According to AMD, 47% of users worldwide are still using discrete graphics cards with performance similar to RX 570 or even lower. These users may only play online games or other application scenarios, the performance of the graphics card is not very high, but after all, the graphics card such as RX 570 is also a product of a long time ago, and many of the new features of today's graphics cards cannot be supported, and cannot adapt to today's game environment and various application scenarios.
So at CES 2022, AMD released the Radeon RX 6500 XT. Its RDNA 2 architecture-based Navi 24 core, manufactured on a 6nm process, is configured with 16MB of unlimited cache, has 16 CUs, or 1024 stream processors, and is equipped with 4GB of GDDR6 memory with a memory width of 64 bits and a memory rate of 18 Gbps.
Radeon RX 6500 XT is the entry-level graphics card of the RX 6000 series, mainly aimed at esports online game application scenarios, and based on the RDNA 2 architecture, it also has many new features of the RDNA 2 architecture, which can help users adapt to today's application environment.
RDNA 2 architecture resolution: faster frequency, higher energy consumption ratio, stronger performance
The RDNA 2 architecture has three major improvement points:
· High-frequency design: The RDNA 2 architecture achieves a 30% increase in MAX frequency at the same power consumption compared to the RDNA 1 architecture.
· Unlimited cache design: can eliminate bandwidth bottlenecks, greatly improve the equivalent bandwidth and reduce power consumption, help to improve the energy consumption ratio;
· Support DX12U, DS API: Keeping up with the trend of the times, the A card supports advanced API features such as light tracking.
The RDNA 2 architecture is a powerful game architecture, and it has three major improvements over the RDNA 1 architecture this time. First of all, AMD has achieved a breakthrough high-frequency design on RDNA 2, which maintains good energy consumption performance while having high frequencies. Secondly, AMD has developed the revolutionary AMD Infinity Cache unlimited cache technology for RDNA 2, which provides a very considerable equivalent bandwidth while also being more energy-efficient and energy consumption. The third improvement point is to support the advanced features of DX12 Ultimate, including APIs such as DXR and DirectStorage, so that AMD graphics cards are also added to the large family that supports DX12 Ultimate.
Improvement 1: Only fast is not broken, RDNA 2 architecture focuses on high-frequency design
Looking at the frequency improvement first, RDNA 2 has achieved a breakthrough high-frequency design, although it is the same 7nm process as RDNA, but it has made great progress. From this diagram, we can see that the RDNA 2 architecture achieves a frequency increase of 30% for the same power consumption in each computing unit CU, while if it is the same frequency, the power consumption is only half of the RDNA, that is, the energy consumption ratio is more than 50%.
Improvement 2: Eliminate bandwidth bottlenecks and introduce "Infinity Cache" technology
The success of RDNA 2 comes from the RDNA 1 research and development experience, on the RDNA 1 generation architecture AMD added L0 level cache to the Dual Compute Unit composed of two sets of CU units, the newly designed L1 cache and the 4MB shared L2 cache with reduced congestion, so that the RDNA architecture improves cache bandwidth, reduces cache latency and power consumption. Finally, the GDDR6 memory with a 256-bit wide 14Gb/s memory rate reached a graphics card bandwidth of 448GB/S, which still looks very good.
However, this bandwidth is not enough for RDNA 2, and AMD invents a new unlimited caching technology. The implementation of this technology thanks to the R & D experience of the CPU department, AMD's solution is to optimize the high-density SRAM originally used for EPYC™s server processors for GPUs, and add AMD's "Infinity Fabric" unlimited bus in the Zen architecture, and the two become a new generation of bandwidth tools for "Infinity Cache" unlimited cache.
RDNA 2 through the "unlimited cache" large bandwidth, low power consumption to help achieve IPC improvement, while increasing the operating frequency, to complete each clock instruction power consumption is also significantly reduced. Combining the three enhancements, the RDNA 2 architecture can continue to significantly increase the energy consumption ratio of the RDNA 1 architecture by up to 54%.
