The 6500XT Is Out.... It's Pretty Embarassing

[JUNI0R]

Well, as the title says, the 6500XT is out and it's pretty embarassing. A GPU releasing in 2022 with 4GB of VRAM is insane. PCIe Gen 4 performance is worse than a 1650 Super and on average it spits out almost half the amount of frames of a 6600. Oh boy. I realise this is a card to attempt to alleviate the stress on the GPU market but unless it stays at MSRP 😬 I guess we wait to see if NVIDIA can do any better with the 3050.

 

[Steveyg]

I knew it would be bad but why did they waste money on this

 

[humourme2]

I plan to wait for the 3050 vs A380 (Intel Alchemist) showdown. One of them might be suitable for me. I'd hoped the RX 6500 XT would also be a contender, however, cutting memory and bandwidth seems to be a strategic error (I think they may have got away with just cutting memory by a couple of GB but the bandwidth seems particularly questionable).

 

[TonyCarter]

Will these work in SLI

 

[DarTon]

I knew it would be bad but why did they waste money on this

They didn't. Other than gigantic CDNA2 chip in the Radeon Instinct MI250X line, this is their only other product on TSMC's N6 geometry process node. On the CDNA2 they have massive margins to play with but with a consumer product they don't. Defect rates are still very high on N6 so by producing larger number's of smaller dies, AMD can just throw away the one affected die and keep the rest. It's the only way to keep their margins intact.

This is helping AMD prepare the way for other N6 products. Are you saying you don't like paying to be their guinea pig?

 

[SpyderTracks]

I've just been looking through reviews of this, thanks for the links @JUNI0R

I'm just dumbfounded at the general market, re releasing old cards, and now this.

I realise there's a global shortage, but it just puts such a bad view on things, especially for those who just don't have the budget for a $500 3060.

Very sad.

Not only is the performance bad, but for a card aimed to fit the entry level gamers, apparently there just are none available to buy anyway. So it begs the question, what is actually going on here?

I'm a bit broken hearted, I expected more from AMD.

 

[barlew]

I've just been looking through reviews of this, thanks for the links @JUNI0R

I'm just dumbfounded at the general market, re releasing old cards, and now this.

I realise there's a global shortage, but it just puts such a bad view on things, especially for those who just don't have the budget for a $500 3060.

Very sad.

Not only is the performance bad, but for a card aimed to fit the entry level gamers, apparently there just are none available to buy anyway. So it begs the question, what is actually going on here?

I'm a bit broken hearted, I expected more from AMD.

The thing that puzzles me the most about this whole situation is over the last 18 months Nvidia have really not shown themselves in the best light. It has been blatently obvious that they see the profit in shipping cards in bulk to crypto miners At this point all AMD had to do was release a half decent, mid range, affordable card and they would be winning. Instead they take a step back in time and charge silly prices.

 

[SpyderTracks]

The thing that puzzles me the most about this whole situation is over the last 18 months Nvidia have really not shown themselves in the best light. It has been blatently obvious that they see the profit in shipping cards in bulk to crypto miners At this point all AMD had to do was release a half decent, mid range, affordable card and they would be winning. Instead they take a step back in time and charge silly prices.

Absolutely, I really don't know what they're playing at, this is only going to swing the pendulum further into nVidia's side, especially since the bulk of the market is lower end GPU's with the GTX 1060 being the most popular card still as of December last year on Steams Hardware Survey.

 

[barlew]

Absolutely, I really don't know what they're playing at, this is only going to swing the pendulum further into nVidia's side, especially since the bulk of the market is lower end GPU's with the GTX 1060 being the most popular card still as of December last year on Steams Hardware Survey.

I wont lie my backup laptop has a bog standard 1650 in it and it is absolutely fantastic for the money I paid for it.
Like you have said a couple of times I cannot fathom what AMD's strategy is here.

 

[DarTon]

The thing that puzzles me the most about this whole situation is over the last 18 months Nvidia have really not shown themselves in the best light. It has been blatently obvious that they see the profit in shipping cards in bulk to crypto miners At this point all AMD had to do was release a half decent, mid range, affordable card and they would be winning. Instead they take a step back in time and charge silly prices.

I think you're not seeing this from AMD's perspective. It's not about what they want to release. They are not saying "what shall we release to fufill consumer demand and take market share from Nvidia". They are saying "what access can we get on the various TSMC process nodes and given that access, what can we design within that capacity to maximize profits". It's not at all demand driven. It's totally supply driven. Plus it doesn't matter whether the GPU is great or stinks since they willl sell every last one of them.

AMD is paying a price here for some of their decisions. In 2008 they decided to go fabless and spin off that into GlobalFoundries. In 2012 they sold their final 12% stake in GlobalFoundries, and lost all influence over it. GlobalFoundries decided to refocus away from leading edge wafer to more specialized process nodes. In 2019, AMD renegotiated their wafer supply agreement with GlobalFoundries to buy only 12nm+ processes. This was because AMD wanted have full flexibility to purchases from any foundry at 7 nm or below. Oops. That was bad timing.

 

[barlew]

I think you're not seeing this from AMD's perspective. It's not about what they want to release. They are not saying "what shall we release to fufill consumer demand and take market share from Nvidia". They are saying "what access can we get on the various TSMC process nodes and given that access, what can we design within that capacity to maximize profits". It's not at all demand driven. It's totally supply driven. Plus it doesn't matter whether the GPU is great or stinks since they willl sell every last one of them.

