ASRock Intros Radeon RX 6400 Low Profile Graphics Card

[btarunr]

ASRock expanded its entry level graphics card lineup with a new low-profile Radeon RX 6400 graphics card. Such a card had been missing in ASRock's lineup, as its only RX 6400 product had been the full-height RX 6400 Challenger, a product design it shared with the RX 6500 XT Challenger OC. This new RX 6400 Low Profile card isn't just half-height (low-profile), but also single-slot, and relies entirely on the PCIe slot for power.

The card's design involves a simple extruded aluminium heatsink ventilated by a 40 mm fan, with the interesting inclusion of idle fan-stop (something other low-profile cards in this segment tend to lack). The card is 150 mm long, and 68.9 mm tall. Out of the box, it comes with the low-profile bracket installed, but a full height bracket is included in the package. Based on the 6 nm "Navi 24" silicon, the RX 6400 is configured 768 stream processors across 12 compute units, and 4 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 64-bit wide memory interface. The company didn't announce pricing.



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[Chaitanya]

Why not just make the card interface physically a PCIe 4x instead of full 16x one seen here. Zotac offers Gt710 with 1x slot interface and this 6400 with 4x slot can be a good replacement for that GPU.

The Power of PCIe x1 | ZOTAC

Accelerate Performance

www.zotac.com

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

E-waste

 

[TheDeeGee]

Why not just make the card interface physically a PCIe 4x instead of full 16x one seen here. Zotac offers Gt710 with 1x slot interface and this 6400 with 4x slot can be a good replacement for that GPU.

The Power of PCIe x1 | ZOTAC

Accelerate Performance

www.zotac.com

Arn't all 1x, 4x and 8x ports open back these days anyway?

 

[Chaitanya]

Arn't all 1x, 4x and 8x ports open back these days anyway?

Not on all systems, and even in open ended slots there might be some tall components blocking use of 16x interface based add in cards.

 

[Vayra86]

But... why

 

[ncrs]

Why not just make the card interface physically a PCIe 4x instead of full 16x one seen here. Zotac offers Gt710 with 1x slot interface and this 6400 with 4x slot can be a good replacement for that GPU.

The Power of PCIe x1 | ZOTAC

Accelerate Performance

www.zotac.com

I suspect the reason is compatibility and the resulting support request load for the manufacturer.
I have the Zotac card you linked, and on multiple systems it refused to function correctly in x1 slots. In those cases the card always worked in the x16 slots. I also suspect the issue is probably firmware/BIOS related because on some systems once an operating system boots up the card functions even in x1 slot, but not always. Maybe it's insufficient power available for those slots, unfortunately I have no way of checking that.

 

[Assimilator]

I suspect the reason is compatibility and the resulting support request load for the manufacturer.
I have the Zotac card you linked, and on multiple systems it refused to function correctly in x1 slots. In those cases the card always worked in the x16 slots. I also suspect the issue is probably firmware/BIOS related because on some systems once an operating system boots up the card functions even in x1 slot, but not always. Maybe it's insufficient power available for those slots, unfortunately I have no way of checking that.

I very much suspect that a fair number of consumer motherboards' non-x16 slots are not technically compliant with the PCIe specification.

 

[ErikG]

Nice MS Office card.

 

[AusWolf]

Why not just make the card interface physically a PCIe 4x instead of full 16x one seen here. Zotac offers Gt710 with 1x slot interface and this 6400 with 4x slot can be a good replacement for that GPU.

The Power of PCIe x1 | ZOTAC

Accelerate Performance

www.zotac.com

I agree. Low profile 6400 cards have been on the market since the chip's debut. This card offers nothing new.

Arn't all 1x, 4x and 8x ports open back these days anyway?

Maybe, but I'd love to see a considerably shorter card, like the Evga GT 710 x8. A GPU of this category is an ideal backup, so taking up less space on my shelf is a plus.

 

[Keullo-e]

I agree. Low profile 6400 cards have been on the market since the chip's debut. This card offers nothing new.

My thoughts exactly. I feel weird that there even exist normal-sized cards based on RX 6400.

 

[AusWolf]

My thoughts exactly. I feel weird that there even exist normal-sized cards based on RX 6400.

Same. Last year, I built a system for a friend's daughter with a low profile 6400 in it, and I have to admit, it's surprisingly quiet - I mean, the card, not the daughter (although I've never met her in person).

 

[TheDeeGee]

Not on all systems, and even in open ended slots there might be some tall components blocking use of 16x interface based add in cards.

Yeh, you're right. There could be caps and what not in the way, even a battery.