Improvement 3: Keeping up with the trend of the times, fully support DX12U, DS API
Let's look at the third improvement point in the RDNA 2 architecture, which supports more advanced features. AMD finally fully supports advanced features such as DirectX 12 Ultimate and DirectStorage API on RDNA 2, allowing A cards to also use technologies such as DirectX ray tracing, variable rate shading, mesh shaders, and sampler feedback.
Ray Accelerator, a ray accelerator
Real-time ray tracing is an important technology that makes game graphics more realistic and increases player immersion. The biggest disadvantage of real-time ray tracing is that the computing power of the graphics card is extremely high, the efficiency of the traditional CU unit running real-time ray tracing is very low, in order to make the real-time ray tracing picture more fluent, AMD has put a "Ray Accelerator" ray accelerator in each CU computing unit of the RDNA 2 architecture, the more CU computing units, the more powerful the real-time ray tracing performance of the RDNA 2 architecture graphics card.
The Ray Accelerator is dedicated hardware for processing the calculation of the intersection of rays. Compared with the software solution, the intersection computing performance can be increased by 10 times. At the same time, real-time ray tracing performance can also eat the gain of "unlimited cache", and due to the comprehensiveness of RDNA 2 coverage of the market, PCs and hosts can enjoy real-time ray tracing technology. Variable rate shading, mesh shaders, sampler feedback, and other features are also supported.
The addition of FSR technology
In the period between the release of the RX 6700 XT and the RX 6600 XT, FSR technology finally landed, AMD FSR technology is through super resolution to achieve stretching, coupled with sharpening, so as to improve the frame rate while maintaining a good picture quality. This sounds a bit similar to AMD's own FidelityFX CAS, which is normal because both FSRs utilize sharpening and super-resolution stretching techniques. However, the biggest difference between the two is that FSR is to stretch and sharpen the edges of objects in the game, making the overall picture look more like a product of high resolution.
In addition, FSR stretches the picture frame by frame, and does not need to refer to the past frame screen, dynamic vector prediction and other elements to stretch like DLSS. Although FSR and DLSS do not use the same technology, in terms of application, DLSS is more complex to present more effects, so it requires the GPU to have dedicated hardware to run, while FSR is slightly more elastic, can be more convenient to add to the game, and can support more hardware.
Everyone knows that NVIDIA's DLSS is divided into several modes, and AMD FSR is the same, and there is one more than the former, in total, there are ultra quality ( Quality ) ( Quality ) ( Balance ) and performance of these modes. These 4 modes correspond to 4 different tensile resolutions. Taking 4K (2160P) as an example, the input resolution of the performance mode is 1080P, the balanced mode is 1270P, the quality is 1440P, and the ultra-high quality is 1662P. However, these resolutions are not fixed, and the input resolution of the FSR adjusts proportionally with the display resolution, so even those magical resolutions can theoretically be supported.
Radeon RX 6500 XT specifications
Here is a table of specifications comparison for the Radeon RX 6500 XT versus the Radeon RX 5500 XT and Radeon RX 6600:
The first GPU manufactured on the 6nm process
The release of the Radeon RX 6500 XT brings us a whole new core, the Navi 24, the first GPU chip made on a 6nm process, with a total of 5.4 billion transistors, almost exactly half of the Navi 23, while the core area is only 107 square millimeters, which is half the size of the Navi 23.
The Radeon RX 6500 XT is based on the RDNA 2 architecture, where AMD continues to use CU compute units, each with 64 stream processors. Radeon RX 6500 XT contains 16 sets of CU units, so there are a total of 1024 stream processors, compared with the previous generation of Radeon RX 5500 XT, you will find that the stream processor is reduced, and in fact, the number of transistors mentioned earlier Radeon RX 6500 XT is also reduced compared to the Radeon RX 5500 XT.
However, the mission of Radeon RX 6500 XT is not to replace radeon RX 5500 XT, after all, for users with limited budgets, it is unlikely to change a new graphics card in one or two years, and such users are generally online game players, for online game games that are not strict in performance requirements, a graphics card is difficult to be eliminated in one or two years. The mission of the Radeon RX 6500 XT is to replace the RX 570 or lower performance level graphics card, according to AMD surveys, more than 47% of the current global gamers are still using RX 570 or lower performance graphics cards, the mission of the RX 6500 XT is to gain the favor of these users.
