AMD hides its claim that 4GB of VRAM is ‘not enough’ just as it launches a 4GB GPU

[Guest]

 

Summary

 An AMD blog post about the 5500XT in which it claims 4GB of VRAM is, "evidently not enough for todays games," has vanished from the AMD website, the same day the 4GB 6500XT launches. Below are screenshots of the post taken by Dominic Moass from Kitguru, before and after the launch of the 6500XT, respectively. The blogpost is now public again, but as of writing, AMD has not responded to The Verge's request for comment.

Quotes

Quote

It looks like this blog post magically disappeared just as AMD is about to launch a new 4GB GPU today. Mysterious.

In marketing for the new card, AMD now says:

Quote

Even with the four gigs of frame buffer, that’s a really nice frame buffer size for the majority of triple-A games.

My thoughts

Situations like this happen too often where companies contradict what was previously said, sometimes even hiding it. The first example that comes to mind is Facebook's promise Oculus users would never need a Facebook account.

 

Edit: forgot to add that the post mentions the symptoms/problems with gaming with too little VRAM as:

1. Error Messages and Warning Limits
2. Lower Framerates
3. Gameplay Stutter and Texture Pop-in Issues

All of which were mentioned in the LTT review of the 6500XT.

Sources

https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/19/22891092/amd-4g-vram-claim-gpu-launch-rx-6500-xt

https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/dominic-moass/amd-hides-2020-blogpost-claiming-4gb-vram-is-not-enough-for-todays-games/

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SFDks_9NnscJ:https://community.amd.com/t5/gaming/game-beyond-4gb/ba-p/414776

Edited January 19, 2022 by Ytrbpt Hsbom
Forgot to add bit about the problems of too little VRAM.

[RejZoR]

The fact they are selling a what name would suggest a mid tier new generation (it's not RX 6300 or something) that barely reaches levels of 4 years old mid level (Polaris wasn't high end by itself even with 480/580/590 specs) is just pathetic. Shortage or not, this card shouldn't exist. And if it at least worked great with ray tracing or had newer codecs built in, one could justify that. But it doesn't. It's trash. And like it was suggested in the video, if they got it to run from PCIe power alone, that could be extra argument. But it doesn't even do that. So, I also don't get the point of this thing.

[Middcore]

This is the GTX 1650 all over again. But it will sell, just like the GTX 1650 does. 

[pas008]

typical industry stuff

 

glue! and then they glue lol example for both amd and intel

 

[AndreiArgeanu]

The memory to be honest is the least of the issue the card has and I never understood why people complained about it considering the level of performance it offers, it's a 1080p card and no amount of memory will fix the 6500XT's poor performance when compared to 6 year old GPU's that were priced equivalently when they released.

[Rauten]

Guys, guys, you don't get it!

AMD merely wants to demonstrate that 4GBs is enough RAM for games, and also enough foot to stuff in your mouth!

/s

[WhitetailAni]

Credit to @Mnky313

[LAwLz]

I still would like to see someone actually test how much VRAM is necessary for various games and settings.

I don't buy AMD's marketing material saying it gives like 20-60% FPS in games. I wouldn't be surprised if it's misleading stuff like "it went from 10 to 12 FPS so it's a 20% increase"

 

The 6500 XT seems to be a pretty low end GPU, so I wouldn't be surprised if it ran into internal bottlenecks before it could actually run games at settings that requires 8GB of VRAM at decent FPS.

 

 

It's kind of pathetic for AMD to delete their old marketing material. I guess VRAM is only important when they got the most...

[Kronoton]

57 minutes ago, Ytrbpt Hsbom said:

All of which were mentioned in the LTT review of the 6500XT.

 

They really should have added one of the better APUs to those benchmarks since Anthony even suggested that it shouldn't be that much different.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

I'm in favor of anything and everything that might alleviate the current shortage. If AMD is able to crank these things out and sell them for a reasonable price, that'll take some pressure out of demand for GPUs, and that, at this time, is good. In normal market conditions, this card would be very disappointing, but we aren't in normal market conditions.

[porina]

1 hour ago, Middcore said:

This is the GTX 1650 all over again. But it will sell, just like the GTX 1650 does. 

What about the 1650? It held, and probably still holds, the title of most powerful (gaming) GPU that doesn't need a PCIe power connector. Might not be for everyone but it is an important space.

 

21 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The 6500 XT seems to be a pretty low end GPU, so I wouldn't be surprised if it ran into internal bottlenecks before it could actually run games at settings that requires 8GB of VRAM at decent FPS.

If you look at its configuration it is pretty much a 6600 XT sliced in half. Half the cores and stuff that goes with it, half the memory width. If we're looking for non-linearities, I see Infinity Cache, at 96MB vs 16MB. So maybe memory related functions will be relatively reduced compared to the 6600 XT. 

 

14 minutes ago, Kronoton said:

They really should have added one of the better APUs to those benchmarks since Anthony even suggested that it shouldn't be that much different.

