The website HardwareUnboxed is investigating a potential issue with the upcoming entry-level AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card, which will be released in just two days. The Radeon RX 6500 XT is known to have a PCIe Express interface limited to four lanes, and this could be causing problems on older systems.
The card is based on the fourth generation of PCI Express, meaning that four lanes should provide the same bandwidth as eight lanes in the Gen3 standard. Since the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT is marketed as a budget option, and many potential buyers are likely users with systems that have been waiting to be upgraded for a long time, it's probable that many users considering this card will still have a motherboard with PCIe Gen3. And this is where a design flaw, according to reports, lies.
The AMD Radeon RTX 6500 XT does not play well on older systems
It's important to note that HardwareUnboxed can't yet publish its test results for the RX 6500 XT due to the review embargo. However, they can use older generation models, such as the Navi 24- based Radeon RX 5500 XT, to see if there are any performance bottlenecks stemming from the Gen3 interface.
As the reviewer points out, bandwidth issues are more likely to occur on 4GB cards, rather than 8GB, simply because some resources will be stored in video memory, rather than constantly being pulled from system memory or storage. The RX 5500 XT was available in two variants, with 8GB or 4GB of memory, making it the perfect candidate card for this type of testing.
If this is confirmed, it would be bad news for those who took advantage of the announcement of this affordable graphics card to start improving their system. Of course they could improve it, but it would also imply looking for a larger motherboard and for it, the necessary RAM and CPU if it is worth it.
Source: Videocardz
