With the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT, PC gamers finally have a cheap entry-level option – at least on paper. Because the first test reports show that the new graphics card is a real failure.

AMD

AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT: Test reports draw a frightening conclusion

While the release of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 is still a long way off, AMD seized the opportunity and launched a new graphics card, the RX 6500 XT, which is primarily aimed at gaming beginners. He does that too RRP of 209 euros close, but more on that later.

The most important question first: What is the new graphics accelerator actually capable of? If you believe the first test reports, not much:

  • heise.de: The RX 6500 XT is suitable only for players with low demands. Although the card supports ray tracing, it cannot achieve satisfactory performance when the graphics technology is activated. After all, the power consumption is very low.
  • golem.de: The performance of the RX 6500 XT is about on par with the GeForce GTX 1060who is now almost 6 years old. The 4GB of VRAM is the card’s biggest bottleneck. PC gamers whose platform only supports PCIe Gen 3 should also be aware that bottlenecks can occur, as the maximum available bandwidth is effectively halved.
  • Linus TechTips: The RX 6500 XT often offers enough performance to play even the latest games in high settings with smooth frame rates and Full HD resolution, but disturbing image stuttering occurs again and again when the memory bandwidth reaches its limits. The graphics card achieves the same performance as the GTX 1660, performs slightly better than the RX 580.
  • Gamer’s Nexus: With the RX 6500 XT, AMD is falling back into old patterns and selling a new card that can barely keep up with models that are 4-6 years old. The performance of the card is between GTX 1060, RX 580 and GTX 1070. The power consumption is significantly below that of the outdated comparison graphics cards.

CES held some big tech and gaming surprises. We present the most important of these to you in the GIGA Headlines:

graphics cardtragedy Check out bestsellers on Amazon

Cheap graphics card? Keep dreaming!

Despite the rather bad reviews, some PC gamers could now have hope that the RX 6500 XT is still a good deal given the current circumstances. After all, the RRP of 209 euros is quite tempting. But of course there is the scalper tax on top of that. Because a look at the current price comparison of the available custom models shows: The cheapest RX 6500 XT that is in stock costs a whopping 329.90 euros – i.e. almost 58 percent more than the RRP.

So the RX 6500 XT is not a real price breaker either. However, there is still hope for PC gamers looking for a cheap graphics card. Nvidia’s RTX 3050 will go on sale on January 27, 2021, which should not only offer more performance than the AMD alternative, but also more features. However, it remains to be seen whether this will be available for a similar price after the scalpers onslaught.