Discussion Radeon 6500XT and 6400

[Mopetar]

This would have been such a killer generation if things stuck within ~$100 of the card MSRPs...

Yeah, it all started off great. $700 3080 that wasn't a 104 die for the first time in a long time. Now you're lucky if you can by some low-end mid-range card for $700.

I'm curious what the 6400 will retail for if this is only $200. I figured it would go for more given that its price puts a $130 gap between this and the 6600. Not that it really matters since it's just a fairytale price anyways.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm curious what the 6400 will retail for if this is only $200. I figured it would go for more given that its price puts a $130 gap between this and the 6600. Not that it really matters since it's just a fairytale price anyways.

AMD trying to claim the moral high ground against NVidia in the budget 1080P gaming segment - "We have a card (6500XT) under $200!"
?

 

[RnR_au]

I'm curious what the 6400 will retail for if this is only $200.

The 6400 is an OEM only card from what I understand. So no official RRP... just grey market prices.

 

[gdansk]

Looks like a bad card to actually buy with all those removed features (apparently no AV1 decode, HW encode at all). A curious case of cutting down gone too far.

But the 6400 should be good for comparisons to Rembrandt's IGP.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Looks like a bad card to actually buy with all those removed features (apparently no AV1 decode, HW encode at all). A curious case of cutting down gone too far.

But the 6400 should be good for comparisons to Rembrandt's IGP.

- I've been reading that the mobile variant of the card has all the HW decode, so it's not like the silicon isn't there.

Wonder if it's just a typo that's getting blown out of proportion or if something fishy is going on.

 

[jpiniero]

- I've been reading that the mobile variant of the card has all the HW decode, so it's not like the silicon isn't there.

Wonder if it's just a typo that's getting blown out of proportion or if something fishy is going on.

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[Abwx]

If the RX 6400 is the only one of the bunch to not require PCI-E power, then I can see why OEMs would want an allocation of them, but by the same token, they could make the GTX 1050 ti 4GB cards finally obsolete.

Some info to be checked by AT /

Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 4, 2022 - link
In our pre-briefing, AMD explicitly told us that only "some" 6500 XT cards would require external power, which doesn't jibe with a 107W TGP. I'm still tracking down an answer to this matter.

 

[LightningZ71]

Readeon RX6500 (all NAVI 24?) limited to PCIe 4.0 X4

Seems that the NAVI 24 is limited to an x4 link to the system. Makes sense for a card designed for low power laptop use. Unfortunately, as we saw in the 5500 era, when limited to only 4GB VRAM, the PCIe link is very important. When used with a Ryzen 2X or Intel 10th gen or earlier, this card is going to likely tank hard with texture quality settings, worse than it likely would have been with a wider link. I must say that I'm rather unimpressed. With an x8 (or dare I say x16) link, things like SAM/RB and system memory texture caching might have resulted in reasonable performance at higher settings. Given that, with the limited VRAM on the card, it'll likely be one of the few cards actually available at non-unobtanium prices, it's a shame that it's going to be limited in this way. I get it, it's a cost saving feature and saves energy on laptops, just sucks.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Readeon RX6500 (all NAVI 24?) limited to PCIe 4.0 X4

Seems that the NAVI 24 is limited to an x4 link to the system. Makes sense for a card designed for low power laptop use. Unfortunately, as we saw in the 5500 era, when limited to only 4GB VRAM, the PCIe link is very important. When used with a Ryzen 2X or Intel 10th gen or earlier, this card is going to likely tank hard with texture quality settings, worse than it likely would have been with a wider link. I must say that I'm rather unimpressed. With an x8 (or dare I say x16) link, things like SAM/RB and system memory texture caching might have resulted in reasonable performance at higher settings. Given that, with the limited VRAM on the card, it'll likely be one of the few cards actually available at non-unobtanium prices, it's a shame that it's going to be limited in this way. I get it, it's a cost saving feature and saves energy on laptops, just sucks.

The more cynical take on this, might be that all new cards, are mining cards, and that mining doesn't take much PCI-E bandwidth. Gamer's need being an afterthought in today's mixed-up GPU market.

 

[gdansk]

No I don't think so Larry. Navi 24 is just too cut down. On paper it doesn't even look good for mining.

 

[RnR_au]

Apparently there may be an 8Gb variant of the 6500XT - but I guess it would depend on the crypto & vram price situation;

• Our main goal was to build Most Accessible GPU with strong 1080p performance.
• We set the goal of 199 to be able to do that and memory prices have sky-rocketed very honestly and it's extremely challenging if not impossible to get to 199 in today's market with an 8 GB graphics card.
• we did the performance testing between 8 Gigs and 4 GB, we factor in things like FSR and RSR,
• the fact that we are not going after 4k or 1440, we are going after 1080p medium to high settings, we think going with 4 gigs was the right decision.
• I will also say that don't assume that four gigabytes will be the only graphics configurations of the 6500 XT that will ever exist.
• I think up to now most if not all attempts to try and do things to ward off miners haven't succeeded that much, these software hacks and things have been very quick and easy to overcome. We are all trying to figure it out, this is an attempt, let's see if it works out.

Text snagged from https://wccftech.com/amd-talks-next-gen-am5-ryzen-7000-platform-longevity-why-ryzen-7-5800x3d-is-the-only-v-cache-option-how-radeon-rx-6500-xt-tackles-miners-hint-at-8-gb-option/

 

[Ranulf]

Well, if it really is only a 4x pci-e speed card...the reviews will at least be interesting.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The interview has him talking up FSR and RSR. For 1080P, does that mean rendering at something less than 1080P, and then scaling up to that? If it does, my opiniomn of the RX 6500 XT drops dramatically, if it doesn't have "native 1080P power".