Even the recently announced 6000 series DDR5 APUs will have a fair gap to the 6500 XT. 6500 XT has 16 CUs, compared to the 12 on the top APU. 6500 XT memory bandwidth 144 GB/s, compared to 81 GB/s on the APU assuming it is paired with the top supported DDR5-5200. That's putting aside it'll be power limited anyway.

[porina]

8 minutes ago, Hairless Monkey Boy said:

I'm in favor of anything and everything that might alleviate the current shortage. If AMD is able to crank these things out and sell them for a reasonable price, that'll take some pressure out of demand for GPUs, and that, at this time, is good. In normal market conditions, this card would be very disappointing, but we aren't in normal market conditions.

I was looking at street pricing when it went on sale earlier. In UK, they were listed starting £180 but I only saw one at £210 in stock. The only other similarly priced new GPUs you can buy at that time were 1050 Ti from £220 and 1650 from £240. If you had to buy a new GPU around that price, those are the choices. 6500 XT is still faster than both others even with its limitations.

[Middcore]

13 minutes ago, porina said:

What about the 1650?

 

Barely any performance advantage over existing cards that were (at the time) about the same price. Lacking in new features (obviously couldn't do ray tracing or DLSS, but also didn't even get the improved NVENC other Turing cards did). And lots of them do need an extra power connector. The 1650 was savaged in reviews when it first came out. Hardware Unboxed called it "horrible value" (at $150) and Gamers Nexus declared it "dead on arrival."

[porina]

1 minute ago, Middcore said:

Barely any performance advantage over existing cards that were (at the time) about the same price. Lacking in new features (didn't get the improved NVENC other Turing cards did). And lots of them do need an extra power connector. The 1650 was savaged in reviews when it first came out. Hardware Unboxed called it "horrible value" (at $150) and Gamers Nexus declared it "dead on arrival."

So basically no problem then. Both those channels I can't watch as they're overly pessimistic about everything, or misses the point of the product falling back to performance numbers alone. If you need a sub-75W class GPU, it's still stands alone. I'm not sure if AMD even played in that area at all, with the obvious competition from nvidia's own 1030 and 750 Ti. Intel is speculated to have a card in that space soon, so it could get more interesting with a true 2nd player in that area.

[sof006]

I have a GTX 1650 in my little Mini PC that I take with me as my laptop replacement and it does a decent job. I was playing God of War on it with FSR enabled with the default 'Original' settings and it looked and played great. 60fps most of the time.

 

I think providing you go into it knowing you might need to turn down some settings I don't have an issue, the card fills a place that someone falls into.

 

So the new AMD card is welcome in my book. For my serious gaming I use my main PC with my 3080 in it.

[Forbidden Wafer]

This is a 720p class card. 

[Quackers101]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I still would like to see someone actually test how much VRAM is necessary for various games and settings.

I don't buy AMD's marketing material saying it gives like 20-60% FPS in games. I wouldn't be surprised if it's misleading stuff like "it went from 10 to 12 FPS so it's a 20% increase"

 

The 6500 XT seems to be a pretty low end GPU, so I wouldn't be surprised if it ran into internal bottlenecks before it could actually run games at settings that requires 8GB of VRAM at decent FPS.

 

It's kind of pathetic for AMD to delete their old marketing material. I guess VRAM is only important when they got the most...

not sure where one can find the stable setting as there is so much difference between games and maybe how the card performs too?

But in general 4-6GB of VRAM, although do you see the same issue with 3050? I guess yes and no. Also with how more games might start to push up a standard of 5GB of vram usage, as I see some in 1080p depending on the settings is just above 4GB or higher. We have seen that higher GB of VRAM can impact an increase of FPS too, but I guess that depends on the game and VRAM? where the % lows being higher when you got a "stable amount" of VRAM? but for all we know some cards can be limited in other ways.

[cj09beira]

4GB has been not nearly enough since the rx480 launched, as i have both models and the 4GB was always more prone to performance issues, that said, we can't ignore that its launching in a market that is anything but normal, where cards with over 5GB jump in price due to mining, and even non mining cards are hard to get due to shortages, amd had another die that is very cheap to make, with low board costs, so they made it, which imo is a big plus, this card is literally 1 gpu two memory chips, as simple as it gets, for those that dont have a gpu its a good option. 

For us rx 480 owners we   for better market next gen.

But really i see the low/mid end dying, with silicon cost/transistor stagnating, and inflation on a everest climb, it really seems like our hobby is permanently more expensive, at least until something drastic changes it, like complete euv allowing less processing steps, idk.

 

Ps: for these lower end cards reviewers really need to have different standards, as for example i have never once used Ultra graphics with my rx 480, why would i i am loosing performance for no benefit, high and even medium in newer tittles looks great.

 

and for those saying "oh just buy used X card", most of those cards are 3+years old getting close to the point where they start to drop dead, so its quite the gamble to buy.

