AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT in review: AMD's new Navi-based entry-level graphics card

It's hard to imagine AMD's current lineup without its RDNA2 architecture. But at the beginning, the high-end and mid-range range were served first. Up until the beginning of the year, there was nothing comparable to the current architecture in the entry-level models. However, this should finally change with the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT. AMD doesn't offer this model as a reference model, though. Instead, this model is only distributed by the established board partners. We used the model from Sapphire for our review.

However, all available models have to make do with only 4 GB of video memory. There's no 8 GB version. This was different in the days of the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT. Perhaps AMD simply wanted to make this model less attractive for miners, as they prefer graphics cards with a minimum of 6 GB of video memory. The Navi 24 chip is much smaller than the Navi 23 chip in the AMD Radeon RX 6600. In addition, the memory interface has been significantly trimmed. The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT only has a width of 64 bits, which represents half the width of the predecessor model. The PCIe interface of x4 has also been cut in half. We'll discuss further whether these cutbacks were the right decision later on when looking at the individual benchmarks.

The Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 6500 XT comes in the classic 2-slot design, making it comparable to the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 6600. We've gathered more details regarding the GPU and its features here. Nevertheless, there are noticeable differences that can be seen in the external ports. The Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 6500 XT only offers 1x DisplayPort (1.4a) and 1x HDMI (2.1). This definitely allows two monitors to be operated, but users who need more will have to switch to another model. The graphics card still requires a 6-pin power connector to run, though. According to Sapphire, the card is rated at 130 watts.