AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT review: revisiting the super-performers

We begin with three games that we call 'super-performers' because they use relatively modern graphic APIs like DX12 or Vulkan - so they're better equipped to make full use of high-end CPUs like the Core i9 10900K in our test system. That lets our GPUs run at full speed, hitting higher frame-rates than we'd see in more CPU-limited titles that rely on a single thread for the majority of their game processing, and making the gaps between different levels of graphics performance more apparent. We saw big gains from both Nvidia and AMD in these titles at the start of the generation, so the RX 6500 XT should have its shot as well.

Our three games are Borderlands 3, Control and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. We'd normally test Doom Eternal as well, but sadly this game cannot run at our chosen graphical preset on the RX 6500 XT due to its limited VRAM allowance, so we've skipped it this time. As usual, our games have been run at 1080p, 1440p and 2160p. The 1080p results are of the most interest for the RX 6500 XT, given its entry-level price point, but it'll be interesting to see if 1440p gaming is on the cards too.

Note that our benchmark results are more than simple bar charts. On desktop, browsers, you'll get embedded YouTube videos of each test scene. Press play on the video to replay our benchmark run, and see how each card handles the scene with live frame-time and frame-rate metrics. You can even choose exactly what GPUs at what resolutions you're interested in by ticking and unticking the boxes to the right side of the benchmark widget. Below the real-time stuff is a bar chart, which you can mouse over to see different measurements and click to switch between frame-rates and percentage differences. All the data here is derived from video captured directly from each GPU, ensuring an pinpoint accurate replay of real performance. On mobile browsers, you'll get a simplified view - just a table of the lowest one percent and average frame-rates for each card at each resolution; we recommend returning with a desktop browser to get the full picture!

With that crash course out of the way, let's see how the RX 6500 XT conducts itself. We're expecting something in line with the RX 580 on our PCIe 3.0 limited system, so we'll include AMD's classic GPU in a few tests to provide some extra context. Our RX 580 is a higher-end model with good cooling, but we've turned down its performance to its reference clock speed to ensure that it's representative of even an entry-level RX 580 8GB.

Borderlands 3

The Radeon RX 6500 XT's first test is a AAA game at its highest preset: Borderlands 3 set to 'Bad Ass'. The RX 6500 XT is incredibly slow here, with the RX 6600 more than doubling its frame-rate at 1080p. Even the old GTX 1080 Ti is comfortably faster. It's possible that the Bad Ass setting's heavy VRAM allocation is causing the card's narrow memory subsystem to choke, and we'd expect to see a slightly closer result in other titles. Speaking of which...

Control

...Control is not that game. We see another terrible performance from the RX 6500 XT here, averaging less than 30fps at 1080p. These are on high settings under DirectX 12, but even so this is still less than half the speed of the RX 6600. Frame-rates continue to tumble if you dare try higher resolutions, all the way into the mid single figures at 4K.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow's integrated benchmark includes a party scene, a jungle scene and a village scene, each with different performance characteristics. It's rare to see most outlets test more than one scene in a given game - including us - due to the significant amount of time each game takes to test in every graphics card, so seeing how cards can swap places in the different phases of this test underlines the importance of seeking out multiple sources to get a fuller picture. After all, reviewers could get legitimately opposing results when comparing two cards, just by choosing different scenes, so looking at a plurality of reviews should provide a more balanced outlook.

For the RX 6500 XT, we get a decent result for the first time - 58fps average is just a shade behind the old RX 580, although the RX 6600 is still 87 percent faster at 1080p. Still, the fact that we get a playable frame-rate, even in an older game, is still cause for celebration.

So far, the 6500 XT isn't a great performer - but let's see how it tackles our next few games.

AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT analysis

• Introduction and hardware analysis
• Doom Eternal, Control, Borderlands 3, Shadow of the Tomb Raider - Game Benchmarks Part 1 [This Page]
• Death Stranding, Far Cry 5, Hitman 2, Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Game Benchmarks Part 2
• Metro Exodus, Dirt Rally 2, Assassin's Creed Unity - Game Benchmarks Part 3
• Control, Metro Exodus, Battlefield 5 - RT game benchmarks
• PCIe 3.0 vs PCIe 4.0 - How does bandwidth affect frame-rate?
• AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT - the Digital Foundry verdict