Whether this could be a possible hidden gem is explained to you by MeinMMO in the following article:
Gamers are now hoping for an affordable graphics card – but it won’t come from AMD or Nvidia
