A GPU you might be able to buy… But shouldn’t.

[Emily Young]

GPUs are impossible to buy, but AMD, Nvidia, and soon Intel are all releasing new cards. The Radeon RX 6500 XT is the first new card of 2022, on TSMC’s 6nm process. But is it TOO affordable?

 

 

Buy an AMD Radeon GPU
Amazon: https://geni.us/BYWFs
Best Buy: https://geni.us/pBUxo
Newegg: https://geni.us/h7ewftY

 

Buy Radeon RX 6600
Amazon: https://geni.us/KFHcodo
Best Buy: https://geni.us/cIJSA
Newegg: https://geni.us/zuQeT

 

Buy GTX 1660
Amazon: https://geni.us/Dwqofbv
Newegg: https://geni.us/gkGjC
B&H: https://geni.us/QFBA

[Levent]

This is a $99 to $120 card, at $200 this card makes older cards more valuable. What a garbage.

[Elijah Kamski]

Me: Cries in AUD

Also Me: Cries in knowing if the miners will not take it all, the scalpers will.

[jaslion]

So it's an incomplete card that has less video outputs than decade old budget cards, performs basically worse than a card from 5 years ago, has issues running in pcie 3.0 config aka where most users for this card would be, can't even decode certain media formats that are common and it only has 4gb of vram?

 

Well this thing is set up for failure.

[Vishera]

According to benchmarks my 3 years old GTX 1660 is more powerful than this "new" GPU.

And the MSRP of the GTX 1660 is $200...

[Elijah Kamski]

2 minutes ago, jaslion said:

So it's an incomplete card that has less video outputs than decade old budget cards, performs basically worse than a card from 5 years ago, has issues running in pcie 3.0 config aka where most users for this card would be, can't even decode certain media formats that are common and it only has 4gb of vram?

 

Well this thing is set up for failure.

People will buy it.

Just call it the epic gamer GPU and add RGB and it'll sell.

[Vishera]

It's funny to see that this "new" GPU has the same performance as the RX 590 for the same MSRP but half the VRAM and other missing features.

[Radium_Angel]

It'll sell, simply because it's "new!" and (possibly) available.

I'm pretty sure if you dressed up a GT 1030, maybe add some more RAM, and release it these days, it'd be sold out in minutes.

[Dogzilla07]

there were 3/4 models available on mindfactory for ~30 min ( all sold out now). Cheapest was ~275 eur

[SolarNova]

LOL,

Once these hit the shelves, the actually price wont make this worth buying over something like a used 980ti which atm cost roughly £200-£250, has more VRAM, and performas as good or better than a standard 1660, which in turn beats the 6500.

 

Simply put, for budget buyers, there is no 'new' card worth buying. the used market, if u know which cards to look for, is ur best bet.

[BuckGup]

So now the entitled gamers get a GPU but it's not what they wanted so they throw a tantrum lmao. I agree though as it's a shitty product that doesn't need to exist whose valuable resources could have been used better.

[Radium_Angel]

1 hour ago, SolarNova said:

LOL,

Once these hit the shelves, the actually price wont make this worth buying over something like a used 980ti which atm cost roughly £200-£250, has more VRAM, and performas as good or better than a standard 1660, which in turn beats the 6500.

 

Simply put, for budget buyers, there is no 'new' card worth buying. the used market, if u know which cards to look for, is ur best bet.

The trouble is, for JOe Average wannabe gamer, he's not gonna go through the trouble to trying to win at eBay, or even understand the condition of the used card, he wants new, and he wants it right now, and this card is new and (maybe) can be had right now, so it'll sell.

 

For the rest of us, who are willing to be patient and hunt for bargains...well this card probably won't move the needle much on used GPU prices, especially once word gets around that this new card isn't worth the silicon it's impressed on.

[Zodiark1593]

41 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

So now the entitled gamers get a GPU but it's not what they wanted so they throw a tantrum lmao. I agree though as it's a shitty product that doesn't need to exist whose valuable resources could have been used better.

