AT THE CES 2022 CONFERENCE ON JAN. 4, AMD OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED THE RADEON RX 6500 XT, A NEW MEMBER OF THE RDNA2 FAMILY, A THOUSAND-DOLLAR DESSERT GRAPHICS CARD FOR 1080P GAMING APPLICATIONS. In the current market environment where the price of performance-level unique display is generally more than 3,000 yuan, AMD's move is undoubtedly to give the public players a new hope. The newly launched Radeon RX 6500 XT is very subtly equipped with 4GB of GDDR6 video memory, although this is also a specification formulated by AMD after repeated trade-offs, but at least it is completely cut off from the possibility of digging ETH, from this point of view, AMD is indeed very sincere to sell this dessert graphics card to real gamers. So, let's take a look at the actual performance of the Radeon RX 6500 XT (hereinafter referred to as the RX 6500 XT).
The first 6nm GPU in the RDNA2 family, the frequency is amazing!
Although the RX 6500 XT uses the RDNA2 architecture like other RX 6000 GPUs, it is the first GPU to use the 6nm manufacturing process, and AMD is once again at the forefront of the manufacturing process. Because of the use of 6nm manufacturing process, the RX 6500 XT operating frequency has been further improved, and the power consumption performance is also outstanding, the entire card power consumption is only 120W, a 6Pin auxiliary power supply interface is completely sufficient. From the official data, the RX 6500 XT game acceleration frequency can reach up to 2685MHz, and the highest acceleration frequency can reach 2825MHz, far more than its brother RX 6600. In terms of GPU specifications, RX 6500 XT has 16 CUs and 16 optical chase accelerators, 1024 stream processors, 32 raster units, 16MB unlimited cache, compared to RX 6600 cut a lot, of course, RX 6500 XT launch price is also 900 yuan lower, to the vast majority of 1080P gamers 1599 yuan level. Probably the most concerned about the RX 6500 XT in terms of video memory specifications, 64bit/4GB GDDR6 video memory, to cope with the current game masterpiece is enough? Although the memory bit width is 64bit, the RX 6500 XT is equipped with 16MB unlimited cache, which can effectively improve the efficiency of video memory data exchange, so it is fully matched with gpu computing performance in terms of video memory bandwidth and will not cause bottlenecks. In addition, the video memory design of 64bit/4GB not only effectively reduces the price of graphics cards, but also completely eliminates the possibility of digging ETH, so that players no longer have to struggle with the mine boss to grab the graphics card, which is also a favorable aspect for mass players. In this first review we received the Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT Platinum Edition, let's take a look.
Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT Platinum Edition: A delicate dual-fan dessert card
Sapphire, as an AIB first-line manufacturer, will of course launch the RX 6500 XT graphics card products at the first time, and the first to appear is this AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT Platinum Edition. As a new member of the Sapphire Platinum Edition series, it is very recognizable in appearance, with the exclusive PPUSE word on both fans, and the red decorative line on the fan center and black fan cover is also very eye-catching.
As a 120W dessert graphics card positioned for 1080P gaming applications, the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT Platinum Edition is very compact, with a length of only 19cm, a thickness of double slots, and a 6Pin auxiliary power supply interface, making it ideal for ITX consoles.
In terms of heat sink, the official power of the RX 6500 XT GPU is only 90W, so the heat dissipation pressure is not large, but Sapphire is still equipped with a double-bladed axial intelligent temperature control fan, a double-slot thickened heatsink and a double nickel-plated extended heat pipe, which is consistent with the same RX 6600 graphics card, so the heat dissipation performance and noise control are not at all worried.
Although it is a thousand-dollar graphics card, the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT Platinum Edition is still equipped with a metal armored backplane only for mid-to-high-end graphics cards, which is also designed according to the high-level RX 6600 specifications.
In terms of interface, this RX 6500 XT is equipped with a combination of HDMI + DP, which can also meet the daily application needs of mass players.
Next, let's move on to the actual test.
Play 1080P game masterpiece! The thousand-dollar game weapon is back on the rise
Test platform
Processor: AMD Ryzen™ 5 5600X
Memory: Viagran XPG DDR4 3600 8GB×2
Graphics: Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT Platinum Edition
Non-public GTX 1650 4GB GDDR5
Motherboard: ROG STRX B550-XE GAMING WIFI
Hard Disk: WD_BLACK SN850 2TB
Power supply: Hangjia WD650P Platinum Edition
Operating system: Windows 11 Pro
In this first test, we also chose a GTX 1650 graphics card with a market price of 1899 yuan to 2000 yuan as a comparison, and the game includes AAA masterpieces and popular e-sports online games. Of course, for thousand-yuan graphics cards, the goal is to provide a smooth gaming experience at 1080P resolution, so the test is mainly based on 1080P resolution. In addition, the RX 6500 XT supports FSR and SAM technology, which we also test in a targeted manner.
Benchmark performance tests
As can be seen from the 3DMark benchmark, the RX 6500 XT is actually much stronger than the GTX 1650 in terms of GPU performance alone, and the advantage can be up to 60%. Even with the 2K resolution TimeSpy test, the RX 6500 XT is about 37% ahead of the GTX 1650. In addition, even if the GTX 1650 PCIe interface bandwidth is higher, it does not affect it to be far behind the RX 6500 XT, which shows that for the computing power of the thousand-yuan game graphics card, the PCIe bandwidth of the RX 6500 XT is actually completely sufficient, and there will be no bottleneck problem at all.