Moreover, the number of transistors Radeon RX 6500 XT compared to radeon RX 5500 XT is reduced does not necessarily mean that the performance will be weaker, to see the Radeon RX 6500 XT compared to the Radeon RX 5500 XT frequency is a day and a day, Radeon RX 6500 XT has a game frequency of up to 2610MHz, compared to the Radeon RX 5500 XT of 1717MHz do not know how much ahead This is the horror of the RDNA 2 architecture's focus on high frequency.
4GB of video memory, no video encoding support, PCIe 4.0 x4 interface
However, the Radeon RX 6500 XT has a little regret that there is only 4GB of video memory, which is indeed a bit too stretched in the face of today's gaming environment, and the previous generation of Radeon RX 5500 XT has an 8GB video memory version in addition to the 4GB video memory version. However, at present, it is not excluded that AMD may launch an 8GB video memory version of radeon RX 6500 XT, which should actually be better.
In addition, the Radeon RX 6500 XT also has a little regret that the encoder is removed and does not support video encoding, so the system that chooses the graphics card needs the CPU to undertake this work in terms of coding. In other aspects, although the GDDR6 memory bandwidth of the Radeon RX 6500 XT is only 144GB/s, due to the existence of AMD Infinity Cache, its actual bandwidth performance can reach the performance level of 231.6GB/s, but it should be noted that its PCIE interface is PCIe 4.0 x4.
Finally, as an entry-level graphics card, Radeon RX 6500 XT in terms of power consumption is also very good, 107W of the entire card power consumption is already today's very low power consumption graphics card, in terms of power requirements a 400W power supply is enough for its stable operation, and external power supply, only a 6 Pin power interface is required.
Radeon RX 6500 XT does not have a public graphics card, all products are shipped in non-public form, this time used for the first test is an XFX Vision RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition graphics card.
XFX Vision RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition graphics card appearance
XFX Vision RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition graphics card is very similar to the previous XFX Vision RX 6600 Black Wolf Edition graphics card, using a dual fan design, and strictly control the thickness at the standard double slot thickness, the appearance of the card is black processing, very plain. Both fans on the front are 100mm size, which is considered a larger size in the graphics card fan, and the large size fan can maintain a low speed while providing the same air volume, obtaining good noise performance. In addition, XFX Xunjing RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition graphics card also supports standby shutdown function, that is, the fan is completely stopped in standby state, relying only on passive heat dissipation, providing an absolutely silent experience.
At the same time, due to the addition of 100mm large-size fans, the card inevitably adopts a shoulder-over design, on the top of the graphics card, you can see the words XFX and Radeon, and the XFX Vision RX 6600 Black Wolf Edition graphics card is different from the card does not have a dual BIOS toggle switch, and the PCB is shorter than the latter.
In terms of interface, it can be seen that XFX Xunjing RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition graphics card uses a single 6pin external power interface, which is obviously different from XFX Xunjing RX 6600 Black Wolf Edition graphics card. The video output interface is 1 HDMI 2.1 interface and 3 DisplayPort 1.4a interfaces. A large number of cutouts are carried out on the side of the video interface to help provide better heat dissipation. On the back of the card, it can be seen that it uses a metal back plate, and the metal back plate also has a large number of hollow designs to provide better airflow passability and enhance heat dissipation.
XFX Xunjing RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition graphics card disassembly
After opening the heat sink, you can see that the XFX Xunjing RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition graphics card uses a pure copper base to contact the heat sink with the GPU core, because the Navi 24 core is very small, only 107 square millimeters, so the pure copper base here is also very small, which is very interesting to watch.
XFX Xunjing RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition graphics card has two heat pipes, both 6mm diameter, and both are nickel-plated, which plays an aesthetic effect and can prevent oxidation over time, but its pure copper base is not nickel-plated.
