There are those that ask questions like “Why does it even exist?” or “Who would even spend their money on that?”. It is when the AMD Radeon RX 6400 GPU is mentioned that these types of questions are raised.

Small, low power, budget cards do have a place in the computer hardware ecosystem, but does the RX 6400 take that too far to the point that it is, in fact, simply not needed.

In my opinion, the 6400 is a worthwhile addition to the budget end of the GPU spectrum because in my tests, it managed to perform better than I expected based on its specs sheet.

You can view the specs at the bottom of this article, but I think we can all agree that one couldn’t hold high expectations of a 4GB GDDR6, 64bit Memory Interface, 53Watt desktop GPU.

I certainly didn’t.

I coupled the card with a Ryzen 5 5600x CPU, x570 ASUS ROG STRIX mainboard & 64GB DDR4-3200 G.Skill memory & a Dell 4K 32’ Display.

I played Destiny 2 & Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, along with a few other games to test. Destiny 2 & Spider-man are my favorite examples of both ends of the scale when it comes to the capabilities of the RX 6400.

Destiny 2

Without going into every conceivable detail about what graphic settings I used, the one thing that I can say that stayed true across the board was the performance. Though this card is ‘capable’ of Ray Tracing, you can forget about that, what do get however, is medium-to-high quality gaming at 1080p60. If you feel the need to tinker with the more manual graphical settings, it is possible enjoy 1440p gaming at a fairly consistent 50-60fps in most cases.

I pushed it to 4K60 in Destiny 2 with a combination of 10fps and black screens… So maybe don’t do that.

In an era where sub $500 consoles can push 1440p60 and sub $800 consoles can theoretically push 4K120, it can be hard to make an argument for a GPU such as the RX6400. The thing is though, a console can’t be a computer, and not everyone has the luxury of owning a console and a PC, or even just a high-end pc by itself.

At the time of writing, assembling a pc like our test pc can be done for A little over the AU$1000 mark. This excludes a monitor, but you also don’t get a monitor with a console if we are to compare apples with apples.

At the end of the day, this GPU exists to allow those with smaller budgets to play today’s games at 60frames or more without having to cut graphics quality to the bone. Making use of FSR 2.0 in those games that support it is what I think AMD may be relying on to help bolster the performance of the RX 6400.

The combination of lower spec hardware and FSR 2.0 do make for workable budget solution when it comes to gaming in 1080p. I think though, that if were working on a tight budget to build a PC that it might make better sense to buy less RAM, or slower RAM and put a little more of the budget into even a RX 6500. You can always add more RAM later at a lesser cost than replacing a GPU.

Marvel’s Spider-Man

While perhaps the RX 6400 may in fact be a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist, I still believe the RX 6400 is a great option to have available. The RX 6400 may not be cash-cow for AMD, it does have a place in the GPU line-up.

While I genuinely believe it outperforms what its spec sheet says it is capable of and as long as you are prepared to only game in 1080p with some 1440p gaming here & there, you should only expect disappointment if you try to game in 4K or use Ray Tracing.

AMD Radeon™ RX 6400

Written by: Kurt Frohloff

A Founder of MKAU, a gamer, a family man. I have a love of all things gaming and a wish of mine is to have more time to actually play the games we review here!