 

[dewd]

obviously this has nothing to do with gaming as im sure current igpus are at least this powerful but sometimes people need a bunch of video outputs. this has merely 2 so who is this for?

 

[Lew Zealand]

obviously this has nothing to do with gaming as im sure current igpus are at least this powerful but sometimes people need a bunch of video outputs. this has merely 2 so who is this for?

No current iGPUs are this powerful. Now that's not saying much but the 6400 is 15-40% faster than the best iGPUs RN. This form factor is for older machines with little free space but an available x4 or better PCIe 3 slot and is the best GPU you can install in many SFF office machines.

 

[mechtech]

Give you $50 CAD for it.

 

[dragontamer5788]

The under $200 market is in dire need of a shakeup.

I understand that iGPUs have wrecked the market, but this is a real GDDR6 GPU and likely fully capable of 1080p graphics on medium settings for a lot of games. There needs to be something cheaper than an AMD 7600 or NVidia 4060.

Maybe this AMD 6400 is too little too late, but... its in a very poorly served market. I'm happy to see it, as long as it comes out at the right price.

 

[Lew Zealand]

The under $200 market is in dire need of a shakeup.

I understand that iGPUs have wrecked the market, but this is a real GDDR6 GPU and likely fully capable of 1080p graphics on medium settings for a lot of games. There needs to be something cheaper than an AMD 7600 or NVidia 4060.

Maybe this AMD 6400 is too little too late, but... its in a very poorly served market. I'm happy to see it, as long as it comes out at the right price.

Price has been the problem since the last Crypto boom. Stuff at the bottom end just hasn't receded to its previous "normal" ~$99. I'm thinking of the things to replace the GTX 1030 and the Radeon 550, yes both of which suck but at $79 they were at least something and drop into most PCs as they're slot-powered.

The problem with iGPUs is you need to wrap a whole PC around them whereas a low end better-than-iGPU dGPU just drops in an existing machine with no extra costs. But now we have the RX 6400 and RTX 3050 6GB at $125 and $170. The 3050 6GB really replaces the 1050/Ti and 1650 at a similar price point but Nvidia's done with anything cheaper than that. The RX 6400 comes closer in price but still ~$20 too high and the SS LP models which fit in any PCIe slot out there start at $160.

Comparing the RX 6400 to the RX 550 is the kicker. Same size die, same TDP, 50% more cores (expected for node shrink), twice the VRAM, half the PCIe lanes, half the bus width but 2.3X the memory speed for a small improvement.

$160 vs $80 MSRP. A single 6400 model currently at $125 which is OKish but even that's $20 too high based on inflation alone.

 

[trsttte]

Why not just make the card interface physically a PCIe 4x instead of full 16x one seen here. Zotac offers Gt710 with 1x slot interface and this 6400 with 4x slot can be a good replacement for that GPU.

The Power of PCIe x1 | ZOTAC

Accelerate Performance

www.zotac.com

Nothing a saw can't fix

But yeah, should come like that from the factory

 

[AusWolf]

The problem with iGPUs is you need to wrap a whole PC around them whereas a low end better-than-iGPU dGPU just drops in an existing machine with no extra costs.

I agree, but that's not the case with the 6400, unfortunately, unless you don't mind being further gimped by the PCI-e 3.0, let alone 2.0 bandwidth, which hurts this card badly.

 

[Jonny5isalivetm5]

with the iGPU in the upcoming zen5 cpu these really are looking like epic waste.com ^_^

 

[Lew Zealand]

I agree, but that's not the case with the 6400, unfortunately, unless you don't mind being further gimped by the PCI-e 3.0, let alone 2.0 bandwidth, which hurts this card badly.

PCIe 3.0 does not hurt this card badly, and if you're using a 13 year old PCIe 2.0 PC then the 6400 will more often be held back by that low-performance CPU. Look at the big picture of the whole system.

Remember also that the 6400 bogs down when playing at ultra settings because that's how all places test GPUs. But you won't be playing at those, instead using Medium settings on average. So slowdowns happen less or not at all thanks to using less VRAM. Again: Look at the big picture of the whole system.

I used the 6400 at PCIe 3.0 exclusively and yes I was not playing 2022 games but I was playing 2020 and earlier AAA games and it works fine with proper settings. Not going to win any contests but does it let an older PC play modern games at decent settings? Yes it does. The biggest problem with this GPU is the price, it should be ~$99.

 

[HugsNotDrugs]

This is a solid upgrade for an older system with a limited power supply. Many older system are equipped with anemic iGPUs that this would completely transform into something highly usable for everything but the most demanding modern titles.