Game performance measured
At 1080P resolution, Far Cry 6 adjusts the image quality from medium to low, and the requirements for memory capacity are also greatly reduced, which can ensure that the frame rate is increased to more than 80fps
Can the 1080P game graphics card really play the current AAA game masterpiece? I believe that everyone is very concerned about this. Judging from our test results, the RX 6500 XT can indeed handle AAA games very smoothly with the appropriate adjustment of the image quality level, which is basically in line with its actual performance positioning. As you can see, the RX 6500 XT can be set above 1080P high quality to reach more than 60fps of the game including "Watchdog: Legion", "Horizon 5", "Total War Legends: Troy", "Tomb Raider: Shadow", "Galaxy Cracker", "CS: GO", of which "CS:GO", "Galaxy Cracker" are hundreds or even hundreds of frames, the fluency is still very good. Games such as "Fall of the Gods", "Far Cry 6", "Forever", "Cyberpunk 2077" and other games have also reduced the requirements for video memory capacity after choosing the appropriate picture quality settings, so they can also achieve a relatively smooth frame rate, and there is no problem in playing at all. In addition, you can also see that the RX 6500 XT has maintained a frame rate advantage of up to 44% relative to the current price of 1899 yuan to 2000 yuan, and most games have maintained an advantage of more than 20%, and the fluency is obviously higher than one level.
Enable video memory smartstop to further improve performance
Turning on AMD SmartAccess Memory in the Graphics Driver Control Panel can further increase the game frame rate in most games
The RX 6500 XT, as a member of the RX 6000 family, of course, also supports AMD SmartAccess Memory, which can be turned on on on the Ryzen™ 5000 processor and B550 platform to get additional frame rate improvements in most games. As can be seen from the test results, after the RX 6500 XT turned on SAM, 5 of the 7 games tested have achieved frame rate improvements, of which horizon 5 has even increased the frame rate by as much as 12%. Therefore, in the case of motherboard, BIOS and processor support, it is recommended that everyone use UEFI mode to install Windows system and turn on SAM function when using RX 6500 XT graphics card.
With the blessing of FSR magic, the frame rate of the game has soared
The RX 6500 XT is also an AMD-enabled FSR technology, which can be greatly improved when the game provides FSR functionality. From the test results, it can be seen that after turning on FSR, the frame rate of the game has generally been significantly improved, and the basic increase is about 20%. However, "Far Cry 6" 1080P in the picture quality is more special, when the FSR is turned off, the video memory occupies more than 4.6GB, so the frame rate is only 19fps, but after turning on FSR, the memory pressure is reduced, and the frame rate increases to 51fps, an increase of up to 168%. It can be seen that for the RX 6500 XT, FSR technology is really too necessary, which can make the RX 6500 XT run smoothly under a higher level of picture quality settings. Considering that IT will soon release a driver that supports RSR technology (equivalent to FSR technology that can theoretically support any game), the gaming experience of the RX 6500 XT can be taken to a new level.
The power consumption temperature is reliable, and the GPU frequency is small and approaching 3GHz!
The RX 6500 XT measured GPU frequency can reach up to 2826MHz, and the advantages of the 6nm process are obvious
The RX 6500 XT is the world's first GPU manufactured on a 6nm process, so it can operate at higher frequencies at lower power consumption. In the actual test of the game, the RX 6500 XT reached the highest frequency of 2826MHz, which is very exaggerated. In terms of temperature, the GPU test machine temperature is only 62 °C at default settings, and it is only 54 °C at full speed of the fan, whether it is a test machine or a real game, the power of the GPU is very stablely controlled at the 90W level.
In the graphics card driver, the power limit is pulled to 110%, the GPU voltage is reduced by 50mV, and the GPU frequency can be smoothly overclocked to 2969MHz, which is very close to the 3GHz mark
Since the GPU frequency of the RX 6500 XT is so high, can we try to hit the overclocking 3GHz? We pulled the maximum graphics card power limit to 110% in the drive control panel (the measured power increased from 90W to 104W), and then appropriately lowered the GPU core voltage, and then the core frequency was successfully increased to 2969MHz, which is very close to 3GHz.
Summary: Compared to know, the RX 6500 XT is undoubtedly the current cost-effective dessert graphics card
As can be seen from the previous tests, the RX 6500 XT can indeed run the popular AAA game masterpieces at 60fps or higher at a frame rate of 60fps or higher at 1080P resolution and appropriate picture quality settings, and the 6nm advanced technology does bring enough eye-catching energy efficiency performance and volume advantages, so that the RX 6500 XT, which is positioned as a thousand-dollar dessert card, is also very suitable for creating ITX game consoles. In addition, in the current situation where the price of the unique display is generally high, even if the RX 6500 XT has more than 20% of the performance of gtX 1650 and also supports hardware-level optical acceleration, there are still obvious advantages in pricing, so the cost performance is particularly prominent. At the same time, in addition to the NVIDIA in addition to the corresponding ampere architecture new products at this price, the actual sales price of old products such as GTX 1660 series and RTX 2060 series is more than 3000 yuan, and the product disconnection situation is very serious, which also makes RX 6500 XT the only choice for the new generation of thousand yuan dessert graphics card. All in all, if AMD can provide sufficient supply and effectively control the price, so that the RX 6500 XT maintains the high cost performance it deserves, then it is indeed a thousand-dollar pop dessert graphics card that is worth choosing in 2022.