What the web received erroneous about AMD’s controversial Radeon RX 6500 XT

Skimming through the countless opinions slamming AMD’s new $199 Radeon RX 6500 XT this week, you could possibly imagine the economical graphics card is nothing small of an abomination. “Worst GPU!” Components Unboxed’s movie title screamed. “Worse Than 2016’s GPUs,” Avid gamers Nexus declared. “A GPU you could be ready to buy… But should not,” Linus Tech Recommendations proclaimed. The listing goes on.

Here’s the factor although: Although those perspectives are all absolutely legitimate and true—AMD’s graphics card is a strange creature indeed, and a person that does not go the functionality needle about prior GPU generations, as I discussed in my own Radeon RX 6500 XT review—I feel they are lacking some important standpoint. It ain’t 2016 anymore and the entire world needs inexpensive graphics playing cards appropriate now. If it can remain in stock, the Radeon RX 6500 XT scratches that itch.

[ Further reading: AMD’s $199 Radeon RX 6500 XT tested: 5 key things you need to know ]

Indeed, AMD slice characteristics tricky to make the Radeon RX 6500 XT a truth, and all those possibilities make the new GPU fewer attractive than yesteryear’s $150 to $250 graphics cards. It has only 4 PCIe 4. lanes, which perform just good in a modern Pc but can throttle functionality in more mature PCIe 3.-based mostly techniques. The paltry memory configuration—just 4GB, in excess of a scarcely-there 64-bit bus, nevertheless augmented by 16MB of AMD’s radical on-GPU Infinity Cache tech—inhibits the card’s visible potential as perfectly. AMD also eradicated encoding guidance for H.264 and H.265/HEVC, which streamers rely on, and outfit the Radeon RX 6500 XT with just 1 HDMI 2.1 link and just one DisplayPort. So of course, those people disappointed reviewers have every reason to be disappointed. By numerous goal metrics, the Radeon RX 6500 XT is worse than prior spending budget graphics cards.

But!

The entire world is a various area as we enter yr three of this damned pandemic. Graphics cards are all but unattainable to locate at sane charges appropriate now, many thanks to a combination of ongoing part shortages, logistics woes, raised tariffs, booming GPU demand from customers by cryptocurrency miners looking for gains, and additional. Even employed variations of these comparable older GPUs (like the Radeon RX 580 and 5500 XT, and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1650 Super and GTX 1060) usually promote for $250 to $400 on Ebay, relying on the day and aspects.

It’s terrible, y’all. So undesirable that past calendar year, we resorted to recommending AMD’s Ryzen 5000 CPUs with respectable built-in graphics as the very best spending budget selection in our graphics card purchasing information. Hell, we even went so significantly as to crown those people built-in graphics as the greatest GPU of 2021. We’re discrete GPU elitists right here at PCWorld, but I uncovered myself telling players on a spending plan to decide up a console or test GeForce Now streaming as a substitute these previous quite a few months. We haven’t observed a new spending plan GPU launched since 2019!

It could not have happened at a worse time. Stuck in their homes, a new generation was launched to the glory of gaming in the midst of all this. My ex works at an elementary college, and the little ones there know what I do for a living. I’ve fielded infinitely a lot more “What’s a very good way to get a cheap Computer system to enjoy Fortnite with the homies?” queries because lockdown started than I experienced in the entirety of The Just before Situations. My unfortunate respond to: There isn’t one. Get an iPad. My large faculty daughter’s boyfriend will work element-time washing dishes and dabbles in creating OG Doom mods on the side. His graphics card fried early in 2021 and he spent all summer conserving pennies and wanting for an very affordable substitution. None existed. (Thankfully, when I listened to about the predicament I experienced an aged GTX 900-collection card I could give him.) Loads of new adult gamers have been remaining vacant handed, much too.

And that is why I cannot be anywhere around as destructive about the Radeon RX 6500 XT as lots of of my reviewer colleagues have been.

