AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT: specs and benchmarks

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Summary

AMD started Radeon RX 6500 XT sales 19 January 2022 at a recommended price of $199 . This is a desktop graphics card based on a Navi / RDNA2 architecture and made with 7 nm manufacturing process. It is primarily aimed at gamer market. 8 GB of GDDR6 memory clocked at 18 GHz are supplied, and together with 64 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 143.9 GB/s.

Compatibility-wise, this is dual-slot card attached via PCIe 4.0 x4 interface. 1x 6-pin power connector is required, and power consumption is at 107 Watt.

It provides poor gaming and benchmark performance at 24.55% of a leader's which is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090.

RTX 4090GeForce RTX4090
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General info

Some basic facts about Radeon RX 6500 XT: architecture, market segment, release date etc.

Place in performance ranking203
Place by popularity85
Value for money22.44
ArchitectureNavi / RDNA2 (2020−2022)
GPU code nameNavi 24
Market segmentDesktop
Release date19 January 2022 (2 years old)
Launch price (MSRP)$199
Current price$274 (1.4x MSRP)of 168889 (A100 PCIe 80 GB)
Value for money

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Technical specs

Radeon RX 6500 XT's specs such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of Radeon RX 6500 XT's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

Pipelines / CUDA cores1024of 20480 (Data Center GPU Max NEXT)
Core clock speed2610 MHz
Boost clock speed2815 MHzof 3599 (Radeon RX 7990 XTX)
Number of transistors5,400 millionof 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile)
Manufacturing process technology7 nmof 4 (GeForce RTX 4080)
Power consumption (TDP)107 Wattof 2400 (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem)
Texture fill rate180.2of 969.9 (H100 SXM5 96 GB)

Size and compatibility

This section provides details about the physical dimensions of Radeon RX 6500 XT and its compatibility with other computer components. This information is useful when selecting a computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards, it includes details about the interface and bus (for motherboard compatibility) and additional power connectors (for power supply compatibility).

InterfacePCIe 4.0 x4
Width2-slot
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pin

Memory

Parameters of memory installed on Radeon RX 6500 XT: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.

Memory typeGDDR6
Maximum RAM amount8 GBof 192 (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Memory bus width64 Bitof 19000 (GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB)
Memory clock speed18000 MHzof 23000 (GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER)
Memory bandwidth143.9 GB/sof 3276 (Aldebaran)
Shared memory-

Video outputs and ports

Types and number of video connectors present on Radeon RX 6500 XT. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.

Display Connectors1x HDMI 2.1, 1x DisplayPort 1.4a
HDMI+

API support

APIs supported by Radeon RX 6500 XT, sometimes including their particular versions.

DirectX12 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Model6.6
OpenGL4.6
OpenCL2.2
Vulkan1.3

Benchmark performance

Synthetic benchmark performance of Radeon RX 6500 XT. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

Benchmark coverage: 25%

RX 6500 XT 9515

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

Benchmark coverage: 17%

RX 6500 XT 76445

3DMark 11 Performance GPU

3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.

Benchmark coverage: 17%

RX 6500 XT 22954

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

RX 6500 XT 15712

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU

Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

RX 6500 XT 91909

3DMark Ice Storm GPU

Ice Storm Graphics is an obsolete benchmark, part of 3DMark suite. Ice Storm was used to measure entry level laptops and Windows-based tablets performance. It utilizes DirectX 11 feature level 9 to display a battle between two space fleets near a frozen planet in 1280x720 resolution. Discontinued in January 2020, it is now superseded by 3DMark Night Raid.

Benchmark coverage: 8%

RX 6500 XT 356129

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 maya-04

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RX 6500 XT 111

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 sw-03

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RX 6500 XT 140

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 snx-02

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RX 6500 XT 87

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 catia-04

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RX 6500 XT 150

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 creo-01

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RX 6500 XT 91

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 medical-01

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RX 6500 XT 58

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 showcase-01

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RX 6500 XT 67

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 energy-01

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RX 6500 XT 60

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 3dsmax-05

Benchmark coverage: 2%

RX 6500 XT 157

Gaming performance

Let's see how good Radeon RX 6500 XT is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular modern games across different resolutions:

Full HD65
1440p30
4K16

Performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077 72

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 45−50
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 51
Battlefield 5 80−85
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 65−70
Cyberpunk 2077 54
Far Cry 5 102
Far Cry New Dawn 97
Forza Horizon 4 80−85
Hitman 3 70−75
Horizon Zero Dawn 76
Red Dead Redemption 2 40−45
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 85
Watch Dogs: Legion 74

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 45−50
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 43
Battlefield 5 80−85
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 65−70
Cyberpunk 2077 34
Far Cry 5 92
Far Cry New Dawn 89
Forza Horizon 4 80−85
Hitman 3 70−75
Horizon Zero Dawn 58
Metro Exodus 52
Red Dead Redemption 2 40−45
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 65
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 92
Watch Dogs: Legion 58

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 45−50
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 31
Battlefield 5 80−85
Cyberpunk 2077 30
Far Cry 5 86
Far Cry New Dawn 82
Forza Horizon 4 80−85
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 54
Watch Dogs: Legion 25

1440p
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 35−40
Hitman 3 40−45
Horizon Zero Dawn 42
Metro Exodus 18
Red Dead Redemption 2 18−20
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 36

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 27−30
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 23
Battlefield 5 55−60
Cyberpunk 2077 17
Far Cry 5 57
Far Cry New Dawn 57
Forza Horizon 4 45−50
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 30−35
Watch Dogs: Legion 19

4K
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 18−20
Hitman 3 21−24
Horizon Zero Dawn 23
Metro Exodus 11
Red Dead Redemption 2 12−14
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 16
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 28

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 16−18
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 6
Battlefield 5 27−30
Cyberpunk 2077 4
Far Cry 5 23
Far Cry New Dawn 20
Forza Horizon 4 30−35
Watch Dogs: Legion 10

Relative perfomance

Radeon RX 6500 XT's performance compared to nearest competitors among desktop video cards.


NVIDIA equivalent

According to our data, the closest NVIDIA alternative to Radeon RX 6500 XT is GeForce GTX 780 Ti, which is nearly equal in speed and lower by 1 position in our ranking.

GTX 780 TiGeForce GTX780 Ti
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Here are some closest NVIDIA rivals to Radeon RX 6500 XT:

Similar GPUs

Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.

RX 5500 XTRadeon RX5500 XT
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Arc A770ArcA770
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GTX 1650 SUPERGeForce GTX1650 SUPER
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GTX 1650GeForce GTX1650
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GTX 1660GeForce GTX1660
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Recommended processors

These processors are most commonly used with Radeon RX 6500 XT according to our statistics.

User ratings: view and submit

Here you can see the user rating of the graphics card, as well as rate it yourself.


3.8 2838 votes

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Questions and comments

Here you can ask a question about Radeon RX 6500 XT, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.