1 Performance overview
Editor's comments: The thousand yuan A card has finally come, and with the blessing of new technology, RX6500XT4GB should have a good play. Note the card only
With 4GB of video memory, players don't have to worry about the card being used for other purposes.
In the past 2021, chip shortages and the rise of certain virtual financial products have made graphics cards a scarce product, and most of the game graphics cards have been used for off-game use, and the high premium away from the developer's plan has deterred gamers. Fortunately, a new generation of entry-level graphics card positioning thousands of yuan has finally arrived, and the new RDNA2 architecture - RX6500XT4GB has arrived as scheduled, of which the Xunjing XFXRX6500XT black wolf graphics card has come to our evaluation room, let's take a look at how this graphics card performs.
Performance testing:
In this issue, we conclude that the front, first on the graphics card specifications and running points that players are very concerned about, first offer a few similarly positioned product specification comparison tables, you can see that the specifications of RX6500XT compared to the "big brother" RX6600 have shrunk a lot.
Then there is the introduction of the platform for this test, in order to reduce the bottleneck of other hardware, we have adopted the Core i5-12600K+Z690+DDR4360016GB*2 platform, this set of high-end accessories should be able to fully release the performance of this graphics card.
Theoretical performance test:
First of all, the theoretical performance of this graphics card was tested with 3DMark, and the graphics card scores of the FireStrike/Extreme/Ultra project that evaluated the theoretical performance of the graphics card DX11 were 15341/6736/3506, respectively.
FireStrike score
FireStrikeExtreme score
FireStrikeUltra scored
This was followed by the 3DMarkTimeSpy project, a test that data-mediated the performance of the graphics card DX12, which resulted in a graphics score of 5010 for the XFXRX6500XT Black Wolf.
As one of the upgrades to the RDNA2 architecture, the core of the RX6500XT also has a built-in "ray tracing accelerator", so then there is the PortRoyal project, which is a test to test the light tracking performance of the graphics card, and the card's graphics card score is 552.
In order to more intuitively present the performance of this graphics card, we pulled the "big brother" of RX6500XT - RX66008GB and the current top two unique displays on Steam - GTX1060 and GTX1650 as reference objects.
The XFXRX6500XT Black Wolf has a decent score, and the specification differences with the RX6600 are vividly reflected in the theoretical performance test, but the performance of this card has far exceeded the current popular main graphics card.
Game Performance Test:
Considering that XFXRX6500XT Black Wolf only has 4GB of video memory, 2K or 4K resolution games are difficult to compare, so this game performance test is only compared at 1080P resolution. We chose Red Dead Redemption 2, Assassin's Creed: Valiant, Forza Horizon 5, and F12020 as our main references.
At present, the mainstream AAA games, in the case of the picture quality is adjusted to "high quality" or "medium quality", XFXRX6500XT Black Wolf graphics card can ensure the smooth operation of the game, in the case of insufficient video memory, the average frame rate of the game is much better than GTX1060 and GTX1650.
"Assassin's Creed: Temple of Heroes" is a more representative game, when the picture quality is set to "Medium", the performance of the RX6500XT is much better than the GTX10606GB graphics card, but when the image quality is set to "High", the card's video memory has entered a bottleneck, and the core performance cannot be fully played, resulting in the average frame rate being overtaken by the GTX10606GB with larger video memory.
Grill test:
Graphics card as one of the most significant hardware inside the PC, the graphics card's heatsink is the focus of attention of the players, we used the Furmark load application on the XFXRX6500XT Black Wolf stress test to understand the temperature performance of this card in a high load environment.
Furmark testing
HWiNFO64 monitoring data
The measured results show that under full load conditions, the temperature of XFXRX6500XT black wolf is suppressed at about 58 ° C, GPUCPD power is 90 watts, small partners who understand A card should know that the power of RX580 is often complained about by players, and now the entry-level graphics card RX6500XT has a significant reduction in power in the case of similar performance, and the high performance of the RDNA2 architecture can be seen.
The test part about the graphics card comes here first, followed by the XFXRX6500XT Black Wolf appearance part, and the small partners who want to know more about it should not miss it.
2 Appearance: Double fan tough small steel cannon
Appearance: Double fan tough small steel cannon
The Xunjing Black Wolf series focuses on popular products, so the series is cost-effective, and the outer packaging of the XFXRX6500XT Black Wolf graphics card we received is printed with a symbolic Black Wolf "mascot".
There are also the key parameters of this graphics card on the package: PCIe4.0, 4GB of video memory, and 1080P games, and more interestingly, there are the words "550 million players use AMDRADEON to play games".
