AMD's RDNA 2 refreshed GPUs have arrived!

AMD's refresh of the Radeon RX 6000 series of GPUs is now upon us - on 10 May 2022, AMD announced the release of three new RDNA 2 parts - the Radeon RX 6950 XT, RX 6750 XT as well as the RX 6650 XT. For today's post, we'll get in on the excitement by unboxing and testing AMD's latest mid-range GPU offering, in the form of the ASUS Dual Radeon RX 6650 XT OC Edition 8GB GDDR6 (DUAL-RX6650XT-O8G).

Sporting dual axial-tech fans which improve cooling performance, a protective backplate to increase card rigidity, as well as a factory overclock, the Dual Radeon RX 6650 XT OC Edition 8GB GDDR6 is targeted at gamers on the lookout for a new mid-range graphics card.

Summary of Specifications

• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (Navi 23 KXT)
  • 32 Compute Units, 2048 Stream Processors
• Memory: 8GB GDDR6 RAM (128-bit)
• Clock Speeds:
  • OC Mode : up to 2689 MHz (Boost Clock) / up to 2467 MHz (Game Clock)
  • Gaming Mode : up to 2669 MHz (Boost Clock) / up to 2447 MHz (Game Clock)
• Bus Type: PCIe 4.0 x8
• Outputs: 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
• External Power Required: Yes, 1x 8-pin
• Recommended PSU Wattage: 650W and above

GPU-Z Screenshot

Testing Methodology

To get a quick sensing of the card's performance, the following synthetic benchmarks and games were run:

• 3DMark Basic Edition 2.22.7359
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 (Basic Edition)
• Fortnite
• Forza Horizon 4 Benchmark

Test Bench Details:

• Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
• RAM: 16GB (2x8GB) Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4 3200
• Motherboard: ASRock X570M Pro4
• Storage: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512GB
• Graphics: ASUS Dual Radeon RX 6650 XT OC Edition 8GB GDDR6 with AMD Adrenalin 22.5.1 drivers
• Case: Generic open-air Test Bench
• Monitor: Acer SA230 Abi 23" (1080p, 75Hz)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

MSI Afterburner was used to record the card's performance metrics, and the tests were run at 1080p resolution.

Synthetic Benchmarks

3DMark Basic Edition 2.22.7359

With 3DMark Basic Edition, the RX 6650 XT attained a graphics score of 10000.

Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 (Basic Edition)

The card yielded a score of 3054 with Unigine's Heaven Benchmark 4.0 Basic Edition, with an average FPS of 121.2, a minimum FPS of 36.8 and a maximum FPS of 285. The test was setup to use DirectX 11 rendering on Ultra Quality, with extreme tessellation, stereo 3D disabled, multi-monitor disabled, and anti-aliasing set at x8.

Gaming Performance

Forza Horizon 4

When set to the Ultra preset, the RX 6650 XT achieved a FPS average of 109.2, minimum FPS of 101.4 and a maximum FPS of 116.1 with Forza Horizon 4's built-in benchmark test. V-sync was enabled during this test, which capped the on-screen framerate to 75 due to the monitor used with this test, which supports a max refresh rate of 75 Hz.

Fortnite

A round of Fortnite sees the RX 6650 XT put out an average FPS of 157, with the game set to use DirectX 12 rendering on the High preset, viewing distance set to Far, AA set to High, and Ray Tracing set to Off. V-sync was switched off during gameplay.

Power Consumption & Thermals

These measurements were obtained with an open-air test bench, with an ambient temperature of ~31°C, using the readouts derived from MSI Afterburner.

Idle State:

• Average GPU Temperature: 37°C
• Minimum GPU Temperature: 36°C
• Maximum GPU Temperature: 38°C
• Average Power Draw: 4W
• Minimum Power Draw: 3W
• Maximum Power Draw: 4W

Watching a 4K YouTube Video:

• Average GPU Temperature: 40°C
• Minimum GPU Temperature: 39°C
• Maximum GPU Temperature: 42°C
• Average Power Draw: 11W
• Minimum Power Draw: 9W
• Maximum Power Draw: 23W

Playing a Round of Fortnite (1080p, High preset, no Ray Tracing):

• Average GPU Temperature: 64°C
• Minimum GPU Temperature: 59°C
• Maximum GPU Temperature: 66°C
• Average Power Draw: 131W
• Minimum Power Draw: 103W
• Maximum Power Draw: 149W

Conclusion

With the quick tests that were run, the RX 6650 XT appears to be a decent enough mid-range GPU for gamers to enjoy modern games at 1080p. However, for potential buyers who are intending to upgrade the graphics cards of their PCs that utilise the older PCIe 3.0 or even PCIe 2.0 standard, it is worth noting the fact that the RX 6650 XT GPU uses the PCIe 4.0 x8 interface instead of x16. This could mean that the GPU would not be able to reach its maximum potential in such older systems, where the reduction in bandwidth due to the x8 interface could result in bottlenecks that would in turn, affect the card's performance.

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The graphics card featured in this article was a review unit provided on loan from ASUS Singapore.