PSA: DON'T Buy The RX 6500-XT (Unless There's LITERALLY Nothing Else)

[r.linder]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFpuJqx9Qmw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArW4-mkGHSw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmE8iZWaLWE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5_oM3Ow_CI

Right out of the gate, the RX 6500-XT is being outperformed by the RX 580, a 5 year old refresh of a 6 year old GPU architecture. It can sometimes win against the 580, but it loses battles against it more than it wins, and there's just other issues with the card, like the fact that it only uses up to 4 PCI-e lanes out of a x16 PCI-e slot, and lacking some encoding support like HEVC.
AMD seems to have intentionally stripped down the 6500-XT, I guess to cut cost, but the MSRP is still basically around the same as what the RX 580 was, and that number doesn't mean anything anymore because of scalpers, that card is probably still going to be scalped even though it's terrible, which makes it even worse for people who might end up buying a scalped 6500-XT.

In my opinion, don't buy the 6500-XT, you're much better off paying more for a GTX 1660 SUPER or RTX 2060. If the 6500-XT sells out, it'll only show AMD that their shady design choices are a-okay with us, but it shouldn't be, this is absolutely disgusting that a 4 year old GPU is still consistently faster than their latest. And don't give me that "well the RX 580 was the top end of Polaris" crap, they've released the RX 590, which is even faster, than the 5500-XT, which was slower than that, and now the 6500-XT, which is basically the same GPU but actually worse in some aspects. The 580 was always a mid-range GPU in actual performance when it launched, now it's just barely above entry level, this isn't acceptable.
I don't really recommend buying Radeon GPUs at all at this point. AMD is starting to become more like Intel and NVIDIA and they're doing it wrong, they're making it too obvious that they're flipping their budget users off. At least their competitors are a lot more subtle about it.

[GOD RAYS ON ULTRA™]

I'm sure it's worth $199 though.

[carl]

I was looking at overclockers.co.uk contemplating an RX 6500 XT for £179 which would replace a GTX 1650 in a low power general purpose and low spec gaming PC which happens to run PCIE 4.0.

Anyway I watched most of the available review videos. It was pretty much demolished on youtube.

[r.linder]

Originally posted by The Hardware ʬhisperer:

I'm sure it's worth $199 though.

It won't sell for MSRP, someone will scalp it.

Even just the mere fact that it's basically a 5500-XT refresh but worse, and the 5500-XT was basically made to replace the RX 580 but was still slower than the 590, is disgusting.

Radeon deserves to get boycotted for this, this is below even NVIDIA's level of shade, and that says something. They released basically the same GPU 4 times; 480, 590, 5500-XT, 6500-XT... The only one that actually was a REAL improvement was the 590!

[r.linder]

Originally posted by carl:

I was looking at overclockers.co.uk contemplating an RX 6500 XT for £179 which would replace a GTX 1650 in a low power general purpose and low spec gaming PC which happens to run PCIE 4.0.

Anyway I watched most of the available review videos. It was pretty much demolished on youtube.

As it should be, AMD released the same low end GPU again with more restrictions, the 5500-XT was bad, but this is worse.

If people buy it out of desperation anyway, that basically tells AMD that this ♥♥♥♥ is okay, but this is beyond bad and shady. They're becoming worse than NVIDIA, because at least NVIDIA brings out good products for the most part, this is just bad. A 5 year old mid-range GPU shouldn't be able to even SCRATCH this.

It's a huge slap in the face, it's slower than the 580 but has basically the same MSRP, only off by 30$. After FIVE YEARS. With these results, it shouldn't be a cent over 150.

[carl]

Originally posted by 尺.ㄥ丨几ᗪ乇尺:

Originally posted by carl:

I was looking at overclockers.co.uk contemplating an RX 6500 XT for £179 which would replace a GTX 1650 in a low power general purpose and low spec gaming PC which happens to run PCIE 4.0.

Anyway I watched most of the available review videos. It was pretty much demolished on youtube.

As it should be, AMD released the same low end GPU again with more restrictions, the 5500-XT was bad, but this is worse.

If people buy it out of desperation anyway, that basically tells AMD that this ♥♥♥♥ is okay, but this is beyond bad and shady. They're becoming worse than NVIDIA, because at least NVIDIA brings out good products for the most part, this is just bad. A 5 year old mid-range GPU shouldn't be able to even SCRATCH this.

I don't disagree with that sentiment. That AMD were making out the move to cut down the card was to stop miners buying them up and that they'd done gamers a favour.

[r.linder]

Originally posted by carl:

Originally posted by 尺.ㄥ丨几ᗪ乇尺:

As it should be, AMD released the same low end GPU again with more restrictions, the 5500-XT was bad, but this is worse.

