It’s 2022 and both AMD and NVIDIA are still releasing graphics cards, even though it’s nearly impossible to score a GPU at MSRP from any retailer. AMD’s latest release, the Radeon RX 6500 XT, has a few…tricks up its sleeve. To start, the 6500 XT has a measly 4GB of RAM. But, even with its limitations, AMD claims that its latest graphics card can game at over 60FPS in Call of Duty: Vanguard, nearly 80FPS in Halo Infinite, and over 100FPS in Fortnite. Should this graphics card even exist at this point? Let’s take a closer look below.
Should the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT even exist?
Let’s start out with the obvious: it’s 2022, and you still can’t get graphics cards at MSRP from retailers unless you try really, really hard. In spite of that, both AMD and NVIDIA continue to crank out new GPUs. This is likely due to the fact that they’re able to use chips that don’t meet the quality requirements for higher-end cards, and it allows them to cut waste down to a minimum this way.
However, while the new RTX 3080 offers decent power and the upcoming RTX 3050 has decent specs on paper, the RX 6500 XT… well, doesn’t. To start out with, the RX 6500 XT only has a measly 4GB of GDDR6 VRAM, something that AMD has gone on record as being against in the past. Also, this graphics card only works off of four PCIe lanes verses the 16 that normal GPUs use. In hands-on experience, the RX 6500 XT has decent performance according to PCWorld and AMD’s own in-house testing, but the limitations are glaring.
Now, to answer the question: should the RX 6500 XT even exist? I would venture to say it has its place in the market, but it shouldn’t exist in its current state. AMD could have easily hit a $229 price point with 6GB of RAM or even 8GB of RAM, but 4GB of RAM in 2022? C’mon AMD, you could have done better.
On paper, though, it seems that the RX 6500 XT could be a decent option for gamers on a budget…if you can find one. It has a MSRP of $199, which is honestly a good price for the performance it claims to have. Per AMD’s specs page, you should be able to game at 1080p high settings fairly easily. AMD claims Halo Infinite at 78FPS, Fortnite at 104FPS, Call of Duty: Vanguard at 61FPS, and even Apex Legends at 91FPS on max settings. If those claims hold up in the real world, that puts the RX 6500 XT as a solid contender in the gaming space for budget-focused systems.
Electronicsforward’ Take
While I’m glad that AMD is releasing a low-cost graphics card, I wish that they would have added $30 in cost to bump it up to 6GB. The specs they show honestly don’t look that bad ,though, and only time will tell if the RX 6500 XT will live up to AMD’s hype. The biggest question is: will you even be able to get the 6500 XT at its MSRP of $199?
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