XFX Radeon RX 6500 XT

Trimming the fat, and then some

- By Jarred Walton

GPU releases tend to follow a pattern. First, come the ‘halo’ cards that pull out all the stops. Then, come the slightly lower spec, but still fast high-end cards, followed by mainstream GPUs, and eventually the budget options. The RX 6500 XT aims for the latter, trimming down pretty much every conceivable spec in pursuit of a lower cost but still an acceptable design. Unfortunately, AMD has gone too far in its pursuit this time, cutting away too much of the juicy meat and leaving meager scraps behind.

In the past, budget GPUs such as AMD’s Navi 14 (RX 5500 XT) and Nvidia’s TU116 (GTX 1650 Super) have stopped cutting features at a 128-bit memory interface. Thanks to Infinity Cache, AMD could get away with a mere 64-bit interface, which is normally reserved for extreme budget solutions like the RX 530 and GT 1030. Unfortunately, the net result is a new budget GPU that often ends up slower than the previous generation RX 5500 XT it’s supposed to replace.