Gigabyte Radeon RX 6500 XT gaming OC 4G graphics card review

Is Gigabyte Radeon RX 6500 XT good for gaming? When paired with an AMD Ryzen Series desktop processor, AMD Smart Access Memory technology offers new levels of gaming performance. Get the ultimate gaming experience with powerful new compute units, and up to 4GB of dedicated GDDR6 memory. GIGABYTE AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT GAMING OC 4G graphics card delivers high frame rates. Discover more inGigabyte Radeon RX 6500 XT gaming OC 4G graphics card review.

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Pros & Cons

Pros

Good cooling system
Modern games run at 1080p/60FPS
Uses the new AMD RDNA 2 Architecture
Performance tier isn’t attractive to cryptocurrency miners

Cons

Not enough VRAM
No H.264/265 encoding
Weak 4GB capacity

Specs – Gigabyte Radeon RX 6500 XT gaming OC 4G graphics card

Graphics Processing: Radeon™ RX 6500 XT
Stream Processors: 1024
Process Technology: 6 nm
Core Clock: Boost Clock* : up to 2825 MHz (Reference card: 2815 MHz)
Game Clock*: up to 2685 MHz (Reference card: 2610 MHz)
Memory Type: GDDR6
Memory Bus: 64 bit
Memory Clock: 18000 MHz
Memory Size: 4 GB
Digital max resolution: 7680×4320
Multi-view: 2
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec): 144 GB/s
Card Bus: PCI-E 4.0
AMD RDNA 2 Architecture
Card size: L=282 W=114 H=40 mm
PCB Form: ATX
DirectX: 12 Ultimate
OpenGL: 4.6
Recommended PSU: 400W
Power Connectors: 6 pin*1
Output: DisplayPort 1.4a *1, HDMI 2.1 *1
Radeon FreeSync Technology
Premium Quality Backplate
Triple Fan Cooler

Price

This is the first budget graphics card of the latest generation from either AMD or Nvidia, and as such a new $199 GPU ought to be cause for celebration, but that price will be ephemeral at best, and as a modern graphics card it looks like pretty weak sauce.

Compare Gigabyte Radeon RX 6500 XT gaming OC 4G graphics card

	AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT	AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT	AMD Radeon RX 480
Release date	January 2022	December 2019	June 2016
Shader Cores	1024 RDNA 2	1408 RDNA	2304 GCN
ROPs	32	32	32
Texture Units	64	88	144
Memory	4GB GDDR6	4GB GDDR6	4GB GDDR5
Memory bus	64-bit	128-bit	256-bit
Memory bandwidth	144 GB/s	224 GB/s	224 GB/s
Processing power	5.77 TFLOPS	5.20 TFLOPS	5.83 TFLOPS
Board power	107W	130W	150W
Price	$199	$169	$199

Design

The dual-slot, dual-fan Gigabyte RX 6500 XT is just 7.56 inches long, which is just fine for both builders and upgraders of compact PCs, as well as owners of standard-size rigs.

Connector

On the port selection for the RX 6500 XT we tested, the back of our Gigabyte card is as stripped-down as two-slot cards come, with just a single DisplayPort 1.4b output and one HDMI 2.1 port. As for power delivery, the Gigabyte card requires a single six-pin lead from the power supply.

It’s running on a x4 PCIe 4.0 interface. That x4 connection is the equivalent of a x8 PCIe 3.0 slot, which is more than enough bandwidth for 1080p gaming.

Frame rate

Gigabyte Radeon RX 6500 XT GAMING OC 4G is still a GPU that can hit 1080p/60 FPS but with users having to play around with graphical settings in games. You certainly won’t be able to run every single game on Ultra, and more graphically demanding video games, such as Watch Dogs Legion and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, will have to take a visual quality hit for you to maintain an acceptable framerate.

In CS:GO, it’s faster than 240fps at 1440p; that is plenty fast enough for that game, since 240Hz is the current limit for monitors at that resolution, barring some upcoming 360Hz 1440p models announced at CES 2022.

Cache

The Infinity Cache feature of the RDNA 2 design also allows AMD to use a 64-bit memory interface to go along with its 16MB of magic cache memory. That means you get an effective bandwidth of 231.6GB/s from the paltry 4GB of GDDR6 VRAM onboard the RX 6500 XT.

Temperature

The RX 6500 XT did a great job of remaining cool and Gigabyte’s triple fan system kept temperatures rather chill at around the 57 degree mark throughout our testing. This may however vary for users slightly depending on their PC chassis, ambient temperatures and cooling setup.

Power consumption

The model we tested runs at just 107 watts, while certain OC options will push that to 120 watts. Unfortunately, we’ve also entered a bit of a “tulip mania” situation, in which the mere hint of a new GPU on the market may mean hardware scalpers are poised to fire up their bots, forcing most buyers to resort to second-or-third-party market shopping sources and their untold (many will say, unholy) markups.

Overclocking

With modern games, and their high-res textures and broad, open worlds, that 4GB limit comes into play more often than you might think. And when a game has to dip into the slower system memory it doesn’t matter that your GPU itself is running at 2.6GHz—or 2.8GHz as this Gigabyte card is regularly doing—your frame rates are going to suffer.

Alternate of Gigabyte Radeon RX 6500 XT gaming OC 4G graphics card

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080

PROS

Fast and fluid 4K gaming
Attractive new design
HDMI 2.1 support
Improved ray tracing and DLSS performance

CONS

Needs awkward adapter
Requires more power

The RTX 3080 is best suited for the 4K gamer who doesn’t want to compromise. It outpaces last gen’s RTX 2080 Ti by a significant margin while launching at about half of the price. It can maintain above 60 frames per second for 4K gaming in titles like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, offering smooth gameplay in even the most demanding games.

Although almost half the price of the 3090, Nvidia’s 3080 delivers near-comparable performance at 4K. Gamers with a 4K display who want to play the latest AAA games at high frame rates.

Its features shouldn’t go unnoticed, either. This Nvidia graphics card comes packed with the latest ray-tracing cores for accurate gaming lighting, and you can leverage the Tensor cores for dynamic upscaling through Nvidia Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). The RTX 3080 offers enough performance to warrant a purchase, and these two features push it over the edge.