The new AMD RX 6500 XT graphics card only has 4GB of GDDR6, so it cannot be used for Ethereum mining. This VRAM limitation was chosen due to the low price of this graphics card.
The AMD RX 6500 XT has only 4GB of VRAM, so it cannot be used for Ethereum mining.
Ethereum’s mining process requires a file called DAG. This file grows every few blocks created. The DAG is stored in VRAM and is currently well over 4GB in size. It is stored in VRAM because it has a larger bandwidth and because Ethereum’s mining process is GPU-based (simplified explanation).
Since the AMD RX 6500 XT only has 4 GB of VRAM, it is impossible to store the DAG and therefore cannot be used for Ethereum mining. If it had 6 GB of VRAM, for example, it could be used for mining. Due to its low price, it would be very tempting for Ethereum miners.
The RX 6500 XT features a Navi24 silicon based on TSMC’s 6nm process. This silicon offers 1024 stream processors and has Ray Accelerators. It also has 16 MB of Infinity Cache and can reach up to 2.6 GHz in gaming mode.
The graphics card has 4 GB of VRAM memory and 64-bit bandwidth. This puts it inferior to the company’s other graphics cards, which use 8 GB of VRAM and a 128-bit bus.
According to AMD, the 4 GB of VRAM is more than enough for most triple-A games, but not optimal for mining. That makes users the beneficiaries of this new graphics card. A graphics card will be released on January 19 and has a price tag of $199.