Anyone considering buying the RX 6500 XT from AMD has to live with a few limitations.
The much scolded Radeon RX 6500 XT from AMD did it as expected: For the first time it was available at a price just below the RRP of 209 dollars (see also the picture below), at the time of publication of this article the cheap offer is still there according to the price comparison portal Geizhals exactly at these 209 dollars.
When it was released in mid-January, the 6500 XT with costs above 300 dollars was still clearly too expensive, as most agreed. But how much does the situation change as a result of the now significantly lower price?
In our estimation, the RX 6500 XT is only now slowly entering regions where we would consider buying it under certain conditions. However, there are some important limitations.
A rare sight: A graphics card that is available at a price below the RRP (here using the Powercolor Radeon RX 6500 XT Fighter as an example).
The level of performance matters
As always when buying a graphics card, the first thing that matters is how much power is currently available to you (see also the article Graphics card too old or too weak? 5 signs that clearly speak for a change
). For a rough classification, you will find an overview of different performance classes with all relevant current and old GPUs in the following article:
How good is my graphics card?
Over 50 graphics cards in performance comparison
Since the RX 6500 XT, as can be seen in the overview, offers a manageable amount of entry-level performance, it will not be a sensible option for many players from the outset.
More specifically, it’s only worth thinking about buying the RX 6500 XT if you’re one of the lower-end models Low-End
has an even older or slower GPU that does not appear there. This also includes the graphics units integrated into the processors, which can definitely be an option as a cheap minimal solution for gaming.
Play with restrictions
If the RX 6500 XT is basically an option for you because you only have a clearly slower graphics card or no gaming PC at all, you have to be aware when you buy it that you generally have a rather low level of performance and the comparatively small amount of memory may be forced to lower the detail level and resolution in games for sufficiently high frame rates.
There are quite a few games that can be played smoothly with the 4.0 GB of the RX 6500 XT in Full HD resolution. However, this often no longer applies to current titles with a chic look. The limitation to a maximum of four PCI Express lanes makes matters worse. This can be an additional stumbling block, especially when upgrading from older PCs that only support PCI Express version 3.0.
The RX 6500 XT has two special features when it comes to memory equipment, which are more or less important depending on memory requirements and graphics settings in games.
You can buy the graphics card here
Used graphics cards as an alternative
If it doesn’t necessarily have to be new, used graphics cards of the RX 6500 XT are now making life much more difficult than they were when they were released in January 2022.
At that time, for example, the similarly fast GTX 1060 with 2.0 GB VRAM more from 2016 that can be seen below changed hands on Ebay for around 280 dollars. It is now available for around 140 to 180 dollars and is therefore in some cases significantly cheaper than the RX 6500 XT.
The GTX 1060 has been the most used graphics card in Steam’s hardware survey for ages, and it’s still a popular choice on the used market.
Even if you can always have bad luck on Ebay and Co, in our opinion there is nothing fundamentally wrong with buying a used graphics card. If you want to save a little more money and play in Full HD at most, you will also find sensible alternatives to the RX 6500 XT here.
Our conclusion: Is the RX 6500 XT worth it? Despite all the limitations, you can be quite happy with the RX 6500 XT if you play rather frugal titles and have no problem reducing graphic details. However, due to their technical limitations, we cannot make a clear recommendation for them even at the current price in the RRP range.
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