AMD Removes ‘4GB VRAM is not enough for games’ Marketing Hours Before Radeon RX 6500 XT 4 GB Launch

AMD Removes '4GB VRAM is not enough for games' Marketing Hours Before Radeon RX 6500 XT 4 GB Launch

AMD once claimed that 4 GB VRAM was not enough for gamers to tackle NVIDIA's entry-level lineup but they are backing up from that marketing statement hours before the Radeon RX 6500 XT hits retail shelves.

AMD Has Removed '4 GB VRAM Is Not Enough For Games' Marketing Hours Before Radeon RX 6500 XT 4 GB Graphics Card Launch

As discovered by KitGuru (via Videocardz), the AMD marketing blog for the Radeon RX 5500 XT which mentioned that 4 GB wasn't sufficient for games has been removed. This comes a mere hours before the red team will be officially launching its highly controversial Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card which packs 4 GB memory.

AMD is leading the industry at providing gamers with high VRAM graphics solutions across the entire product offering. Competitive products at a similar entry-level price-point are offering up to a maximum of 4GB of VRAM, which is evidently not enough for today's games. Go Beyond 4GB of Video Memory to Crank Up your settings. Play on RadeonTM RX Series GPUs with 6GB or 8GB of VRAM and enjoy gaming at Max settings.

AMD Marketing Blog For Radeon RX 6500 XT (Now Removed) Videocardz

it comes as no surprise as that marketing blog would have made the Radeon RX 6500 XT 4 GB graphics card look really bad as a 2022 launch. Here are some key points to consider for the Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card:

Only 4 GB VRAM in 2022
Limited To Just 4 PCIe Lanes (Gen 3 platforms to see severe performance degradation)
No AV1 Decoding
No H264/H265 Encoding
$199 US MSRP But AIBs suggest over $339/299 Euros pricing
Questionable Availability

Furthermore, several reviewers have not been allocated the Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card for review. Renowned tech outlets such as TechPowerUp & Computerbase have reported that they won't be getting a sample from AMD or its AIB partners.

PSA: GPU-Z shows PCI-Express x16 for Radeon RX 6500 XT / Navi 24. It really is x4 https://t.co/GMsSi8HFeg pic.twitter.com/NDqCV03eoN

— TechPowerUp (@TechPowerUp) January 18, 2022

+1 Who else wants to join?

— ComputerBase (@ComputerBase) January 18, 2022

Some of the design choices were made to make the graphics card a viable option for gamers in a market that is heavily constrained (or so they want us to believe). But it turns out, these decisions have caused a major backlash from the tech community, and even older options such as the Radeon RX 5500 XT or the Radeon RX 480 look like better options compared to the new variant. Benchlife has even posted their review of the card early on and the performance versus the GTX 1650 SUPER OC looks disappointing:

But that's not it, the latest listings of the RX 6500 XT graphics card are way above the MSRP. In fact, these are cards are almost twice the MSRP, retailing at up to 378.44 Euros. That's $400-$430 US if you convert it and the MSRP is $199 US for the US market. We have seen ASUS state a 299 Euros pricing for their custom cards but in reality, it's going to be much higher.