ASRock Radeon RX 6400 Challenger Pictured

[btarunr]

It looks like launch of the entry-level Radeon RX 6400 desktop graphics card is just around the corner, with pictures of custom-design cards surfacing. The RX 6400 Challenger by ASRock, pictured below, features a simple aluminium monoblock fan-heatsink, and lacks any power connectors, as the 6 nm "Navi 24" silicon can make do with under 75 W TGP. The RX 6400 is armed with 768 stream processors across 12 RDNA2 compute units, and a 64-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface, holding 4 GB of memory. The SKU is expected to formally launch on April 20.



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[JAB Creations]

People want low-profile versions of these...they're not really intended for gaming (maybe some light gaming in a small form factor). Odd choice.

 

[AusWolf]

I had really high hopes of the 6500 XT to be the new HTPC king, but after AMD deciding to completely leave any sort of video acceleration hardware out of it, and limit it to a measly x4 bus, I'm gonna be skeptical with this one.

 

[trsttte]

I had really high hopes of the 6500 XT to be the new HTPC king, but after AMD deciding to completely leave any sort of video acceleration hardware out of it, and limit it to a measly x4 bus, I'm gonna be skeptical with this one.

For an HTPC the 4x wouldn't be a problem. For all the deserved hate though, the card can still fit an HTPC pretty well, it lacks encoders but has both h264 and h265 decoders which are arguably more important for a HTPC (no transcoding or stream to other devices though, just media center, not server)

 

[diopter]

'Challenger' edition, because you are challenged to find any use case for it.

 

[GerKNG]

with the trash coolers from asrock i bet it will still overheat...

 

[TheUn4seen]

What does it challenge though? Humanity's ability to recycle e-waste?

 

[Chrispy_]

Almost all of the 6400 cards are going to be identical to the 6500XT designs because frankly none of them are worth enough or have enough profit margin to warrant designing another cooler or PCB for.

The only 6400 cards that are going to be remotely interesting are those that have been specifically made to target half-height, single-slot, or slot-powered only.

 

[trsttte]

Nope, the 6500 XT doesn't have any en- or decoder at all. That's why it isn't only a crappy gaming card, but also a crappy HTPC one.

It does though, it has the normal h264 and hevc decoders

https://www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/amd-radeon-rx-6500-xt#product-specs

 

[AusWolf]

It does though, it has the normal h264 and hevc decoders

https://www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/amd-radeon-rx-6500-xt#product-specs

View attachment 244008

Sorry, my bad. After looking it up, I deleted my post.

This is starting to seem like an increasingly interesting product for my HTPC needs.

 

[GoldenX]

Sorry, my bad. After looking it up, I deleted my post.

This is starting to seem like an increasingly interesting product for my HTPC needs.

Believe me, you don't want to use Vega decoders.
Get a 1650 instead.

 

[AusWolf]

Believe me, you don't want to use Vega decoders.

Vega? Why is that?

Edit: I've just checked, half-height 1650s still seem to be out of stock all across the UK. I could get one from Amazon EU for way over £300, but it's not worth that much. 6500 XTs go for as low as £170. The 6400 will probably be even cheaper.

 

[GoldenX]

The 6400/4500 uses the Vega decoder, not the RDNA2 one, so very bad VP9 decoding, and no AV1 decoding.

 

[eidairaman1]

People want low-profile versions of these...they're not really intended for gaming (maybe some light gaming in a small form factor). Odd choice.

These are pretty small as is.

with the trash coolers from asrock i bet it will still overheat...

You mean msi.

 

[AusWolf]

The 6400/4500 uses the Vega decoder, not the RDNA2 one, so very bad VP9 decoding, and no AV1 decoding.

I know, no AV1 could be an issue, though I think my Ryzen 3 is probably strong enough to brute force it. How is VP9 bad on Vega?

 

[GoldenX]

I know, no AV1 could be an issue, though I think my Ryzen 3 is probably strong enough to brute force it. How is VP9 bad on Vega?

You can get random green screens, and YouTube skips frames, forcing quality drops.
AMD said they fixed it with the Zen2 APUs, they lied. My 6500XT sticks to the secondary slot, only being used to test emulators and troll with ray tracing in blender.