AMD announced the start of sales of the entry-level Radeon RX 6500 XT gaming graphics card for $199

AMD has announced the start of sales of its entry-level Radeon RX 6500 XT gaming graphics gas pedal. The new product is positioned as a replacement for such graphics card models as the GeForce GTX 1650 and Radeon RX 570, and is designed for gaming at 1080p resolution.

The Radeon RX 6500 XT is based on the Navi 24 GPU, developed using TSMC's 6nm N6 manufacturing process. The chip includes 16 execution units with 1024 stream processors and 16 blocks of hardware ray tracing acceleration. The gaming frequency of the processor is declared at 2610 MHz, and the maximum & ; at 2815 MHz.

The graphics card features 4 GB of GDDR6 memory with 64-bit bus support and a throughput of 144 GB/s, along with 16 MB of additional Infinity Cache. Claimed power consumption Radeon RX 6500 XT in reference version is 107W. AMD recommends 400W or more power supply for PC with this graphics card. Radeon RX 6500 XT has support for only four lanes of PCI Express 4.0 interface and has no built-in H264/HEVC encoders and AV1 decoder. More details about this graphics card you can find in our review which will appear a bit later. AMD shared their results comparing Radeon RX 6500 XT gaming performance with GeForce GTX 1650 and Radeon RX 570 graphics cards.

Also, the manufacturer provided test results of new products in games with ray tracing technology support. Tests were done at 1080p resolution and different graphics quality settings.

The card will not be released in the reference design. Its implementation will be done by AMD partners, which have already presented their versions of the gas pedal;

The recommended price of Radeon RX 6500 XT is announced at $199. However, at that price you will unlikely be able to find the new product on sale. Previously, some manufacturers have already announced the price of their version of this graphics card. For example, ASUS models got the recommended price from 300 euros;

AMD no longer believes that 4 GB of video memory is not enough for gaming - the company changed its mind before the release of Radeon RX 6500 XT with 4 GB

After the wide publicity in the western press the page with the post described in the news was again available on the site of AMD. What was the reason for its absence & ; is unknown. Original news: AMD has removed from its official AMD Community blog the statement that having only 4 GB of video card memory is not enough for modern games. This was brought to the attention of KitGuru, which found that one of the entries from 2020, in which the manufacturer claimed this, has completely disappeared from AMD's website.

It seems that the company no longer believes that the graphics gas pedal's 4 GB of memory is not enough for gaming. Curiously enough, the entry from the AMD blog disappeared before the official launch of sales of the new Radeon RX 6500 XT gaming model equipped with just 4 GB of GDDR6 memory. Recall that sales of this graphics card start today. An old AMD blog post from 2020 claimed that next-gen games require more video memory to load textures, especially when it comes to using high image quality settings. Having a small amount of memory can lead to errors, low framerate and «stutter» picture. «AMD leads the industry on the issue of providing gamers with graphics solutions with high VRAM capacity for its entire product range. Competitive entry-level and similarly priced products are only willing to offer up to 4 GB of video memory, which is insufficient for today's games. Radeon RX series graphics gas pedals are ready to offer 6 or 8 GB of memory, allowing to run games at maximum image quality settings» & ; wrote AMD in June 2020.

The old entry referred to a promotional campaign related to the launch of the Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics card equipped with 8GB of video memory. Its successor on the new RDNA 2 architecture offers half the memory and half the memory bus bit, which is 64 bits instead of 128 bits of the previous generation model. The recommended price Radeon RX 6500 XT is $200. However, the card will not be sold in a reference design. Some AMD partners have already announced the recommended price of the novelty in its design & ; from 300 euros.

AMD thinks that Radeon RX 6500 XT will not attract attention of miners

AMD will start selling its entry-level Radeon RX 6500 XT gaming graphics card on Jan. 19. Its recommended price is $200. However, with the ongoing shortage of gas pedals, caused in part by cryptominers and resellers who are sweeping all available offers off the shelves, it has been impossible to find video cards at affordable prices for more than a year.

Whether the Radeon RX 6500 XT will be any different depends in part on the volume of its shipments, but AMD also claims to have designed this graphics gas pedal in a way that makes it look less appealing in the eyes of cryptocurrency miners. Talking to the press about the recent announcements at CES 2022, AMD Radeon VP Laura Smith explained how the Radeon RX 6500 XT was «optimized» for gamers. «We really optimized this gas pedal so that in the target market it is primarily a gaming accelerator. This is quite noticeable if you look at its specifications. Despite the fact that the card has only 4 GB of memory, this is quite enough for most AAA-class games. At the same time, the video card does not look attractive for those who plan to use the gas pedal for blockchain transactions or mining» & ; noted Smith. Indeed, if you look at the characteristics of the Radeon RX 6500 XT, it becomes clear that the card is different in the worst way, even against the background of the entry-level model Radeon RX 5500 XT last generation.

 Firstly, the new gas pedal has only 4 GB of memory instead of 8 GB. Secondly, the memory bus bit width of Radeon RX 6500 XT is half the size of its predecessor (64 bits versus 128 bits). Such a bit width of memory bus can be found today except for budget discrete mobile video card level GeForce MX 450. However, the memory bit width of desktop graphics gas pedals of recent generations was at least 128 bits. The smaller memory size and reduced memory bandwidth will have a negative impact on the video card's performance in Ethereum mining. To compensate for the slow memory interface and to help the card to compete with offers of Radeon RX 570 and Radeon RX 5500 XT level, the manufacturer increased the frequency of the GPU Radeon RX 6500 XT. The maximum GPU frequency of the new gas pedal is 2815 MHz. For comparison, the chip of the Radeon RX 5500 XT runs at 1845 MHz. Whether such AMD technical solutions will help to win gamers' attention to Radeon RX 6500 XT and keep miners away from it, we will know after the sales start.

AMD partners presented their versions of Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics cards

AMD this week presented its entry-level graphics gas pedal Radeon RX 6500 XT. The new product is designed for gaming at 1080p resolution. AMD's partners also showed their versions of this graphics card, but so far only ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and Biostar.

Unfortunately, manufacturers have not indicated technical characteristics of their announced new products. However, it is known that some models of Radeon RX 6500 XT will have a small factory overclocking. All cards at the same time received reinforcing/protecting back plates.

ASRock has introduced the Radeon RX 6500 XT in two designs & ; Challenger ITX and Phantom Gaming D. The first one is designed for compact Mini-ITX form factor PCs and is equipped with a single cooling system fan. The Phantom Gaming D is equipped with two fans.

It looks like both versions of ASRock's Radeon RX 6500 XT use the same PCB. The cooling system of the same Phantom Gaming D version is larger than the PCB and extends beyond it. The fans on both versions of the gas pedal have a full stop function when there is no load on the graphics subsystem. Additional power to video cards receive one 8-pin connector.

ASUS also unveiled just two versions of a junior gas pedal based on RDNA 2 architecture: the Radeon RX 6500 XT OC Edition 4GB GDDR6 and TUF Gaming Radeon RX 6500 XT OC Edition 4GB GDDR6. Both cards have dual-fan cooling systems, have two video outputs each and have one 6-pin power connector.

The Radeon RX 6500 XT Dual version is more compact. It only takes up two expansion slots when installed and will be suitable for more compact builds. The TUF Gaming version has a 2.7-slot design. The cooling of this version should be more efficient, but it's not as compatible with compact PCs.

Unlike its competitors, Gigabyte decided to use a very massive cooling system for the Radeon RX 6500 XT. The manufacturer presented the card in the Gaming OC version with 282 mm length, equipped with WindForce 3X tri-fan cooling system. Recall that Radeon RX 6500 XT power consumption rating is only 107W.

