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Radeon RX 6500 XT vs Radeon RX 6950 XT — Specs & Performance Compared

Verdict: The Radeon RX 6950 XT is ahead of the Radeon RX 6500 XT on all 4 shared benchmarks on file, by 32% to 1177%, including 1177% in 3DMark Steel Nomad (4,215 vs 330). On qwen3:8b, both reach about 711.0 tokens/s (per LocalLLaMA; per LocalLLaMA).

Side-by-side GPU comparison of the Radeon RX 6500 XT and the Radeon RX 6950 XT. Both released in 2022. MSRP range: $199 · $1,099. Specs, synthetic benchmarks, AI inference tok/s, and Amazon availability below; each column header links to that part's benchmark page.

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*Price sourced from Amazon.com. Price and availability subject to change.

Where to buy

A listing for each part; the current price and stock are on the retailer's page.

Specs side-by-side

SpecRadeon RX 6500 XTRadeon RX 6950 XT
vram gb —16

Synthetic benchmarks

Each row says whether a higher or a lower number is better (ranks and times are lower-is-better). Scores come from PassMark, Tom's Hardware, Digital Trends, KitGuru, WCCFtech / 3DMark, 3DMark, HWBOT Community Forums, LanOC Reviews, UL Benchmarks, AlkTech, TechPowerUp, Guru3D and HWBOT; each row links its sources, and where they differ the cell shows their median. Empty cells mean we don't yet have that benchmark on file for the SKU.

BenchmarkRadeon RX 6500 XTRadeon RX 6950 XT
3DMark Fire Strike (higher is better)
Source: PassMark, Tom's Hardware, Digital Trends, KitGuru		 13,660 pts28,900 pts
3DMark Fire Strike (Graphics Score) (higher is better)
Source: WCCFtech / 3DMark		 —61,950 points
3DMark Fire Strike (Overall Score) (higher is better)
Source: WCCFtech / 3DMark		 —43,823 points
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra (higher is better)
Source: 3DMark		 —16,355 points
3DMark Port Royal (higher is better)
Source: HWBOT Community Forums, 3DMark, WCCFtech / 3DMark		 —10,824 points
3DMark Speed Way (higher is better)
Source: LanOC Reviews, 3DMark		 827 points4,394 points
3DMark Steel Nomad (higher is better)
Source: UL Benchmarks		 330 points4,215 points
3DMark Steel Nomad Light (higher is better)
Source: 3DMark		 4,626 points—
3DMark Time Spy (higher is better)
Source: AlkTech, TechPowerUp, Digital Trends, KitGuru, Guru3D, LanOC Reviews		 5,341 points17,050 points
3DMark Time Spy (Overall Score) (higher is better)
Source: WCCFtech / 3DMark		 —19,696 points
3DMark Time Spy Extreme (higher is better)
Source: HWBOT		 —12,409 points
3DMark Time Spy Graphics Score (higher is better)
Source: AlkTech		 —21,194 points

AI inference (tokens/sec)

Top community-reported tokens-per-second results for popular LLMs whose weights fit the card's memory, each linked to its source. See the per-SKU benchmark page for the full set including quantization and prompt length.

Radeon RX 6500 XT

All Radeon RX 6500 XT AI benchmarks →

Radeon RX 6950 XT

All Radeon RX 6950 XT AI benchmarks →

Quick answers

Which is faster, the Radeon RX 6500 XT or the Radeon RX 6950 XT?

The Radeon RX 6950 XT is ahead of the Radeon RX 6500 XT on all 4 shared benchmarks on file, by 32% to 1177%, including 1177% in 3DMark Steel Nomad (4,215 vs 330).

Which is better for running local LLMs?

On qwen3:8b, both reach about 711.0 tokens/s (per LocalLLaMA; per LocalLLaMA).

What did the Radeon RX 6500 XT and the Radeon RX 6950 XT cost at launch?

The Radeon RX 6500 XT launched at a $199 MSRP and the Radeon RX 6950 XT at $1,099. Street prices drift from launch pricing; the Where to buy section links current listings.

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