AMD 6nm RDNA 2 Powered Radeon RX 6500 XT Graphics Card For Desktops, Radeon RX 6850M XT Flagship & RX 6000S 6nm Refresh GPUs For Laptops

AMD is making several additions to its 7nm & 6nm RDNA 2 powered Radeon RX 6000, RX 6000M & RX 6000S series desktop/laptop GPU lineup at CES 2022.

The AMD Radeon RX 6000 series is getting lots of additions on both the desktop and laptop sides of things. While the company is focusing on new entry-level solutions for the desktop family, they are also releasing new Radeon RX 6000M & RX 6000S chips utilizing both 7nm & 6nm process nodes for the laptop segment.

AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT Graphics Card With 6nm Navi 24 XT GPU - $199 US / 19th January Launch

The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT will be utilizing the full Navi 24 XT GPU die. Internally known as 'Beige Goby', the AMD Navi 24 GPU is the smallest of the RDNA 2 lineup and will feature a single SDMA engine. The chip will feature 2 shader arrays for a total of 8 WGPs and a maximum of 16 Compute Units.

AMD has 64 stream processors per compute unit so that brings the total core count on the Navi 24 GPU at 1024 which is half that of the Navi 23 GPU which will offer 2048 stream processors in 32 compute units. The GPU for the RX 6500 XT will be clocked at 2815 MHz boost and 2610 MHz game clock, making it the highest clock RDNA 2 GPU to date. That's around 5.7 TFLOPs of FP32 performance from the chip.

In addition to the number of cores, each shader array would feature 128 KB of L1 cache, 1 MB of L2 cache and there would also be 16 MB of Infinity Cache (LLC). The AMD Navi 24 RDNA 2 GPUs will also be featured across a 64-bit bus interface & will be featured on low-end Radeon RX 6500 or RX 6400 series parts. The card will feature a bandwidth of 144 GB/s but AMD is coming up with a new marketing name for total bandwidth (including Infinity Cache) which is rated at 232 GB/s.

As for the specifications, the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card will feature 1024 cores and 4 GB of GDDR6 memory. The card would not be able to operate in any mining algorithm, especially ETH. The top model will feature a TDP of 107W and as such, will require external power connectors to boot. The graphics card will launch for $199 US on 19th January and will have custom flavors at launch.

AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT Graphics Card Custom Models:

AMD Radeon RX 6400 Graphics Card With 6nm Navi 24 XL GPU - Made For OEM Channels

The second card in the Navi 24 RDNA 2 lineup is the AMD Radeon RX 6400 which will be based on a slightly cut-down 'XL' chip with 768 cores. The card will retain its 4 GB GDDR6 memory and feature slightly lower clocks but still around the 2.5 GHz+ frequency range. It is reported that the RX 6400 is not going to require any power connectors to boot thanks to its 53W TDP. It will also feature 112 GB/s standard and 232 GB/s IFC bandwidth. While the Radeon RX 6400 is expected to launch a bit later than the 6500 XT, it will likely be kept as an OEM-only model and won't get custom variants. In the official renders, it can be seen that the card is designed for the entry-level and low-profile GPU market with a single-slot and half-height form factor which features a single fan and an HDMI + DP output.

Both GPUs will be aimed at the entry-level segment with MSRPs of around $149 US. Since the Radeon RX 6600 series is already positioned in the premium 1080p gaming segment, expect the Navi 24 GPUs to be aimed at the entry-level 1080p gaming market. But given that AMD has raised the prices of RDNA 2 GPUs and alerted its AIB partners to do the same too, the entry-level market may end up in another mess for budget builders trying to get on something after years of wait.

AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT & RX 6650M XT Mobility GPU With 7nm Navi 22 Architecture

AMD is also updating its top-of-the-line mobility GPU stack with the launch of the Radeon RX 6850M XT and the Radeon RX 6650M XT. The Radeon RX 6850M XT will serve as the flagship GPU for laptops and offer the enhanced Navi 22 GPU core based on the 7nm core architecture. It rocks 40 Compute Units for a total of 64 stream processors that come clocked at a game clock of up to 2463 MHz (+163 MHz over RX 6800M). The GPU will also feature 12 GB of GDDR6 memory running with 18 Gbps die speeds across a 192-bit bus interface for a total of 432 GB/s bandwidth. The TGP for the chip is rated at 165W but can be extended with SmartShift MAX to 175W on select laptops.

The second GPU that is being launched is the Radeon RX 6650M XT which will rock the 7nm Navi 23 GPU and feature 32 compute units or 2048 stream processors. The chip will be clocked at up to 2162 MHz (-15 MHz over RX 6600M) and also rock faster 16 Gbps GDDR6 dies powering the 8 GB VRAM interface across a 128-bit wide bus interface for 256 GB/s of bandwidth. The chip will have a TGP of 120W. The GPU will also come in a non-XT design known as the Radeon RX 6650M and that rocks 28 Compute Units or 1792 stream processors, clocking in at 2222 MHz (+45 MHz over 6600M) along with the same memory configuration and TGP design as the XT variant.

As for performance, we are told that we can expect anywhere from 10-15% uplift thanks to improving clock management and optimizations to the RDNA 2 architecture. There is also talks about some new technology that will help the Radeon RX 6000M GPUs work in tandem with the Radeon 600M 'RDNA 2' integrated GPUs featured on the Ryzen 6000 'Rembrandt' APUs known as Radeon Smart Access Graphics 'SAG' that improves performance further.

AMD Radeon RX 6000S 7nm & Ryzen 6000M 6nm Laptop GPU Refresh

And that's not the end of it. AMD will also launch two new entry-level parts that will be based on a 6nm refresh. Like the Radeon RX 6500 XT desktop graphics card, the Radeon RX 6500M and 6300M for the laptop segment will feature the 6nm Navi 24 GPU. The RX 6500M will rock 18 compute units clocked at up to 2191 MHz while the 6300M will feature 12 compute units clocked at 1512 MHz. The 6500M will rock 4 GB GDDR6 (18 Gbps / 128-bit) memory for 288 GB/s bandwidth while the 6300M will rock 2 GB GDDR6 (18 Gbps / 128-bit) memory for 288 GB/s bandwidth. The 6500M will operate at 50W TGP while the 6300M will operate at 25W TGP. These would be AMD's answer to NVIDIA's entry-level MX400 series and RTX 2050 solutions which were recently announced.

Aside from these, AMD will also refresh its existing lineup with newer Radeon RX 6000S 'RDNA 2' laptop GPUs which will mostly retain the same core configuration but offer lower clocks to maximize power efficiency & more optimized TGPs.

AMD Radeon RX 6000M & RX 6000S GPUs:

The full lineup can be seen below: