Sapphire Radeon RX 6650 XT Nitro+ review - Product Photos

Product Photos

Any Radeon RX 6650 XT will have 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and will be coupled to a 128-bit wide memory bus, which is a significant constraint for a graphics card in this class. AMD is attempting to compensate for the limited memory bus by running that memory at 17.5 Gbps (effective data rate) and by incorporating an additional L3 cache on the GPU die (on-die) (32MB). Both will assist you when it comes to Full HD and WQHD resolutions; however, once the L3 cache is depleted, which will occur mostly in GPU-bound Ultra HD, you can expect to see a performance hit.

The renowned cooler has been compacted, with only two fans remaining instead of three. The cooler's design is very identical to that of the bigger units, with the exception being the shorter length.  The card's cooler is divided into two heat sinks that are linked through four heat pipes into the plate that comes into direct contact with the GPU.

Four individual heatpipes can be seen terminating at the card's end. The Radeon RX 6650 XT Gaming X has just one 8-pin power connection. The 8-pin PCIe connector + PCIe power feed specifies a maximum power of 225 watts. 

The fans reveal a nine-blade design that is contained within a ring, making the fans more of a whole unit and hopefully aiding in airflow direction. The cards all get HDMI 2.1 connectors and the latest iteration in DisplayPort. Most cards will hold an 8-pin headers configuration depending on AIC/AIB choices as partner cards are free to choose to use whatever they deem applicable. 

AMD limited the PCI Express bus towards 8 lanes, so that's x8 PCIe Gen 4.0. This will not hinder performance at all at PCIe 4.0, At PCIe 3.0 however that might be a few % different.