Linus did specify “something reasonable for gamers to buy…” This card probably qualifies, though even Maxwell owners will still be better off holding. 
 

If this is pretty much the state of the market for the foreseeable future, it may behoove LTT to do a piece on games that are both really good, and will happily run on potatoes (or a small step above). Would be perfect revenge in that, if tech journalists can sway their audience to games that don’t require their (AMD/Nvidia’s) product, they won’t have an audience to sell product to should mining die down. An obvious pipe dream though. 

[Radium_Angel]

12 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

games that are both really good, and will happily run on potatoes (or a small step above).

I wonder, and I"m not an expert on this sort of thing, if perhaps it might be easier to give a list of video cards and say "at default settings, this card will happily run the following big name/minor league/indie type of games" and then list by genre, like FPS, MMORPG, isometric, etc and the expected framerate for each card.

 

It seems to me it'd be easier to hit the much smaller selection of video cards, than try to cover the 10,000+ games out there.

Dunno, just a thought.

[SkyHound0202]

Honestly, naming this card "6500 XT" feels off. It should be called "6400 XT".

 

If you look at AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series line up, you see that the current lowest end Navi 23 GPU, the 28 CU RX 6600, sits right above the 16 CU 6500 XT. While 6500 XT only has two-thirds the CU when compared to 6600, its high clock speed makes up for the low CU count and isn't far behind 6600 in raw compute power (though that doesn't translate to games). But here's the problem: overlocking is not the solution, it doesn't fix the low CU count, the narrow memory bus and the limited PCIe bandwidth.

 

I think what happened is pretty much the same story as the PS5 vs Xbox Series X (Sony overclocked PS5 SoC in a bid to catch up). AMD heard about upcoming 3050, panicked when they realize they have nothing to counter a potential entry-level card with 10 teraflop shader performance, so they took their new 6 nm laptop GPU, give it a substantial overclock (20%) and call it a day. This also explain the lack of of media capabilities like AV1 decode and H265 encode, because those were supposed to handled by the Ryzen APU in a laptop.

 

IMO the "6500 XT" moniker is better suited for a hypothetical card with 10 teraflop shader performance, say 24 CU at 1.7 GHz, coupled with at least 6 GB of vRAM (192-bit), priced at $250. But Navi 23 only allows 4/8 GB vRAM due to memory interface (cost ineffective with 8 GB while 4 GB is undesirable), and Navi 24 is just not suitable (as in the case of current 6500 XT), AMD might refresh the 6000 series with 6x50 cards at some point to fix their lineup problems.

[Dogzilla07]

13 minutes ago, James Evens said:

No.

Mindfactory took the listings down to adjust pricing. After they where done it was 380€ for the cheapest.

I assumed the initial few models just sold out, and they changed the prices to meet the demand. the 275 eur model is 340 eur now.

 

Edit, and listing down and/or sold out again.

[thewelshbrummie]

For once, this video review actually misses the biggest issue of the 6500XT by only having a throwaway mention of PCI-E 3.0.

 

Clearly it isn't a good release even in ideal circumstances but from what I've read elsewhere it's far worse using this card on PCI-E 3.0, with fps being as much as 50% less than at PCI-E 4.0. Using just 4 lanes is an insult. PCI-E 3.0 x8 would provide the same bandwidth but at least allow people with older systems to use the card to is fullest.

 

Basically anyone with 10th gen Intel or earlier, any AMD system built on anything other than B550 or X570, or an AMD system using those chipsets running an APU, will be limited to PCI-E 3.0. Otherwise known as the type of system that would most likely benefit from upgrading to a budget card.

 

It feels like AMD are pushing you to upgrade your motherboard and CPU at the same time to unlock extra performance.

 

Hardware Unboxed did a great pre-release video of comparing fps using the older 5500XT and compared PCIE- 4.0 x8, x4 and PCI-E 3.0 x4, which showed some big drops in performance. That this card has those issues is a serious problem, and one not really addressed in the video.

