In-Game Benchmarks

Now we finally get into the in game performance and that is the main reason people pick up a new video card. To test things out I ran through our new benchmark suite that tests 10 games at three different resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and 4k). Most of the games tested have been run at the highest detail setting and a mid-range detail setting to get a look at how turning things up hurts performance and to give an idea of if turning detail down from max will be beneficial for frame rates. In total, each video card is tested 54 times and that makes for a huge mess of results when you put them all together. To help with that I like to start with these overall playability graphs that take all of the results and give an easier to read result. I have one for each of the three resolutions and each is broken up into four FPS ranges. Under 30 FPS is considered unplayable, over 30 is playable but not ideal, over 60 is the sweet spot, and then over 120 FPS is for high refresh rate monitors.

So how did the Pulse 6500 XT do? So let’s start at the higher resolutions. The 6500 XT is designed for 1080p gaming and with the PCI 4.0 x4 interface it’s a much harder limit than we have seen on past cards. You can see that when we see the 4K resolution results where almost every one of our results is in the unplayable range. You need to avoid 4K like the plague with the 6500 XT except for CS:GO which is our one over 60 FPS result. For comparison, the 3050 had 1 120+, 11 30+ fps results, and 7 under 30. At 1440p the Pulse 6500 XT can handle a little better. All but three results were playable and we have 1 up over 120 FPS and 3 over 60. But as a whole, it still isn’t ideal with most results in that 30-59 FPS range. But when we get into the 1080p the Pulse 6500 XT’s performance improves a lot. Every result is at least playable with 8 in the 30-59 FPS range. But then more than half are at 60 or above with two up over 120 FPS and 7 over 60. With a lot of cards, the line to what it can and can’t handle is a little blurry when it comes to resolutions. But for the Pulse 6500 XT it is a hard line, 1080p = good, anything higher = bad.

 

 

 

Of course, I have all of the actual in game results as well for anyone who wants to sort through the wall of graphs below. What I was mostly focused on was how the Pulse 6500 XT would compare between the RTX 3050, RX 5500 XT, and the older GTX 1650. To check that out I did put all of the numbers together and averaged them out. What we can see is that at 1080p the 6500 XT and the older 5500 XT are similar in performance, the 3050 is up in its own classification though. But what is interesting is that at 1440p and 4K the 5500 XT is much faster. This might be the first time that I’ve seen a next generation of a card dropped in performance like that. Neither card is ideal for 4k and 1440p, but it's clear that the 5500 XT is a lot more flexible when it comes to that due to the PCI bandwidth limitations of the 6500 XT.

	1080p	1440p	4K
GTX 1650	75.67	48.07	24.28
RX 6500 XT	85.47	55.34	25.52
RX 5500 XT	85.64	59.43	31.17
RTX 3050	99.56	68.99	36.98