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By Mark Tyson published 25 July 22
More VRAM, but at what price?
Sapphire surprised us by announcing a new Radeon RX 6500 XT configuration with 8GB of memory. The formerly entry-level graphics card now comes with double the original model’s 4GB quota. Nothing else has materially changed, the GPU and memory performance specs are the basically same, but we expect to see a price bump with the additional VRAM. The RX 6500 XT does claim a spot among the best graphics cards, mostly thanks to its budget pricing, but we'd much rather have a faster GPU for a bit more money. The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT had a tough time when it was launched, as it was quite widely dismissed as underpowered and under-featured. However, it seems like both Intel and Nvidia have sought to make it look like a champ by releasing competing graphics cards like the Arc A380 and RTX 1630 in the interim period. AMD’s own Radeon RX 6400 also makes the RX 6500 XT seem like quite a muscular offering. When we tested the RX 6500 XT, memory capacity wasn't our primary concern. We noted that the specs and features had been cut too far from the RX 6600 and above. There were indeed concerns with the memory configuration, but it was more the 64-bit bus, not just the 4GB. There were further concerns with using a PCIe x4 connection — not terrible with PCIe 4.0, but a particular problem on older gen systems with slower PCIe standards — plus the limited display connectivity (one HDMI and on DisplayPort), and finally the complete lack of hardware video encoding support. In brief, no one was asking for more VRAM, except maybe Sapphire's marketing dept.
Above you can see exactly what Sapphire has changed for its Pulse RX 6500 XT model. The GPU max boost clock speed is technically 1% faster, but that could reasonably be described as negligible. Most people would you play modern AAA games on the 6500 XT with low-ish settings due to the entry-level GPU, which also lowers the VRAM requirements. The larger memory capacity can help in some games with certain settings (like texture and shadow resolution), but the GPU computational power and memory bandwidth will quickly become the bottleneck. Sapphire tweeted (opens in new tab) that the new Pulse Radeon RX 6500 XT 8GB is on shelves now. We haven't been able to find one for sale, which means we don't have a price yet. That will be a critical factor, considering the RX 6500 XT 4GB starts at $189 (opens in new tab) , while the substantially faster RX 6600 8GB starts at $279 (opens in new tab) , and the lowest price on a Sapphire RX 6500 XT 4GB is $199 (opens in new tab) . For reference, in our GPU benchmarks, the RX 6600 was 80% faster than the RX 6500 XT at 1080p medium and over twice as fast at 1080p ultra, making it a far more capable GPU overall. That's because it has 75% more GPU cores and double the memory interface width, which are both important for real-world gaming performance. It also has an x8 PCIe interface, supports up to four monitors, and includes full hardware video encoding support.
Mark Tyson is a Freelance News Writer at Tom's Hardware US. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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