If people buy it out of desperation anyway, that basically tells AMD that this ♥♥♥♥ is okay, but this is beyond bad and shady. They're becoming worse than NVIDIA, because at least NVIDIA brings out good products for the most part, this is just bad. A 5 year old mid-range GPU shouldn't be able to even SCRATCH this.

I don't disagree with that sentiment. That AMD were making out the move to cut down the card was to stop miners buying them up and that they'd done gamers a favour.

If they want to do gamers a favour, they should be doing a lot more than re-releasing what's basically another RX 480, especially since its MSRP is only 30 dollars below 580 MSRP, which actually makes it lower value than the 580. They make it worse by using the same freaking manufacturing process for EVERYTHING: Their CPUs, GPUs, and the latest game consoles ALL use TSMC 7nm wafers! They're spreading it too thin so their stock is kept low and value is kept high, and they're doing it on purpose.

To top it off, Radeon's drivers always start off garbage and take a year or two to show real improvement, but there's STILL bugs persisting for users since RDNA1 came out. That's why I got a 2080 Ti, to get the hell away from Radeon's terrible driver issues.

[GOD RAYS ON ULTRA™]

You're preaching to the quire. Anyone worth their salt in computers knows not to go with amd gpu.

[r.linder]

Originally posted by The Hardware ʬhisperer:

You're preaching to the quire. Anyone worth their salt in computers knows not to go with amd gpu.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of people turning to Radeon GPUs for one reason or another and there's people on forums that seem to be just diehard fanboys of all things AMD. Huge surge because of RDNA and Zen.

Some of them just like to side with the underdog of the industry, but AMD is hardly that anymore. They're just becoming terrible, and if it weren't for their CPUs, they'd still be a joke.

[GOD RAYS ON ULTRA™]

When it comes to amd, the only thing that stands out to me is their integrated graphics. Their other stuff is always, meh.

[MoonC A T]

Originally posted by 尺.ㄥ丨几ᗪ乇尺:

...there's people on forums that seem to be just diehard fanboys of all things AMD. Huge surge because of RDNA and Zen.

The only people using AMD are the fanboys, and you aren't going to dissuade them.

[r.linder]

Originally posted by The Hardware ʬhisperer:

When it comes to amd, the only thing that stands out to me is their integrated graphics. Their other stuff is always, meh.

And that might not last too much longer because of Intel's Xe graphics, because IIRC the mobile Xe graphics were right around the same performance of the 1030, which is also around where Vega 8 is at now.

Intel took back the high end, and they're slapping AMD around in the low end with the i5-12400 and almost cannibalising the sales of their own high end as a result since that locked i5 is pretty damn close to the 12600K, and the 12900K costs 3 times as much but doesn't deliver even twice the performance in most loads.

Don't need to say much about NVIDIA, NVIDIA is just better in pretty much every way unless they don't have something you need that AMD does for some reason.

[r.linder]

Originally posted by MoonC A T:

Originally posted by 尺.ㄥ丨几ᗪ乇尺:

...there's people on forums that seem to be just diehard fanboys of all things AMD. Huge surge because of RDNA and Zen.

The only people using AMD are the fanboys, and you aren't going to dissuade them.

Yeah kinda funny how AMD flipping the market around earned them so many fanboys

The brother of a family friend was always a diehard fanboy of AMD even in the FX days, so delusional that he thought FX was better than everything Intel had, and he was saying that when Intel had the 8700K, with the 9900K just around the corner.

Now when someone asks for a CPU, generally speaking at least 60~70% of the time, someone suggests a Ryzen CPU. They were good for the price, not so much anymore. AMD only pushed Intel to give the market what it deserved, actual progress.

[A&A]

And what? I heard blablabla.
This GPU is better than GTX 1050Ti, but you can buy it for the same price, also this is better than iGPUs, so I can buy a intel (f) cpu and this GPU if l want.

And yes, intel 12th gen have PCI 5.0 so

[ZeekAncient]

I think what is bad about this card is AMD themselves saying in 2020 that 4GB of Vram wasn't enough, and then releasing a card that only has a 4GB option.

But I do believe that going with a PCI-e 4.0 x 4 interface, coupled with that limiting 4GB, is what is going to kill this card.

What is sad, is that the GPU market is so bad right now, that I suspect a lot of gamers are going to end up with this card at least thinking that it will be a decent budget card. I mean, why would AMD or Nvidia release a card in 2022 that is worse than an entry level card from 6 years ago?

But there you have it.

[UserNotFound]

It's not a good card, not by any stretch of the imagination, it's only for those with PCIe 4.0 mobos and only for 1080P gaming (and at Medium - High settings, forget Ultra). It outperforms a GTX 1650, and it can be had for close to MSRP and is replacing an older card, like perhaps a GTX 960 or its ilk. Those with RX 580/GTX1060 level cards, please move on, nothin' to see here!