AMD is paying a price here for some of their decisions. In 2008 they decided to go fabless and spin off that into GlobalFoundries. In 2012 they sold their final 12% stake in GlobalFoundries, and lost all influence over it. GlobalFoundries decided to refocus away from leading edge wafer to more specialized process nodes. In 2019, AMD renegotiated their wafer supply agreement with GlobalFoundries to buy only 12nm+ processes. This was because AMD wanted have full flexibility to purchases from any foundry at 7 nm or below. Oops. That was bad timing.

But will they really sell all of these cards? For the price point I find that really hard to believe. Whilst I fully appreciate it is a sellers market that card is so bad especially when running in PCIE 3 that its pretty much pointless buying one. No one in their right minds would buy one for a PCIE 4 system.

I know both nvidia and AMD are just putting out any old junk that they can ship to market but this is still worse than anything I would have expected.

 

[SpyderTracks]

But will they really sell all of these cards? For the price point I find that really hard to believe. Whilst I fully appreciate it is a sellers market that card is so bad especially when running in PCIE 3 that its pretty much pointless buying one. No one in their right minds would buy one for a PCIE 4 system.

I know both nvidia and AMD are just putting out any old junk that they can ship to market but this is still worse than anything I would have expected.

Unfortunately, a portion of the entry level market are very unaware of how to research performance to validated a good product.

So price point is what makes the sales, largely regardless of performance. And AMD and NVidia well know this.

You can bet your bottom dollar, there will be a tonne of Amazon pre builts and other questionable markets that will list these as "240 FPS in fortnite". And it will work.

But that aside, there's no way this card is gonna sell anywhere near MSRP, it's still gonna be massively inflated.

 

[JUNI0R]

Unfortunately, a portion of the entry level market are very unaware of how to research performance to validated a good product.

So price point is what makes the sales, largely regardless of performance. And AMD and NVidia well know this.

You can bet your bottom dollar, there will be a tonne of Amazon pre builts and other questionable markets that will list these as "240 FPS in fortnite". And it will work.

But that aside, there's no way this card is gonna sell anywhere near MSRP, it's still gonna be massively inflated.

It's already 20% over at some retailers and it's only been out for just more than 24 hours. Insane for such a bad card. I'd personally save up a bit extra and get a 6600

 

[CMP01]

Yep, major misstep from AMD, this one. And it's likely to be more telling as a one off in AMD's current course against plenty more foul ups from Nvidia (not that it'll hurt 'em, they've made that bank and held that share) That's just the way this contest and consumer perception is (unfortunately, still) skewed. This is sad and I have no inkling as to the thought process behind it. It may be this gens bottom end but a good, clear win here could've done much for AMD. Now this'll be the card (and company) that disappoint and make wary many lower info/prebuild buyers, and that's the kind of rep that AMD have fought like demons to dispel in the last few years.

 

[barlew]

that's the kind of rep that AMD have fought like demons to dispel in the last few years.

You have hit the nail on the head here and this too me is the most puzzling thing about where AMD are at now. They recognised their products were not competitive and their reputation wasn't great.

Since then they have just been on this drive to turn their products around and set themselves apart from nvidia through sheer innovation. Then they release an overpriced laptop GPU for the desktop it's mind boggling. If they had released a well priced competitor to the 1650 super or the 1660 super then the Internet would be imploding with praise for AMD right now.

 

[Alltruism]

As AMD said in 2020 - "Competitive products at a similar entry level price-point are offering up to a maximum of 4GB of VRAM, which is evidently not enough for today's games"

AMD's RX 6500 XT falls foul of its own anti-4GB GPU marketing

"Competitive products at a similar entry level price-point are offering up to a maximum of 4GB of VRAM, which is evidently not enough for today's games."

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Steveyg]

As AMD said in 2020 - "Competitive products at a similar entry level price-point are offering up to a maximum of 4GB of VRAM, which is evidently not enough for today's games"

AMD's RX 6500 XT falls foul of its own anti-4GB GPU marketing

"Competitive products at a similar entry level price-point are offering up to a maximum of 4GB of VRAM, which is evidently not enough for today's games."

www.pcgamer.com

Not the first time they've done this by the way, criticising the market then later doing that same thing and remove/ignoring their previous statements. I'll see if I can dig it out but they done it a few years ago too

 

[SpyderTracks]

Not the first time they've done this by the way, criticising the market then later doing that same thing and remove/ignoring their previous statements. I'll see if I can dig it out but they done it a few years ago too

This does we more related to their GPU division though, certainly since Ryzen came along.

 

[CMP01]

You have hit the nail on the head here and this too me is the most puzzling thing about where AMD are at now. They recognised their products were not competitive and their reputation wasn't great.

Since then they have just been on this drive to turn their products around and set themselves apart from nvidia through sheer innovation. Then they release an overpriced laptop GPU for the desktop it's mind boggling. If they had released a well priced competitor to the 1650 super or the 1660 super then the Internet would be imploding with praise for AMD right now.

True. I've been seeing a lot of praise the last couple of days for the now comparatively ancient RX 580, which still punches well and has a legion of fans. Tbh all AMD had to do (and I hate to make it sound easy but with RDNA2's potential it wouldn't have been hard) was push out a modern equivalent and they'd be winning the low end instead of conceding ground to varying degrees against Nvidia's 6500XT-6600XT peers. At that level the RT advantage diminishes where DLSS isn't supported and it's more a question of straight power. While I don't think much of Nvidia's increasingly overloaded and overlapping stack, AMD could've squeezed a 6700 non XT in there nicely while positioning the 6600/XT better in price and specs and not bothering with lower models. Sure, current ongoing circumstances and all make anything pricier than should be but AMD imo had a great potential to clean up down there and make fans and market share without sacrificing much. Instead we have a pariah card that'd be a poor deal even at MSRP. It's not even a dick move, just an incredibly poor one.