The center of the PCB is the XFX Xunjing RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition of the Navi 24 core, which is covered with thermal grease, surrounded by only 2 memory particles, the memory particles are covered with thermally conductive silicone paste, you can see that the memory particles are 2 Samsung K4ZAF325BM-HC18 GDDR6 memory, a single capacity of 2GB, a bit width of 32bits, 2 pieces of a total of 4GB of capacity, 64bit width, equivalent memory data rate is 18Gbps.
In terms of power supply, XFX Xunjing RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition graphics card uses 4+3 phase power supply, core power supply and video memory power supply mosFET are ON Semiconductor's NCP302045, pcB can see 2 major PWM chips, namely ON Semiconductor NCP81022N and ON Semiconductor NCP81022.
Test platform with description
For the Radeon RX 6500 XT, AMD gives two public version schemes, one is a 2610MHz game frequency, 2815MHz peak frequency, the other version is higher is 2685MHz game frequency, 2825MHz peak frequency, and this time for testing XFX Newsview RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition is the high-frequency version of this version (GPU-Z at the time of testing is not well recognized), the power consumption of the GPU chip of the two versions of the frequency is 10W, The 2610MHz game frequency is 80W GPU chip power consumption, and the 2685MHz version of the game frequency is 90W GPU chip power consumption.
In addition, the current identification of the PCI-E interface should be wrong, RX 6600 is only PCIe 4.0 x8, RX 6500 XT can not be PCIe 4.0 x16, but should be the official PCIe 4.0 x4, and its video memory capacity is 4GB and not recognized.
The test platform as shown in the above table, the motherboard uses the MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 motherboard, the memory is composed of two XPG Dragon Yao D50 DDR4-3600 16GB to form a dual channel, of which the BIOS setting, in addition to turning on XMP to let the memory run at 3600MHz frequency, while opening the A card SAM support in the motherboard BIOS, the others use default settings.
The graphics cards representing each GPU model are: XFX Vision RX 5500 XT Black Wolf Edition, 4GB Video Memory Version, Boost Frequency 1845MHz, XFX Vision RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition, XFX Vision RX 6600 Black Wolf Edition, Boost Frequency 2491MHz, EVGA GTX 1650 XC ULTRA, 4GB GDDR5 Video Memory, Boost Frequency 1860MHz, iGame RTX 3060 Mini OC 12G L, using the public BIOS file, Boost frequency 1777MHz.
3DMark theoretical performance testing
We used 3DMark as a graphics card benchmark, including Fire Strike, Fire Strike Extreme, Fire Strike Ultra, Time Spy, Time Spy Extreme, and Port Royal. Among them, Fire Strike, Fire Strike Extreme, and Fire Strike Ultra test the performance index of the graphics card at 1080p resolution, 2K resolution and 4K resolution in DX11 games, respectively, and the two projects of Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme are the performance index of graphics cards in DX12 games at 2K resolution and 4K resolution, Port Royal is the performance index of real-time ray tracing of the tested graphics card, the specific results are shown in the following table, and the scores listed in the table are the scores of the 3DMark graphics card individual items.
In the case of traditional rasterized rendering, because the RX 6500 XT only has 4GB of video memory capacity, in today's game environment can not expect 2K or even 4K game experience, the most referenced in the theoretical test is the Fire Strike project, where the RX 6500 XT is a 7% improvement over the RX 5500 XT. In other test items, the gap between the two is less than 3%, and even slightly lower than the RX 5500 XT, which is due to the inability of both, resulting in the same test results, and less than 3% of the fluctuation is within the margin of error.
Considering that this performance level is already considered to be a low graphics card hash rate, the rough point can be considered that the RX 6500 XT is similar to the traditional rasterization performance of the RX 5500 XT, only slightly stronger. Compared with the RX 6600, the low-level RX 6500 XT is still quite a lot worse, only the RX 6600 has about 60% of the performance, and the exaggeration is to directly cut in half.
Compared with Nvidia's previous generation of "50" representative graphics card GTX 1650, the RX 6500 XT has a considerable advantage, with about a 55% performance improvement. And because the RX 6500 XT real competitor RTX 3050 has not yet been released, the current Nvidia's lowest new generation of architecture graphics card is RTX 3060, so it also included RTX 3060 in the test, because RTX 3060 and RX 6600 are similar performance, so RX 6500 XT is of course much worse than RTX 3060, but also about 60% of its performance, but they are not competitors, here I only hope for RTX The 3050 can be taken out early and taken out to compete with the RX 6500 XT.
