After the presentation and the imminent arrival on the market of the RX 6500 XT everything looks rosy for users who don’t want to jump through the hoops of speculation or don’t have enough money to buy a superior model. The fact is that new reports cite a possible problem with this GPU that we had already seen in the RX 5500 XT at the time. Is PCIe 3.0 insufficient for this new model?
In just two days we will have the first analyzes of this new GPU under our belt, data and more data to analyze on what AMD means by low end in this 2022 and therefore a series of cards that will arrive at ” affordable prices”. The problem is that they will launch with a PCIe 4.0 bus physically limited to x4 and the data, although collected and completed (not allowed to show by signed NDA) seems to show a previous problem and that it will be repeated.
Bus limitation and performance on the RX 6500 XT PCIe x4
We’re assuming that we know the speeds of PCIe 4.0 and 3.0 in their various versions based on their lanes, so really one x4 in the most recent version is equivalent to eight lanes of its predecessor in terms of available bandwidth.
But what about users who want to upgrade their GPU and only have PCIe 3.0 with four lanes under their belt (x4)? Well, if we extrapolate the given data and compare it, we will see that we have a serious problem which, with the RX 6500 XT, will result in a Worrying drop in performance.
Considering that the RX 5500 XT came in a version with 4 GB of VRAM and 8 GB, it is obvious that the PCIe 3.0 x4 is not enough to timely transfer data from the CPU and system RAM to the VRAM of said GPU. The 8 GB version therefore takes advantage of this by giving the bus more time to exchange information while it is stored in its memory.
Can the 16 MB Infinity Cache remedy this?
It seems like it could be, at least in part, to take into account that the RX 6500 XT has 64 bit bus and only gives 144 GB/s
Although there are rumors that AMD will launch new versions of said RX 6000 with this VRAM speed (scared of Intel?) the truth is that the 16 MB of Infinity Cache they will be decisive in PCs with less available bandwidth for their PCIe. The problem is, as we saw at the time with the RX 5500 XT (tested under 3.0 x16), there were significant differences between 4GB and 8GB, where our conclusion was to choose and recommend the model with the largest VRAM size.
The RX 6500 XT with PCIe 4.0 x4 won’t arrive, barring a last-minute surprise, with 8GB versions, encouraging veteran PC users to make the jump to a newer platform if they don’t want to. not lose performance nothing else to punch the board and after exiting more than 300$ in minor of the 6000 series of the red team. Legitimate? Everyone will have their opinion, especially seeing what they have to play as a basis.
