Radeon RX 6500 XT review - Performance - PCIe 3.0 vs 4.0 scaling

Performance - PCIe 3.0 vs 4.0

AMD produced this card in many ways as cheap as possible. Limiting VRAM in size and bandwidth, but also this product has been limited towards just x4 PCIe lanes. By default this card is PCIe Gen 4.0, a substantial number of end-users will have such a connection and platform. Think chipsets based on the Z590, Z690, X570, and B550. 

Our (and most) motherboards have a toggle in the BIOS allowing us to enforce PCIe Gen 3.0 and 4.0. We have zoomed in and had a peek at the performance differential, which is substantial if you are still on PCIe Gen 3.0.

Hitman III runs 6% slower on average when dropping back towards Gen 3.0 PCIe lanes. The upper chart, green is PCIe x4 Gen 4.0, and in orange PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 lanes.

Hitman III runs 31% slower on average when dropping back towards Gen 3.0

Tomb Raider runs 10% slower on average when dropping back towards Gen 3.0

Far Cry 6 will run more than 4 GB VRAM no matter what quality settings you opt for, even at low-quality settings. So we reverted to Far Cry 5: New Dawn, a title can keep VRAM below 4 GB. It runs 3% slower on average when dropping back towards Gen 3.0