[poochyena]

6gb probably would have been perfect for this card, or if it were prices around $180 or lower. I don't think its terrible. Its still a good card for those with an integrated GPU or have a very old (5+ year old) gpu and want the latest hdmi/displayport connections and/or play 3D games that aren't overly demanding, like an MMO.

[Dabombinable]

Low memory bandwidth, low vRAM, PCIe x4, architecture loves memory bandwidth...I don't see any problems there.

[Thaldor]

1 hour ago, Hairless Monkey Boy said:

I'm in favor of anything and everything that might alleviate the current shortage. If AMD is able to crank these things out and sell them for a reasonable price, that'll take some pressure out of demand for GPUs, and that, at this time, is good. In normal market conditions, this card would be very disappointing, but we aren't in normal market conditions.

In Finland the RX 6500XT goes for ~330€ and "overclocked" ~370€, you can get brand new GTX 1650 for 300€. RX 6600 goes for 600€ and RTX 2060 675€ for comparison. All of the prices from in stock items that you could get right away (as soon as Jimm's opens) and looking at the current stock it seems there's "plenty" of stock of GPUs, at least one or two manufacturers options of each model of GPU so that's something, the prices are through the roof but what you expect.

 

At least here in rainy, snowy, cold north Europe 6500XT doesn't help the situation. It does give a choice in the budget end but pretty damn bad choice. It's probably better than the Ryzen 5 5600G that goes for 260€ with plenty of stock, but if you take the used markets in you can get GTX 1070 for 350-400€ which in this case is pretty no-brainer choice. The almost requirement of PCIe4.0 is something that makes 6500XT the worst choice of them all because if you aren't building a new one, you are pretty much stuck with PCIe3.0 and that's when the 6500XT becomes really ugly and you are looking at probably at least MB upgrade at the same time to get into the same areacode as the competition.

[Mister Woof]

1 hour ago, cj09beira said:

4GB has been not nearly enough since the rx480 launched, as i have both models and the 4GB was always more prone to performance issues, that said, we can't ignore that its launching in a market that is anything but normal, where cards with over 5GB jump in price due to mining, and even non mining cards are hard to get due to shortages, amd had another die that is very cheap to make, with low board costs, so they made it, which imo is a big plus, this card is literally 1 gpu two memory chips, as simple as it gets, for those that dont have a gpu its a good option. 

For us rx 480 owners we   for better market next gen.

But really i see the low/mid end dying, with silicon cost/transistor stagnating, and inflation on a everest climb, it really seems like our hobby is permanently more expensive, at least until something drastic changes it, like complete euv allowing less processing steps, idk.

 

Ps: for these lower end cards reviewers really need to have different standards, as for example i have never once used Ultra graphics with my rx 480, why would i i am loosing performance for no benefit, high and even medium in newer tittles looks great.

 

and for those saying "oh just buy used X card", most of those cards are 3+years old getting close to the point where they start to drop dead, so its quite the gamble to buy.

Eh, some of the results for example F1 at 1080p low suffered a 25% performance loss from PCIE4x4 to 3x4

 

 

[CT854]

This card is just dumpster fire after dumpster fire.

 

4GB of VRAM? Not good, but you've gotta cut it down somewhere, right?

 

PCIe 4.0 x4? Uhh... I guess the electronics to make it x8 or x16 can't be justified? Maybe? Maybe it won't be an issue? it will 100% be an issue, especially if you ALSO gimp the actual VRAM capacity and put it in a market segment where you're also targeting people who likely still have PCIe 3.0 platforms 

 

Now... no hardware encoding?

 

Everything AMD could have done wrong with this GPU, they have done wrong. It's truly outstanding how horrifyingly bad this card is, and the Day One reviews have really driven this point home. Silicon shortage or not, this is absolutely shameful.

[Doobeedoo]

This?
https://community.amd.com/t5/gaming/game-beyond-4gb/ba-p/414776
It's online?

 

Either way, quite a low end GPU in general, I mean we'll have better APUs eventually no. All that with how messed up the market is with cards simply suck on top of all.

I really hope by the time new series is to be released prices and availability will be back to actual normal that it was. Even though I'm all good now and in not rush for new hardware at all, it sucks. Also time flies and for tech, it flies way faster.

[porina]

2 hours ago, poochyena said:

6gb probably would have been perfect for this card, or if it were prices around $180 or lower.

I'm starting to think that would have helped and also addressed a lot of the complaints. Implicitly the memory bus would be 50% bigger which would also help a lot with the capacity.

 

1 hour ago, Mister Woof said:

Eh, some of the results for example F1 at 1080p low suffered a 25% performance loss from PCIE4x4 to 3x4

For sure, that was showing a drop but if we change the question to if it is playable? For sure it is, as even on 3.0 it was giving over average 60 fps at 1080p high (assuming you're looking at Techspot/HUB results). Before anyone says, what about the lows? A budget freesync display would largely sort that out.

 

 

 

The GPU might not be as good as we wish it to be, but if you had to game on one, you're going to find workable settings at 1080p to balance performance and quality.