Sapphire Radeon RX 6500 XT

Budget Navi Grafikkarte! Nach und nach erweitert AMD sein Navi-Line-up und bedient auch die Kunden mit dem kleineren Geldbeutel, wenn es um aktuelle RDNA2-Grafikkarten geht. Mit der AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT gibt es eine sparsame 1080p-Gaming-Grafikkarte. Mit deutlichen Einschränkungen bei den technischen Daten hat AMD aber den Rotstift deutlich angesetzt. Wir schauen uns genauer an, was dennoch an Leistung erwartet werden kann.

Shipping delays and issues hit us hard over the last few weeks. The biggest one was our RX 6500 XT launch sample which ended up hung up and delayed in shipping. So I am way late to the party when it comes to checking out how the RX 6500 XT performs. Today I finally get the chance and I’m checking out the Pulse from Sapphire. I know there was drama around this launch (frankly what GPU launched for the last few years hasn’t lol) but I am excited to see how AMD's latest GPU performs and how Sapphire card does at keeping things cool and quiet. So let’s jump in and check it out!

AMD has launched the Radeon RX 6500 XT yesterday, which was announced at CES just a few days ago. The RX 6500 XT is the world's first graphics card using a 6 nanometer GPU. While going from 7 nm to 6 nm doesn't sound like much, it brings with it improvements to power efficiency and allows higher operating frequencies, and an 18% transistor density gain. Starting production with a new silicon node is always a challenging task, and initial defect rates are high. That's why it makes perfect sense for AMD to release entry-level designs first, as these use a physically small silicon die. The bigger a chip, the higher the chance that a defect makes it onto that one chip. If producing multiple smaller dies, you'd just throw away the one affected die and keep the rest. That's also part of the reason why everyone is so excited about the chiplet approach that brought tremendous success to AMD'S Ryzen processor line.

I’ve been a long-time fan of Sapphire cards, and when I buy AMD GPUs, it’s actually always been a Sapphire card. Actually, I’ve been buying Sapphire cards for so long, I’ve had a Sapphire Nvidia 8800 GT, 6770, 700, 800, 480, and a 580 Ti and maybe more inbetween. Why? Generally because they often have great cards at close to the MSRP. They’ve always had nice cooler design and I’ve found them to be pretty reliable too. Thankfully, I think all that holds true of the new 6500 XT. Being a part of the Pulse series, it even looks like two of the cards I’ve previously used, and they’ve changed the overall design about as much as you would expect from a “new” Porche 911.