NEWS · HARDWARE
PUBLISHEDAugust 12, 2021
READING2 min
AMD launches Radeon RX 6600 XT: $379, targets RTX 3060 performance
AMD has launched the Radeon RX 6600 XT for $379. It's pitched against the RTX 3060, making it ideal for 1080p gaming, but performance takes a hit on PCIe 3.0. Currently, it offers a more competitive price.
AMD yesterday unveiled the Radeon RX 6600 XT, a relatively affordable graphics card. Priced at $379 and aimed at the mid-range segment, it's set to compete directly with the RTX 3060 and 3060 Ti.
The RX 6600 XT graphics card features 2048 stream processors, 128 texture units, 64 ROPs, 32MB of high-speed L3 cache, and 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 128-bit interface. Its power consumption doesn't exceed 160W, requiring only a single 8-pin power connector.
⤢ ВІДКРИТИAMD itself positions the RX 6600 XT as an excellent solution for 1080p gaming. This is indirectly confirmed by its 128-bit memory bus and narrow PCIe 4.0 x8 interface.
By the way, if you don't own a motherboard and CPU with PCIe 4.0 support, you might want to hold off on buying the Radeon RX 6600 XT, or consider a different graphics card:
Early tests online indicate that the new card significantly loses performance when connected to a PCIe 3.0 slot. The culprit, as you've probably guessed, is the reduction in lanes from 16 to 8.
Now, let's dive into the performance of AMD's latest graphics card:
According to tests from the reliable sourceigor’sLAB (be sure to check out thefull review and form your own opinion), the RX 6600 XT outperformed the RTX 3060 in the vast majority of titles, but fell short of the higher-end RTX 3060 Ti:
It's also worth noting that with ray tracing enabled, the RX 6600 XT slightly loses ground, dropping to the RTX 3060's level, and sometimes even falling behind it.
However, it's not hard to guess that the winner in this standoff will be the graphics card whose price stays closest to its MSRP. And right now, the RX 6600 XT is doing much better on that front. This isn't surprising, as the new card's mining performance isn't impressive at all, hitting just 26 megahashes.
While this is good news for gamers, it's too early to get overly optimistic. The main concern is the RX 6600 XT's extremely low power consumption for crypto mining — just 55W. This could incentivize some "miners" to eye these energy-efficient new cards and start building farms, even based on the RX 6600 XT.
Sales of the Radeon RX 6600 XT began yesterday, but it's not hard to guess that availability for the new card isn't great right now.
