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With the new budget AMD gaming card releasing today, it’s time to get down and dirty with the launch, finding those select few retailers that might actually have it in stock.
The RX 6500 XT is one of the many graphics cards that AMD intends on releasing in 2022, with around 18 or more on the way through the year in all shapes and performances. AMD is positioning this one to be the general upgrade for those who don’t need more than 1080p or don’t really have it in the budget to go all out, as the dominant percentage of people through Steam surveys are currently using the GTX 1060, NVIDIA’s budget gaming card released back in 2016.
How much will the 6500 XT be?
With the rise in prices across the board, it appears that this ‘budget card’ might be more costly than intended, with some retailers listing it at 100% more over the RRP. However, AMD is selling them directly – if you can get there in time. The card should retail for $199, but some retailers will have it listed for $430.
Shortages are to be expected as well, with the ongoing chip shortage during the pandemic having no realistic end in sight – Intel suspects it to last way into 2023 – and the crypto boom still carrying on as well, along with panicked gaming enthusiasts looking to finally upgrade within their price range, it’s an all-out fight to get hold of the graphics card you might need.
The RX 6500 XT is going to be compatible with their FSR technology, which allows players to run their games at lower resolutions and then algorithmically upscale them to support games that might not traditionally run at certain resolutions. While you won’t see 60FPS in Far Cry 6 at 4K, Ultra, you could see 60FPS at High, around 1080p on the hardware it wasn’t originally intended for.
As AMD has updated their Adrenaline software to support any RDNA card running a game at fullscreen, this incorporates RSR, or Radeon Super Resolution. This allows the algorithms behind the scenes to upscale any game without FSR needing to be implemented, bringing a boost to the 6500 XT regardless of what game you intend to play. While FSR will have more bespoke handling when it is implemented, this allows AMD to fend off their newer, lower-powered cards from being left in the dust while they work with developers directly.
6500 XT Specs
| GPU | RX 6500 XT |
| Cores | 1024 |
| Infinity Cache | 16 MB |
| Ray Accelerators | 16 |
| Base Block | 2610 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 2815 MHz |
| Memory Clock | 18 GBps |
| Memory | 4GB DDR6 |
| Memory Bus | 64-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 144 GB/s |
| TBP | 107W |
If you’re more of an NVIDIA person, the 3050 is intended to be of a similar price range and similar scope to the 6500 XT, which you can find out more about over in our roundup.
Where to buy the 6500 XT?
The AMD 6500 XT goes live at 2 pm GMT or 6 am PT, with all the storefronts being updated around then. Take a deep breath and dive in, as this should be a fairly decent card if the various different additions to AMD’s FSR and RSR match up to their presented numbers.