Overall and Final Verdict
Like I said at the beginning, the budget-friendly cards may not be flashy or even exciting. These are however the meat and potatoes of the GPU market. Still to this day, a majority of users are gaming at 1080p or sometimes even lower and a big expensive video card isn’t going to be the right purchase if that is the resolution that you are playing at. AMD and Nvidia do have cards focused on high refresh gaming at 1080p as well and this isn’t the target for the PowerColor RX 6500 XT Fighter 8GB tested here as well. What we saw for performance was a card capable of playing anything you throw at it at 1080p with a few of those games maybe needing the detail dropped down just slightly to get that smooth 60+ frame rate. What was surprising however is how the additional VRAM changed performance even when comparing performance with the overclocked 6500 XT 4GB at 1080p. It was a bigger difference than expected but only in some games and mostly at the highest detail settings. The competing RTX 3050 6GB came in behind the PowerColor RX 6500 XT Fighter 8GB at 1080p. At the highest resolutions the 3050 did jump ahead, but those were resolutions and frame rates you wouldn’t be playing on either card. In the end, the 6500 XT 8GB was notably better for raster performance but like we saw in the higher-end cards the 3050 6GB was still better when new technology like ray tracing was introduced in tests like 3Dmark Speed Way and Port Royal.
As for the PowerColor RX 6500 XT Fighter 8GB itself, I was surprised with the overall card design. It is of course compact and barebones. But PowerColor went fully barebones when it came to styling with the blacked out all flat fan shroud design. On the other end of the spectrum though the card still has a metal backplate which a lot of budget cards don’t get at all or sometimes get a plastic backplate that transmits no heat. They even went as far as to paint the PCI bracket black to match proving that we should be seeing that even more on higher-end cards if cheaper cards can get the feature. My only complaints would be the need for at least one more display connection. You get one HDMI and one DisplayPort which covers what you should need, but it is nice to get two matching connection types and open up the possibility of hooking up three displays for those who might need it. I would also love to see in future cards focused on this performance/resolution to get an option that doesn’t have a PCIe power connection at all. The RTX 3050 6GB doesn’t have one due to it being more power efficient and it opens it up to being able to use it as an upgrade for a cheap prebuilt without having to worry about having the power connections needed to power the GPU.
For pricing the PowerColor RX 6500 XT Fighter 8GB is available both at Newegg and Amazon for $179.99. The RTX 3050 6GB from Nvidia can be found at that same price but seems to favor being a little higher for a lot of the models. Considering the overall value it is going to depend on what games you are looking to play because for some people the significantly cheaper 6500 XT 4GB is going to be the best deal with at least one model selling for $139.99. There is a noticeable performance difference at 1080p in some games with the additional VRAM for the 8GB model even with our 4GB model being overclocked and this one not being overclocked. When averaged across all of the games this was a 10 FPS difference but that doesn't tell the whole story. In some games, they perform almost exactly the same but in games like Ghost Recon, Far Cry 6, and Watch Dogs: Legion the 4GB model was under 60 FPS and the 8GB model was 20 FPS higher or more. There were other examples where they were both under 60 FPS and both over 60 FPS as well. Because of that, the 6500 XT 8GB feels like the floor on what I would recommend for 1080p gaming. Of course, looking above the 6500 XT 8GB there are closely priced options like AMDs RX 6600 as well which most run $199 but there is one model at Newegg selling for $189 and is a great way to get a performance bump for just little more. You then have the 6650 XT for $219 and then you get into the RX 7600 and RTX 3060 range. Those are still going to get you a huge jump in performance if you have the budget. Overall there are a few options that open up the possibility of building a budget PC again.
Live Pricing: HERE
