The RX 6650 XT, RX 6750 XT, and RX 6950 XT deliver a small performance boost over their predecessors.
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| Image: AMD |
AMD refreshed its Radeon RX 6000-series graphics cards today, and the chipmaker isn’t holding any punches against Nvidia’s RTX line. The company outright claims the three new desktop cards introduced today, the RX 6650 XT, RX 6750 XT, and RX 6950 XT, outperform their equivalent GeForce RTX cards. Is that true? It depends on how you look at the numbers (I’ll get to that later).
Based on AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture, these refreshes are essentially supercharged versions of the RX 6000 cards AMD revealed at the end of 2020. While this trio of cards shares specs with its predecessors, three main updates enable faster performance: higher game clocks, faster GDDR6 memory, and enhanced software.
Radeon RX 6650 XT, RX 6750 XT, RX 6950 XT price and release date
The Radeon RX 6950 XT, RX 6750 XT, and RX 6650 XT are available starting today. AMD says the RX 6650 XT will be priced at $399, while the RX 6750 XT will cost $549 and the RX 6950 XT will go for $1,099. These will be available on AMD’s website and sold through its partners.
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| Image: AMD |
As we all know, these cards could very quickly sell out and be relisted for higher than MSRP immediately afterward, so be quick if you’re in the market for a high-performance GPU.
The Radeon RX 6650 is the only card replacing its predecessor, the RX 6600 XT, while the two higher-end models will be sold alongside their older counterparts. The RX 6800, by the way, isn’t going anywhere.
Radeon RX 6650 XT, RX 6750 XT, RX 6950 specs
The three refreshed cards have familiar specs to the RX 6000-series chips released more than a year ago, which is no surprise given that they are 7-nanometer chips based on RDNA 2.
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| Image: AMD |
The RX 6950 XT retains 80 compute units, 80 ray accelerators, 5,210 stream processors, 26.8 billion transistors, and 16GB of GDDR6 memory. The main difference is that the base GPU clock is up from 2,015 MHz to 2,100 MHz and the boost frequency is also getting a bump from 2250 MHz to 2310 MHz.
Similarly, the RX 6750 XT (12GB vRAM) jumps from a game clock speed of 2,424 to 2,495 MHz and boosts to 2600 MHz from 2,581 MHz. Lastly, the RX 6650 XT (8GB vRAM) jumps from a game clock of 2,359 MHz to 2,410 MHz and a boost of 2,589 MHz to 2,635 MHz. These chips also use faster GDDR6 memory.
Radeon RX 6650 XT, RX 6750 XT, RX 6950 power requirements
The RX 6950 XT operates at 335W, up from 300W, and AMD still recommends an 850W power supply for it. The RX 6750 XT operates at 250W (up from 230W), while the RX 6650 XT chews up 180W (up from 160W). The former needs a 650W supply while the latter requires a 500W supply.
AMD Radeon RX 6950 performance
AMD says the RX 6950 XT with 16GB of VRAM is competing with the Nvidia RTX 3090 GPU and can put up a fight against the RTX 3090 Ti. Where AMD claims a clear victory is in performance-to-wattage ratio; the RX 6950 XT operates at 335W, whereas the RTX 3090 runs at 350W and the 3090 Ti at 450W.
Based on AMD’s internal performance benchmarks, the RX 6950 XT topped the RTX 3090 in Doom Eternal, Far Cry 6, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Watch Dogs Legion, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
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| Image: AMD |
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