[Zodiark1593]

1 hour ago, thewelshbrummie said:

For once, this video review actually misses the biggest issue of the 6500XT by only having a throwaway mention of PCI-E 3.0.

 

Clearly it isn't a good release even in ideal circumstances but from what I've read elsewhere it's far worse using this card on PCI-E 3.0, with fps being as much as 50% less than at PCI-E 4.0. Using just 4 lanes is an insult. PCI-E 3.0 x8 would provide the same bandwidth but at least allow people with older systems to use the card to is fullest.

 

Basically anyone with 10th gen Intel or earlier, any AMD system built on anything other than B550 or X570, or an AMD system using those chipsets running an APU, will be limited to PCI-E 3.0. Otherwise known as the type of system that would most likely benefit from upgrading to a budget card.

 

It feels like AMD are pushing you to upgrade your motherboard and CPU at the same time to unlock extra performance.

 

Hardware Unboxed did a great pre-release video of comparing fps using the older 5500XT and compared PCIE- 4.0 x8, x4 and PCI-E 3.0 x4, which showed some big drops in performance. That this card has those issues is a serious problem, and one not really addressed in the video.

I’d seen pretty mixed results from video reviews, but the general-ish consensus being that if you can tune the game to stick under the 4 GB VRAM limitation, the PCI-E bottleneck isn’t likely to show
 

What it does mean however, is that users of PCI-E gen 3 are hit much more grievously should the VRAM overflow to system RAM. If you’re throwing caution to the wind and throwing Textures to the max, for example, you’ll have a bad time. 
 

This does appear to be a laptop chip shoehorned onto a desktop card, which likely means the PCI-e lane limits are probably on the silicon level, and a board redesign wouldn’t have solved it. However, this is also the smallest chip they currently have to just throw out in massive quantities, so it is what it is. 

[MultiGamerClub]

Somehow my old sisters RX 560 is somehow... better.

[Elijah Kamski]

On 1/20/2022 at 1:27 AM, Vishera said:

It's funny to see that this "new" GPU has the same performance as the RX 590 for the same MSRP but half the VRAM and other missing features.

You're just holding it wrong! XD

[DANK_AS_gay]

On 1/19/2022 at 9:27 AM, Vishera said:

It's funny to see that this "new" GPU has the same performance as the RX 590 for the same MSRP but half the VRAM and other missing features.

I think AMD is safe. They made this card for the current market, as the LTT video said, this card isn't going to be scalped much as people aren't gonna want to buy it for mining or anything else. only people going from no GPU to this card are really gonna benefit, I think this is a market share play.

[Dogzilla07]

#A GPU u can buy for $260-$300, compared to paper launch 3050. But let's wait a few days and see how it pans ( so far 6500 XT is widely available, and it looks like AMD laptop GPU has unfortunately "WON").

[Middcore]

18 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

 ( so far 6500 XT is widely available, and it looks like AMD laptop GPU has unfortunately "WON").

 

If every other card you or your competitor have released in the last year and change have instantly sold out regardless of price, and now you've finally made a card that "sits on shelves," would you consider that a success?

 

$200 up to $250 at max seems to be what people are willing to pay for the 6500 XT so far. The ones priced in that range sell out, the ones above that remain available. 

 

Amusingly there has been some silly Twitter drama the past couple of days when a third-tier tech YouTuber who shall remain nameless decided to chase clout by picking a fight with LTT, Gamers Nexus, and Hardware Unboxed, claiming that their overly negative reviews had deterred gamers from buying the 6500 XT when it could have been the budget savior we've been waiting for. As evidence for this, he cited a Sapphire 6500 XT on Newegg for $200 that... sold out in an hour. 

 

 

[Dogzilla07]

4 minutes ago, Middcore said:

If every other card you or your competitor have released in the last year and change have instantly sold out regardless of price, and now you've finally made a card that "sits on shelves," would you consider that a success?

Pyrrhic Victory is a Victory regardless.

[Middcore]

Just now, Dogzilla07 said:

Pyrrhic Victory is a Victory regardless.

 

You and I seem to have different assumptions about what AMD's goals are.