Absolutely sure, the card can begin to choke if you thrust it outside of its limits, cranking up eye candy to the max or bumping your resolution past 1080p. But if you stick to 1080p gaming, you are going to be in a position to perform competitive e-sporting activities video games at a blazing-fast speed or delight in triple-A titles at Medium to Substantial configurations at a good 60 frames-for every-second-plus—even on a PCIe 3. method. Is the Radeon RX 6500 XT a persuasive upgrade about prior price range playing cards? No. But it exists, and that hasn’t been real in the finances house for a long time now. Again: Utilized Radeon RX 580s from 2017 are going for $250 to $400 on the streets, and which is immediately after five several years of being ridden tough.

We talked about the Radeon RX 6500 XT’s functionality and usefulness in depth on the most current episode of our Entire Nerd podcast. Check out it out earlier mentioned.

Built for the masses

On paper, AMD in truth would seem to be striving to make these GPUs for the Computer system gaming masses. That 4GB of RAM around a 64-little bit bus can induce lag spikes if you consider to bump graphics options up to Ultra or the resolution to 1440p, but it also makes the Radeon RX 6500 XT ineffective for Ethereum mining (1 of the big good reasons GPUs value so a lot right now), a design and style option AMD states it created deliberately. (Though the truth that the Radeon RX 6500 XT may well have at first been intended for laptops no doubt also played into its configuration.)

And while we didn’t get into the ultra-wonky specs below on PCWorld, the Radeon RX 6500 XT is the initial GPU developed applying TSMC’s new 6nm process. Few that with stripping out individuals encode blocks, memory bits, and show controllers from the chip, and AMD was equipped to shrink the die dimension down to truly little amounts, as Ryan Smith in depth at AnandTech. Fairly than rehash, I’ll quotation a compact part of his great investigation (go examine it if you’re a nerd, it’s dope):

All of which will make Navi 24 a very small chip, measuring in at 107mm². That is a lot less than half the size of Navi 23 (237mm²) or even Navi 14 (158mm²). Which, not to get hung up on die dimensions right here, but it’s critical to underscore just how compact Navi 24 is at a time when high-close Personal computer GPUs are in the 500-700mm² range. AMD has not manufactured a GPU this smaller in pretty much 50 percent a 10 years, when they introduced the RX 550 and other elements based mostly on Polaris 12 (101mm²). To put it bluntly, Navi 24 is meant to be AMD’s greatest participate in in featuring an entry-level, significant-quantity GPU for the Computer industry, and they haven’t been scared to make some even larger aspect sacrifices to get there.

AMD

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The smaller sized a GPU is, the additional of them you are ready to squeeze out of a silicon wafer. Concerning that and the Radeon RX 6500 XT’s ineffectiveness at mining, it’s the very first modern-day GPU to have a serious shot at maybe—it’s possible—actually staying available at semi-sane pricing. The $250 GeForce RTX 3050 launching next week may be as well, but it’s built more historically, with 8GB of memory in excess of a traditional 128-little bit bus and the same 276 mm² GA106 die as the RTX 3060-collection. It’ll likely be much better at genuine gaming, but will it in fact be readily available?

If the Radeon RX 6500 XT manages to stay in stock for wherever near its $200 proposed price—wishful thinking, I know, but hell, if it manages to stay under $300—AMD could put new, somewhat cost-effective components into the palms of persons who have to have it, people today who want to engage in on the Laptop but never have the deep pockets essential to get in the game more than the final two many years. Computer system gaming is in a precarious place appropriate now for newcomers. Every single man or woman which is equipped to choose up a keyboard and mouse alternatively of acquiring to resort to a PlayStation controller is very good for the long term of the full ecosystem.

So yes, from a technical and historical standpoint, the Radeon RX 6500 XT could be a person of the much more disappointing graphics card releases. But that is just part of the disappointing globe we are living in these days, and below in the truth of 2022, owning a new $200 graphics card available that can deliver a excellent plenty of gaming expertise is pretty, incredibly beneficial and very, very welcome indeed—warts and all.

Now with any luck , AMD is capable to hold it in inventory at sane charges. We’ll see. It marketed out comparatively rapidly in its to start with working day on shelves, and scalpers swiftly commenced flipping it on Ebay, but that was usually likely to happen. The availability of this card in the weeks and months to come will be the real evaluate of its worth.