As an entry-level game card, XFXRX6500XT Black Wolf design is very simple, two 10cm large fans basically occupy the front of the graphics card, the length of the card is only 23.3cm, is a small steel cannon.
A fan up to 10 cm in diameter and 13 fan blades can quickly drive away heat from the heat dissipation fins.
The branding on the heatsink housing indicates that this is an AMDRadeon graphics card from XFX.
The heat pipes interspersed between the heat fins are nickel-plated, a design that protects the heat pipes while making the heat sinks look more integrated. The classic all-metal backplane design improves heat dissipation, and a "Black Wolf Edition" sticker is attached to the back panel.
The edges of the back panel are edged, which in addition to aesthetics, can also play a certain protective role - reducing the risk of users' fingers being cut by heat dissipation fins when installing the graphics card.
According to AMD official data, the core power consumption of the card is designed to be 107 watts, which means that relying solely on the PCI-E interface can not provide enough power, XFXRX6500XT Black Wolf has a 6Pin external power supply port, which is used to ensure that the graphics card can still work stably when full load.
As an entry-level graphics card, the XFXRX6500XT Black Wolf has only one HDMI and one DP interface. Overall, the card inherits the exterior style of XFXRX6600/6600XT Black Wolf, and its simple and practical design is ideal for cost-effective players who don't need bells and whistles. The appearance part comes here first, and then we enter the dismantling session.
3 Disassembly and summary
Dismantling: Practicality comes first
Since the XFXRX6500XT Black Wolf does not have a peripheral design such as lighting, removing the heatsink only requires removing a few screws from the heatsink and PCB/backplane, and unplugging the fan power supply cable.
Take the heat sink away to clearly see the circuit layout on the PCB, this PCB is a short card design, you can see that the PCB is significantly shorter than the backplane.
There are some spare pads in the area below the core, indicating that this circuit layout may also be used for similar products.
The mosFET model powered by the core of the graphics card is ON Semiconductor NCP302045.
One of ON Semiconductor NCP302045 (top right IC)
ON Semiconductor NCP302045 bis (RIGHT IC)
The two PWM power supply master control chips on the PCB are NCP81022N, and it is believed that these two power supply master controllers are chips that control the core power supply and the video memory power supply respectively.
Since the card only has 4GB of video memory, there are only 2 video memory chips on the PCB, the model is Samsung K4ZAF325BM-HC18, which is a GDDR6 memory chip, and the single size is 16Gb, that is, 2GB.
Turn the PCB to the back, we can also see a lot of components, disassembly need to be careful, otherwise bumping off some resistors or capacitors is more troublesome.
Let's take a look at the heat dissipation module part, as mentioned earlier, the heat pipe has been nickel plated, and the integrated appearance of the heat dissipation fin makes the aesthetics of the graphics card good, and the direct contact with the core is the copper base, the thermal conductivity of the copper metal is good, and it can effectively and quickly transfer heat, but the base is not nickel-plated.
To spread the heat more evenly, the XFXRX6500XT graphics card is equipped with 2 x 6mm heat pipes.
In addition to the silicone grease coated on the core, the power supply of the graphics card and the memory chip also have thermal gaskets connected to the heat dissipation module, and the heat of these heating elements can be quickly dissipated with the help of the heat dissipation module.
Summary: Affordable graphics cards for special periods
As a non-public graphics card, XFXRX6500XT Black Wolf Edition has exceeded our expectations for an entry-level graphics card in terms of workmanship or heat dissipation, at 1080P resolution, with the help of FSR technology or the game picture quality is adjusted to "medium" or "high", most of the AAA games can be played, as an entry-level game graphics card is completely enough. The card also has super high energy efficiency, the recommended power rating is only 400W, which is very friendly to the small partner who aims to upgrade the old computer.
Unfortunately, only 4GB of video memory is counted, and it is not difficult to see from the actual measurement of some games that video memory is the main bottleneck of this graphics card, which is also the reason why the average frame rate is not ideal when the card runs some games that eat video memory. However, considering that the RX6500XT also only has 4GB of video memory, the settings of this graphics card are also understandable. From another perspective, mining some virtual financial products requires a graphics card to reach more than 6GB of video memory, and this card is believed to be easy to buy.
In summary, the advantage of this card is to support the new technology of RDNA2 architecture such as "unlimited cache", "FSR", "ray tracing", and the ultra-high energy efficiency brought by the architecture, the disadvantage is that the smaller memory capacity limits the performance of the graphics card. For old computer upgrades, or are using the AMD platform, want to buy a graphics card first, this card is a choice to consider at present.