Particulars of a brand new AMD Radeon gaming GPU have seemingly simply appeared, but it surely seems to be like one to keep away from should you’re on the lookout for a funds graphics card for gaming. The GPU in query is the AMD Radeon RX 6500 (with out the XT on the top), which hasn’t been formally introduced by AMD, however the leaked specs paint an image of an underpowered Radeon RX 6500 XT with decrease clock speeds and slower reminiscence.
There are lots of explanation why you gained’t discover the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT on our greatest graphics card information, not least the truth that it’s primarily based on tech that’s now two generations previous, utilizing the RDNA 2 GPU structure. Maybe extra importantly, although, this GPU was additionally massively underpowered when it got here out in January 2022. AMD wouldn’t even ship me one for assessment then, and neither would any of its board companions.
You solely want to have a look at the Radeon RX 6500 XT evaluations that did come out to see why, with {Hardware} Unboxed describing it because the “worst GPU” and Avid gamers Nexus saying it was even worse than GPUs that got here out in 2016. Issues with it ranged from its super-tight 64-bit reminiscence bus to its lowly 4GB allocation of GDDR6 VRAM, in addition to its meager depend of 1,024 stream processors, and now it seems to be as if a good worse model is on the way in which.
Tech web site IT Residence has reproduced some advertising and marketing slides for a brand new AMD Radeon RX 6500 graphics card from Chinese language agency Zephyr. In keeping with the leak, the 6500 relies on the identical Navi 24 GPU because the Radeon RX 6500 XT, and in addition nonetheless has all of its compute items enabled, that means it has 1,024 stream processors.
The important thing variations concern substantial drops within the clock pace, with the sport clock apparently tumbling all the way in which from 2,610MHz to only 1,728MHz, and the highest increase clock dropping from 2,815MHz to 2,066MHz. In the meantime, the VRAM pace has reportedly fallen from 18Gbps to only 16Gbps.
One key benefit of this drop in clock speeds, nevertheless, is a considerable fall within the energy draw from 107W to 55W, that means the cardboard can pull all its energy from the PCIe slot while not having an additional energy cable. This has seemingly enabled Zephyr to squeeze the Radeon RX 6500 right into a single-slot, low-profile card with only one small cooling fan on it, in addition to a regular dual-slot card with two followers.
Mainly, the Radeon RX 6500 seems to be like an try and squeeze a fully-enabled Navi 24 GPU into small kind issue methods which can be tight on house and require low energy draw. You do must ask why we’d like this rumored new GPU, although.
AMD already makes the Radeon RX 6400 for these methods if you need a really fundamental card to deal with show outputs and fundamental GPU options – having the additional stream processors is hardly going to show it right into a gaming GPU with these speeds. When AMD is already making CPUs with extra energy and newer tech of their built-in GPUs, I doubt there’s going to be a lot urge for food for the Radeon RX 6500.
This isn’t the primary time we’ve seen the Navi 24 GPU rear its head in supposedly new merchandise not too long ago both, with Asus releasing a Radeon RX 6500 XT 8GB in 2024 as effectively. The place AMD has struck the fitting stability, nevertheless, is with its newest RDNA 4 GPUs, and you’ll learn my AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT assessment to see why that is now an awesome graphics card for the value.
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