Finally, let's look at the light chasing aspect, there is no RX 5500 XT and GTX 1650 in terms of light pursuit, and although the RX 6500 XT supports ray tracing, there are 16 RA light chase accelerators, but the limitations of its own performance and memory capacity determine that it is still impossible to meet the entry experience of the AAA masterpiece for the actual experience of ray tracing games, but for some independent games or online games with low performance requirements, it may be possible to experience a ray tracing effect.
1080P resolution real game test
Considering the performance of the RX 6500 XT, this part of the test will set the game quality to the preset high quality, do not turn on ray tracing and FSR, the default is not full-screen manual change to full screen, the default open vertical synchronization manually turn off vertical synchronization, in addition to other options are default settings, all use the game's own Benchmark output results.
In terms of games, combined with the actual measurement of multiple games, it can indeed be considered that the RX 6500 XT and the RX 5500 XT are the same in terms of traditional rasterized games, while compared with the GTX 1650 is a 30% improvement, compared with the RX 6600 and RTX 3060 is about 60% of the performance of these two.
In terms of game applications, it can be considered that RX 6500 XT this card is still aimed at online game players, and for stand-alone masterpieces can only run smoothly in medium and high quality or even low quality, if you are a gamer who buys a standalone graphics card for the first time, thinking of buying a new architecture game graphics card to play stand-alone masterpieces, then RX 6500 XT is not suitable, it is positioned as a new generation of online game graphics card with the latest architecture genes.
Light tracking and FSR application testing of the RX 6600
Because AMD open source FSR technology, so the N card is also supported by FSR, this part of the FSR application test will no longer repeat the performance of each card, but to see in the FSR technology, in the face of some of the original can not run smooth game screen settings, RX 6500 XT can achieve what kind of experience, in addition, here to see what kind of experience after the RX 6500 XT card after turning on ray tracing.
The performance requirements of the game "Galaxy Cracker" are very low, but the RX 6500 XT is still not feasible to play Galaxy Cracker in 4K resolution, but after turning on the FSR balance mode, the RX 6500 XT can also play Galaxy Cracker in 4K resolution. After turning on ray tracing, you can also see that the frame rate increase is very obvious with the support of FSR.
For such a 3A masterpiece as "Far Cry 6", you can see that the RX 6500 XT is not as good as the number of pure rasterized frames rendered at a higher 2K resolution after the ray tracing is turned on at 1080p resolution, so for the 3A masterpiece, the author recommends that RX 6500 XT graphics card users still use pure raster rendering, of course, if you want to experience ray tracing, then it is also a good way to turn on FSR at the same time.
Temperature and noise performance: up to 53 degrees Celsius at full load
The temperature test is carried out in the environment of the bare metal platform, the ambient temperature is about 19.9 °C, using the 3DMark Time Spy pressure test as a full load project, the data is recorded through the LOG to File function of GPU-Z, the following is the test curve of the full load temperature:
XFX Xunjing RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition has a fan standby shutdown function, so the standby temperature tested above is the temperature under the fan shutdown, although the fan is stopped, the standby temperature of the card is also very low, the maximum standby temperature of the ten minutes is only 33 degrees Celsius, and the hot spot temperature is also up to 33 degrees Celsius, which is very cool. In the full load state, the maximum temperature of the card is only 53 ° C, and if you pay attention to the hottest temperature, it is only 81 degrees Celsius, which is a very good full load temperature performance.
In terms of noise, the noise test is done in our special mute cabinet, and the ambient noise in the mute cabinet can reach a minimum of 25dBA, which can basically test the true noise level of the sample very well. The state of the test is the state of the graphics card cooling fan running at full speed, and the following noise values are the noise level 1 meter away from the sound source. After testing, the XFX Vision RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition graphics card fan has a noise value of 53.4dBA at 1 meter at the sound source running at full speed.
