AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT vs AMD Radeon Graphics (Ryzen 7000) vs AMD Radeon 680M

AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT

The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT is a mid range graphics card for desktop PCs. It is using the Navi 24 graphics chip which uses the RDNA 2 architecture and is manufactured in 6nm at TSMC. The 6500XT offers 16 compute units (CUs = 1,024 shaders) and 4 GB GDDR6 dedicated VRAM connected via a 64 Bit interface (143.9 GB/s max).

The performance of the Radeon RX 6500 XT is similar to a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Super, but slower than an older Radeon RX 5500 XT. Therefore, the card is best suited for 1080p and high presets of 2021 games (see below for actual game benchmarks).

The power consumption is rated at 107 Watt (TGP) and therefore similar to a GTX 1650 Super (100 Watt).

AMD Radeon Graphics (Ryzen 7000)

The AMD Radeon Graphics of the Ryzen 7000 desktop CPUs is an integrated graphics card (iGPU) based on the RDNA 2 architecture. It offers only 2 CUs (128 shader) and is similar to the Radeon 610M. The clock speed in most CPUs ranges between 400 to 2200 MHz. Due to the low amount of shaders, the gaming performance is very low and only suited for low demanding games. The GPU also integrates an AMD Video Coding Engine (VCE) for H.264, H.265 10/8bpc encoding and AV1, VP9, H.265, and H.264 10/8bpc decoding.

AMD Radeon 680M

The AMD Radeon 680M is an integrated GPU in the Ryzen 6000 series for laptops (Rembrandt, e.g. Ryzen 9 6980HX). The iGPU is based on the RDNA2 architecture and has 12 CUs (= 768 shaders) clocked at up to 2,400 MHz (depending on the CPU model). The 680M and 660M iGPUs are the first integrated graphics card with hardware raytracing support, although the performance is too slow to use it in current games.

Thanks to the new architecture, high core count and the increased maximum core clock, the Radeon 680M should be clearly faster then the old Radeon Vega 8 iGPUs. Therefore, the 680M should be the fastest integrated graphics card in early 2022. Compared to the dedicated Radeon 5300M (also RDNA), the 680M should still be significantly slower. According to AMD, the Radeon 680M (in the 6800U) is faster than a dedicated Nvidia GeForce MX450 and best suited for 1080p gaming and low details (for AAA games).

Thanks to the modern 6nm process and clever power-saving features, the power consumption is comparatively low (according to AMD), so the graphics card can also be used for slim and light notebooks (depending on the CPU model). The whole Ryzen 6000 chip can be configured down to 15W.