Radeon RX 6650 XT

AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT Graphics Cards

Introduced on May 10, 2022, the Radeon RX 6650 XT is a gaming graphics card with a good price-performance ratio. The entry-level graphics card for gaming in Full HD 1080p is based on the RDNA2 GPU architecture (Navi II) and the graphics chip is manufactured in a 7 nm process at TSMC in Taiwan. Compared to the previous RX 6600 XT, the current update features higher clock rates and increased memory bandwidth. In addition to various gaming technologies, the biggest innovation is hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

Performance data of the Radeon RX 6650 XT graphics card (reference design):

• Computing power (FP32): approx. 10.8 TFLOPS
• Base clock of the GPU: 2,055 MHz
• Game clock of the GPU: 2,410 MHz
• Boost clock of the GPU: 2,635 MHz
• Graphics memory: 8 GB GDDR6
• Memory clock: 2,187.5 MHz (effective 17,500 Mbps)
• Memory interface: 128-bit
• Memory bandwidth: 280 GB/s
• Shader units: 2,048
• TDP of 180 watts
• Power supply: 1x 8-pin PCIe
• Video outputs: DP 1.4, HDMI 2.1

Radeon RX 6650 XT: The RDNA2 GPU Architecture

The Radeon RX 6650 XT is based on the Navi 23 XT graphics chip, which consists of 11.1 billion transistors. The total of 2,048 stream processors (shader units) are grouped into 64 shaders in 32 compute units (CUs, compute units). In addition to the 64 shaders, each CU is assigned a "ray accelerator" for hardware-based ray tracing.

The GPU clocks at an average of up to 2,410 MHz during games. When the graphics chip is under particularly high demand, it can boost up to 2,635 MHz. According to AMD, the RDNA2 compute units can clock up to 30 percent higher at the same power loss compared to the previous generation. In terms of energy efficiency, Big Navi is said to deliver about 65% more performance per watt than the first Navi generation. Here, the AMD Infinity Cache is also believed to play a role.

Infinity Cache & Video Memory

The new features of the RDNA2 architecture include AMD's Infinity Cache. The AMD Infinity Cache enables an effective memory bandwidth that is 3.25 times higher. With a normal 128-bit memory interface and an effective memory clock of 17,000 MHz, a memory bandwidth of 280 GB/s is achieved. The Infinity Cache of the RX 6650 XT reaches a bandwidth of 1,080 GB/s.

As video memory (VRAM), AMD uses the GDDR6 standard with a capacity of 8 GB for the Navi II graphics cards. Thanks to the mentioned Infinity Cache, this achieves an overall performance equivalent to being equipped with faster GDDR6X. This allows AMD to implement a powerful combination of high speed and high capacity on the graphics card without resorting to the more expensive memory type.

Smart Access Memory

With the Smart Access Memory (SAM) technology, AMD promises additional performance when combining a Radeon RX 6650 XT graphics card with a Ryzen 5000 processor on a motherboard with a B550 or X570 chipset. SAM takes advantage of the “resizable BAR” function of the PCIe standard. A corresponding gaming system should benefit from a minimal performance increase. The actual performance gain depends on the game and the chosen resolution.

Other Features

The many smaller optimizations of the RDNA2 GPU architecture include:

• HDMI 2.1 for 4K monitors at 120 Hz
• Variable Rate Shading (DirectX 12 Ultimate)
• Mesh Shader (DirectX 12 Ultimate)
• Sampler Feedback (DirectX 12 Ultimate)
• AV1 decoding (8K30, 4K60)
• H264 & H.256 decoding/encoding

Ray Tracing & FidelityFX

With the ray accelerators, AMD provides hardware-based ray tracing. Ray tracing (Microsoft DirectX 12 DXR) enables realistic lighting by simulating the physical properties and behavior of light. Ray tracing is the calculation of the color of individual pixels during the path the light takes from the user's eye through a 3D landscape.

On its way through the 3D scene, the light is reflected by objects or creates reflections. At the same time, shadows, transparent, or semi-transparent objects are created. This results in light refractions or distortions. All these effects are combined through ray tracing to represent the final color of a pixel on the monitor.

As a relatively new technology, ray tracing places very high demands on the hardware. With FidelityFX, AMD implements a super-resolution technology to relieve the ray tracing accelerators.

Gaming Technologies

Along with the hardware in the form of graphics cards, AMD introduces new gaming technologies to provide PC gamers with a better experience. Supported features for gamers include:

• Performance presets in the Radeon Adrenalin 2020 software
• AMD Radeon Anti-Lag
• AMD Radeon Boost
• AMD FreeSync (4K@240Hz, 8K@60Hz)
• Supports HDMI 2.1 VRR

The current AMD RX 6000 graphics cards at a glance:

Do you want to know which AMD graphics card is right for you? The following list includes all current models of the RDNA-2 generation, sorted by performance, starting with the most powerful graphics card.

• AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT
• AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT
• AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
• AMD Radeon RX 6800
• AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT
• AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT
• AMD Radeon RX 6700
• AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT
• AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT
• AMD Radeon RX 6600
• AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT
• AMD Radeon RX 6400