It’s really easy to get excited with the higher-end video cards and get hung up in trying to keep up with others to have the flashiest or fastest PCs. But the reality is even in the latest Steam hardware survey that 58% of stem users are running a resolution of 1080p and another 8% of users running below that. With that in mind, there are a LOT of people who don’t need the latest and greatest but may still need an upgrade to keep up with current games at 1080p. Well, there are a few cards targeted at that market, the Radeon RX 6500 XT and Nvidia RTX 3050. Nvidia even leaned into this with a new 6GB model earlier this year. Well, today I’m going to check out both the Radeon RX 6500 XT 8GB and also compare it with the RTX 3050 6GB which is in the same budget price range, and see how they perform. Which would be a good pickup when doing a budget build, let’s find out.
Product Name: PowerColor RX 6500 XT Fighter 8GB
Review Sample Provided by: AMD
Written by: Wes Compton
Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE
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Specifications |
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Graphics Engine |
AXRX 6500 XT 8GBD6-DH/OC |
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Video Memory |
8GB GDDR6 |
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Stream Processor |
1024 Units |
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Engine Clock(OC) |
up to 2685MHz(Game)¹ up to 2825MHz(Boost)² |
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Memory Speed |
18.0 Gbps |
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Memory Interface |
64-bit |
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DirectX® Support |
12 |
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Bus Standard |
PCIE 4.0 x4 |
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Standard Display Connectors |
1 x HDMI 2.1 , 1 x DisplayPort 1.4 |
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OpenGL |
Support |
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CrossFireX™ Technology |
Support (DirectX® 12/Vulkan™) |
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AMD Stream Technology |
Support |
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AMD Eyefinity Technology |
Support |
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Maximum Resolution |
VGA DVI DisplayPort 7680×4320 HDMI 7680×4320 |
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Power Specs + Board Dimensions |
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Board Dimensions |
180*111*40mm 192*126*41mm(with bracket) |
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Minimum System Power requirement (W) |
450W |
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Extension Power Connector |
One 8-pin PCI Express Power Connector |
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Warranty |
2 Years |
Before getting into testing I did also run GPUz to double-check that our clock speeds matched up with the specifications. The PowerColor RX 6500 XT Fighter 8GB has a boost clock speed of 2825 MHz which is a hair above the reference boost clock speed of 2815 MHz and the 2825 MHz clock speed in GPUz matches PowerColor’s specifications as well.
