If you really, really, really, need a graphics card badly, I suppose the Asus Dual Radeon RX 6500 XT OC Edition will do. After all, it's one card you can actually buy now without forking out a massive premium. That's the good news. The bad news is that the performance you're getting is pretty basic.
Quick specs
- Dual axial cooling fans
- Up to 2820MHz clock speed (OC mode), 4GB GDDR6 video memory
- 1024 Stream Processors, 64-bit memory interface
- 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x DisplayPort 1.4a
At a time when graphic cards cost a crazy premium, the RX 6500 XT makes some sense. Asus' version sports dual fans and some overclocking to give it a bit more juice. You also don't need a powerful PSU — I'm using a 550W PSU and it runs fine. The card uses a 6-pin power connector, too. On the back are just two ports: DisplayPort and HDMI 2.1.
One thing you need to know is that the RX 6500 XT comes with just 4GB of video memory (which is on the low side). Despite the relatively high clock speeds, the lack of video RAM means you'll need to adjust settings to medium or lower if you want more FPS. Thermal performance is pretty decent, with the GPU card running at 63 degrees Celsius at max load and around 42 degrees Celsius at idle. The fans did not sound loud — at least, I could not hear them with the case closed.
Since this is a “budget” card, I did not have high hopes for its performance. The Borderlands 3 benchmark test on DirectX 12, Medium settings produced a result of 56fps. If you want somewhat smooth gameplay, you'll need to choose Low setting for around 93fps. While the card can do Ray Tracing (RT), it's pretty terrible at it. Cyberpunk 2077 was unplayable with RT on. However, you can get a somewhat decent 40fps at Medium settings with FidelityFX CAS Dynamic and RT off. Without FidelityFX CAS, it's about 22fps.
Retailing at $499 officially, you can probably get it around S$440 or so. It's still rather expensive for a budget card, though. Mind you, the RTX 2060 was S$599 at launch. But if you're desperate for a GPU and can't afford the current street prices for the higher-end cards, you'll have to make do with this. Get the Asus Dual Radeon RX 6500 XT OC Edition from Lazada or Shopee.
Note: Review unit provided by Asus.
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