Radeon RX 6500 XT in PCIe 3.0: Will it match the gameplay?

a AMD The Radeon RX 6500 XT is the latest addition to the RDNA 2 lineup, introducing the most modest chip with a new micro-architecture. With a total of 16 units of account, this card is enough to become an option against competitors like GeForce GTX 1650 in the entry-level graphics card chip, which has currently been lacking in news for years.

However, as we already explained in the review, the card suffered from very severe limitations on the PCI Express connection, with only 4 lanes. This greatly limits the ability of video card To exchange data with the rest of the system, especially if the seat is based on PCI Express 3.0. Which is a dangerous possibility, as worktables that support PCIe 4.0 are very restricted:

– in a AMD: of processors Risen 3000 series and 500 motherboards
– in a Intel Corporation: From the eleventh generation Intel Corporation Core e 500 . chipset

For those who do not meet these requirements, the situation is very complicated. Limited to PCIe 3.0, we have a noticeable reduction in bandwidth. Each PCIe 4.0 slot provides up to 2 GB/s for a total of 8 GB/s in a PCIe 4.0 x4 configuration. PCIe 3.0 has half the performance per lane, delivers 1 GB/s per lane and makes the RX 6500 XT work with only 4 GB/s of transfer if it’s running on a PCIe 3.0-based system.

To see it in practice, we ran the 3DMark benchmark which focuses on PCIe speed. We compare the Radeon RX 6500 XT running in PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 3.0, and we also compare it to the performance of the GeForce GTX 1650 GDDR6, a 2019 entry card from its Nvidia competitor that offers x16 in PCIe 3.0.

The result is a huge difference in performance, made even more serious by another limitation of the card, the amount of VRAM. With only 4GB, this means there are no massive amounts of memory to allocate data, so the system ends up loading new stuff frequently. And that’s where 3.5GB/s throttle this model.

To see in practice how this limitation can negatively affect gameplay, we have set up a good bench but at the same time, with this limitation in PCIe 3.0. We use:

– AMD Ryzen 7 3800X
– NZXT Kraken Z53 Water Cooler
HyperX Fury 2x16GB @ 3200MHz CL16
– Gigabyte X470 AORUS Gaming 7 WIFI
Gigabyte Radeon RX 6500 XT Eagle
– Cooler Master V1200 Platinum
– Gabinetti Thermaltec Core P3

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