The dual-fan Gigabyte Radeon RX 6500 XT Eagle is 192mm long. It won't fit into ultra-compact Mini-ITX cases, but it's compatible with larger designs. Both versions of Gigabyte's Radeon RX 6500 XT have two video connectors each and feature a single 6-pin connector for extra power.

MSI has introduced two Radeon RX 6500 XTs, both in Mech 2X. One offers benchmark performance and the other, in the Mech 2X OC version, has a slight factory overclock. Both cards are 172mm long. They will easily fit into almost any Mini-ITX case. The cards are of dual slot design. They are equipped with dual fan cooling system which is enough to cool the gas pedal with power consumption of 107 W. As for the external connectors, there are no surprises: one DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.1 slot each as well as one 6-pin connector for additional power.

Finally, Biostar presented its version of Radeon RX 6500 XT. It has a dual-fan cooling system, one six-pin power connector and a pair of DisplayPort and HDMI video connectors. Curiously, there are no exclusive AMD partners PowerColor, Sapphire and XFX among those who announced their versions of Radeon RX 6500 XT. It is possible that these manufacturers have not yet prepared their solutions or do not want to announce new items without complete specifications, including the same GPU frequencies which in case of non-referential solutions are usually known closer to the immediate release of the video card. Recall that the Radeon RX 6500 XT is based on the GPU Navi 24. As part of chip there are 16 execution units with 1024 stream processors and 16 blocks of hardware ray tracing acceleration. The gaming frequency of the processor is declared at 2610 MHz, and the maximum & ; at 2815 MHz. It features 4GB of GDDR6 memory, with a 64-bit bus and throughput of 144 GB/s, and an additional 16 MB of Infinity Cache.

AMD introduced Radeon RX 6500 XT gaming graphics card - it will be released on January 19 at a price of $199

AMD has introduced a new entry-level discrete gaming graphics gas pedal & ; Radeon RX 6500 XT. The manufacturer indicates that the card will be on sale January 19. The recommended price for new items will be $199.

The Radeon RX 6500 XT is based on the Navi 24 XT processor developed using TSMC's 6nm N6 manufacturing process. The chip includes 16 execution units with 1024 stream processors and 16 blocks of hardware ray tracing acceleration. The gaming frequency of the processor is declared at 2610 MHz, and the maximum & ; at 2815 MHz. The graphics card features 4 GB of GDDR6 memory with 64-bit bus support and a throughput of 144 GB/s, along with 16 MB of additional Infinity Cache. The new graphics card has a claimed power consumption of 107W.

It has up to 1.6 times better gaming performance than popular solutions from the entry-level gaming segment. The company compares the novelty with the released in 2019 model NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 and presented two years earlier AMD Radeon RX 570. In addition to the aforementioned graphics card, AMD introduced a new scaling technology Radeon Super Resolution, which is essentially a software version of FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). Information about it was published at the end of last month. Recall that Radeon Super Resolution or RSR is based on the FSR algorithm.

RSR technology allows you to scale the image from lower to higher, while increasing the overall level of performance in games. Unlike hardware FSR, which requires support from game developers to implement, Radeon Super Resolution technology is implemented at the driver level and therefore, as AMD points out, will initially be supported in thousands of different games. The release of RSR technology will take place during the first quarter of this year, when the company will release a new version of the graphics driver Radeon Adrenalin Edition. The driver will include support for AMD Link 5.0 and Smartshift Max technologies, among other things.

The last one is designed for AMD-based notebooks with Radeon graphics cards and allows to effectively distribute power between CPU and graphics card when needed. The technology will get support for more games and allow for up to a 13% performance boost. The claimed SmartShift Eco feature will increase the laptop's runtime by up to two times.

It's also said SmartAccess Graphics will automatically redistribute the load between the laptop's built-in and discrete graphics cards, improving the performance and energy efficiency of the latter.