Fully loaded GPU core actual frequency: maintained around 2800MHz
During the 3DMark Time Spy stress test for temperature testing, we also recorded the actual frequency of the GPU core of the graphics card in the fully loaded state as shown in the following figure:
At full load, the actual GPU core frequency of the Radeon RX 6600 has been up to 2813MHz, and except for a few moments when the frequency drops to around 2600MHz, it is around 2800MHz at all other times.
Power test: Full load power consumption averages 106W
Through the PCAT kit in our hands, we can accurately measure the number of graphics card PCI-E and external power interface watts, the maximum power consumption of the graphics card is obtained in the 3DMark Time Spy stress test, and the standby power consumption is recorded for 1 minute after entering the system to take the average.
The results of the statistical power test calculated that the XFX Xunjing RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition has an average standby power consumption of 6.6W, an average full load power consumption of 106W, and a peak power consumption of 118. For such a level of graphics card power consumption, a 400W power supply is enough.
Step-down overclocking test
For A card overclocking or using the buck overclocking strategy, the upper limit of power consumption and the upper limit of temperature unlocked to the maximum, after a number of manual overclocking attempts, finally the XFX Scene RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition in the core voltage of 1175mV, the maximum core frequency of 2893MHz, and the memory pulled to 2400MHz frequency to complete the overclocking. In this state, this XFX Scene RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition can successfully pass 3DMark's Fire Strike project test and the score is the highest among several overclocking settings, this XFX Vision RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition in the overclocking state running 3DMark Fire Strike project graphics card score and silent frequency state graphics card score pairs as shown in the following table.
Overclocking can make this XFX Scene RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition achieve a performance improvement of about 4%, and players who like to do it can adjust it themselves and try it out for free.
summary
Obviously, the Radeon RX 6500 XT cannot be seen as a successor to the Radeon RX 5500 XT, the traditional raster rendering performance of the two graphics cards is similar, and the Radeon RX 6500 XT has the advantage of supplementing support for the new features of today's graphics cards, such as ray tracing and so on.
The Radeon RX 6500 XT is considering replacing AMD's previous-generation architecture, which is also the actual replacement rhythm of entry-level graphics card users, and they will not keep changing with each new generation of graphics cards. And the user of the entry-level graphics card is generally playing online games, and the performance requirements will not rise rapidly with time like the AAA stand-alone masterpiece, and an entry-level graphics card is enough to cope with the smooth operation of online games for many years.
Graphics mini ladder list
After such a clear understanding, you will find that in fact, Radeon RX 6500 XT is still very good, according to the next generation to upgrade the new graphics card, it was supposed to replace the RX 560 or even RX 550 such entry-level graphics card, but AMD still pulled out the RX 570 so strong to compare with the Radeon RX 6500 XT, is very confident.
At the same time, the emergence of Radeon RX 6500 XT also means that this generation of RX 6000 series is really a complete series with full series coverage, because the radeon RX 6500 XT and Radeon RX 6600 such a huge performance gap is the real performance of entry-level graphics cards in a complete graphics product line, and the previous generation of RX 5000 series as the original series of AMD graphics card architecture changes, in fact, AMD's moving knife is still some only promises. Dare not castrate too much, from the RX 5500 XT to the RX 5700 XT, the performance span is not as good as the RX 6500 XT and the adjacent RX 6600.
Overall, for the Radeon RX 6500 XT, think of it as a graphics card with a variety of new graphics on the line, if you are planning to play the AAA stand-alone masterpiece, this card is not very suitable, and just 4GB of video memory is doomed to it is not very competent for today's AAA game environment, even at 1080p resolution, there will be insufficient video memory.
And if you are an online game player and are still using the graphics card of the old architecture of many years ago, then the Radeon RX 6500 XT is worth upgrading, in addition to the performance improvement, it can also support a large number of new technologies and features, can ensure that the game experience in the next few years. In terms of price, the XFX Xunjing RX 6500 XT Black Wolf Edition used for testing is priced at 1599 yuan, if it is in the normal graphics card market before, I will say that this pricing is obviously expensive, but in the case of such a shortage of graphics cards today, this price is still very good.