 

[blckgrffn]

The interview has him talking up FSR and RSR. For 1080P, does that mean rendering at something less than 1080P, and then scaling up to that? If it does, my opiniomn of the RX 6500 XT drops dramatically, if it doesn't have "native 1080P power".

I mean will it be slower than a GTX970/1060 3GB? It seems unlikely and those are fine 1080 cards even on 8x PCIe 2 connections. I really doubt that will be that big of a hindrance, especially moving forward. Not moving 4K worth of textures across the bus.

 

[Shivansps]

With PCI-E x4 and just 4GB VRAM you are forced into having pci-e 4.0 in order to use it.

 

[LightningZ71]

More than 4GB on a 64 bit bus? Where the heck are they getting AFFORDABLE 4GB GDDR6 ICs for it?!?!

 

[Dribble]

As I understand it 6500xt releases at the same price and about the same performance as an RX 480 4GB from 2016, while it gains some features apparently it actually has worse encoding/decoding support. The biggest difference I suspect will be you could actually buy the 480 for $199.

 

[jpiniero]

More than 4GB on a 64 bit bus? Where the heck are they getting AFFORDABLE 4GB GDDR6 ICs for it?!?!

Seems weird to say this but I wonder if Navi 24 is 128 bit but all models are being cut to 64.

 

[Abwx]

I mean will it be slower than a GTX970/1060 3GB? It seems unlikely and those are fine 1080 cards even on 8x PCIe 2 connections. I really doubt that will be that big of a hindrance, especially moving forward. Not moving 4K worth of textures across the bus.

Computerbase say perfs between 580 and 590, at a fraction of the power.

Radeon RX 6500 XT: AMD bringt RDNA 2 mit TSMC N6 für 199 $ in den Handel

AMD hat auf der CES die Radeon RX 6500 XT und damit ein neues Einstiegsmodell des RDNA-2-Portfolios angekündigt. 199 $ lautet der Preis.

www.computerbase.de

 

[LightningZ71]

In my personal opinion, I believe that AMD should have made Navi24 just a 6nm, High Density, low power shrink of Navi23. The current one seems to be based on the HP libraries instead of the LP ones. The higher density libraries on N23 would have made for a chip that's only slightly larger than the existing 24, and with 128 bits of memory bus, could have used the cheaper, lower speed, low power GDDR6 1GB chips instead of the high-spec, high density, in demand ICs that they use for the rest of the stack. It would have also allowed them to retain the X8 PCIe interface that would have helped on HQ games, especially on lower spec systems, the kind that this card will more often find itself in. In addition, the Low Power libraries would have more than likely allowed AMD to release a 75 watt card that has reasonable performance and didn't need a power connector.

 

[jpiniero]

In my personal opinion, I believe that AMD should have made Navi24 just a 6nm, High Density, low power shrink of Navi23. The current one seems to be based on the HP libraries instead of the LP ones. The higher density libraries on N23 would have made for a chip that's only slightly larger than the existing 24, and with 128 bits of memory bus, could have used the cheaper, lower speed, low power GDDR6 1GB chips instead of the high-spec, high density, in demand ICs that they use for the rest of the stack. It would have also allowed them to retain the X8 PCIe interface that would have helped on HQ games, especially on lower spec systems, the kind that this card will more often find itself in. In addition, the Low Power libraries would have more than likely allowed AMD to release a 75 watt card that has reasonable performance and didn't need a power connector.

Navi 24 has half the transistors of Navi 23 and even less than Navi 14. I suspect it is an N7 design that was just shifted to 6 for capacity reasons and has no other benefit.

Computerbase say perfs between 580 and 590, at a fraction of the power.

I think you have to compare it to the 5500 XT, of which the 8 GB version might be better than the 6500 XT in some cases.

 

[Shmee]

If it is actually faster than a 580 by a bit, and can actually be found around $200, then it should be a decent budget gaming card. Only having 4x PCIe lanes is disappointing, but in most cases I don't think it will matter too much for those with PCIe slots gen3 and higher. Also, PCIe gen4 is more common now, what with B550 and X570 boards getting cheaper, as well as Zen2 and Zen3 CPUs, (keep in mind you will NEED something discrete for these systems even if not gaming unless you have an APU) and even Intel has a lot more PCIe gen4 capable platform options out now.

 

[blckgrffn]

If it is actually faster than a 580 by a bit, and can actually be found around $200, then it should be a decent budget gaming card. Only having 4x PCIe lanes is disappointing, but in most cases I don't think it will matter too much for those with PCIe slots gen3 and higher. Also, PCIe gen4 is more common now, what with B550 and X570 boards getting cheaper, as well as Zen2 and Zen3 CPUs, (keep in mind you will NEED something discrete for these systems even if not gaming unless you have an APU) and even Intel has a lot more PCIe gen4 capable platform options out now.

Given used 580s that may or may not be shelled out miners from years ago bring like $250 to $300 on eBay right now a new source for this level of performance at $300 or less with actual warranties, availability and robust driver support is welcome.

Obviously if it had a traditional 128 bit bus and 8GB of ram it would be even better but then it would be another 2x+ MSRP card you can't buy.

 

[waffleironhead]

Finally a replacement for the rx550/rx640. Hoping these arn't just oem as I have a few systems that could benefit from a board powered gpu.

AMD Radeon™ RX 6400 | AMD

 

[gdansk]

Are there going to be board powered 6500 XT? Anandtech article made it sound like there would be.