AMD's entry-level graphics lineup sees the Radeon RX 6400 at the very bottom, followed by the RX 6500 XT, which is for all intents and purposes, an entry-level discrete GPU, given that its performance is in league of processor integrated graphics (iGPUs). It turns out that AMD had planned a SKU between the two, the RX 6500 (non-XT), and this chip is beginning to surface on entry-level graphics cards in China. A less-known AIB named Zephyr is selling an interesting single-slot low-profile card with dimensions resembling some RX 6400 cards. There's also a more fleshed out full-height, dual-slot card.

The RX 6500 appears to have the same core-configuration as the RX 6500 XT, both SKUs max out the "Navi 24" silicon they're based on. These chips are powered by the two generations older RDNA 2 graphics architecture, AMD's first to meet DirectX 12 Ultimate logo requirements. The RX 6500 is configured with all 16 CU present on the silicon, giving it 1,024 stream processors, and 16 RT accelerators, besides 64 TMUs and 32 ROPs and 16 MB of Infinity Cache. The chip gets 4 GB of GDDR6 memory across the 64-bit wide memory bus of the silicon.

In a bid to clear inventory of its Radeon RX 6000 series RDNA2 graphics cards in the lead up to its next-generation, AMD is bundling two of the latest AAA game titles. Besides this, the company has significantly lowered prices of its RX 6000 series over several months now. The company is bundling "Dead island 2," and "The Callisto Protocol" with new purchases of Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards.

New purchases of the Radeon RX 6600, RX 6600 XT, RX 6650 XT, RX 6700, RX 6700 XT, RX 6750 XT, RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, RX 6900 XT, and RX 6950 XT, will receive both games. New purchases of the RX 6500 XT and RX 6400 will receive just "Dead Island 2." The bundle is only available in select markets, and through participating retailers. Find where you can grab it, from the source link below.

A few days ago, Intel announced its first official discrete graphics card efforts, designed for laptops. Called the Arc Alchemist lineup, Intel has designed these SKUs to provide entry-level to high-end options covering a wide range of use cases. Today, AMD has responded with a rather exciting Tweet made by the company's @Radeon Twitter account. The company compared Intel's Arc Alchemist A370M GPU with AMD's Radeon RX 6500M mobile SKUs in the post. These GPUs are made on TSMC's N6 node, feature 4 GB GDDR6 64-bit memory, 1024 FP32 cores, and have the same configurable TDP range of 35-50 Watts.

Below, you can see AMD's benchmarks of the following select games: Hitman 3, Total War Saga: Troy, F1 2021, Strange Brigade (High), and Final Fantasy XIV. The Radeon RX 6500M GPU manages to win in all of these games, thus explaining AMD's "FTW" hashtag on Twitter. Remember that these are vendor-supplied benchmarks runs, so we have to wait for some media results to surface.

AMD's final refresh of the RDNA2 graphics architecture, the Radeon RX 6x50 series, could debut in June or July 2022, according to Greymon55, a reliable source with GPU leaks. The final refresh of RDNA2 could see AMD use faster 18 Gbps GDDR6 memory across the board, and eke out higher engine clocks on existing silicon IP. At this point it's not known if these new chips will be built on the same 7 nm process, or are an optical shrink to 6 nm (TSMC N6). Such a shrink to a node that offers 18% higher transistor density, would have significant payoffs with clock-speed headroom. AMD's RDNA3-based 5 nm GPUs could debut only toward the end of the year.

In related news, AMD is preparing to launch another entry-level SKU within the RX 6000 series; the Radeon RX 6500 (non-XT). Based on the same 6 nm Navi 24 silicon as the RX 6500 XT, this SKU could have a core-configuration that's in-between the RX 6500 XT and the RX 6400, in featuring 768 stream processors across 12 compute units; and 4 GB of GDDR6 memory, which is similar to the RX 6400, but with higher engine clocks. The RX 6500 is targeting a $150 (MSRP) price-point.