The Gigabyte Geforce RX 6600 XT graphics card is designed for gamers, and has the features and power to enable completely immersive gaming experiences. It has an aggressive look, and is built for the ultimate gaming experience. The Radeon RX 6600 XT has all the latest and best gaming technologies, including Advanced Video Memory Engines, or Vram, 3D High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging, and FreeSync™ technology.
Do you want to talk about overclocking? Gotta be kidding, right? Well, here’s some more bad news for you: there are more people who are interested in overclocking these days. And they’re not just the extreme overclockers looking to push their systems to the limit. No, more and more of our fellow gamers are opting for an overclocking-friendly build, and they’re asking for more affordable gear to do it. We’ve had more requests for AMD’s Radeon RX RX 6600 GPU than any other GPU, and it’s easy to see why. The chip performs well in most games, and its performance can be boosted to an impressive level.
For those who don’t know, we were fortunate enough to get our hands on the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, courtesy of AMD. With the review and performance embargo removed, we can finally reveal our findings, comparisons, and ultimate judgment on how this RX 6600 XT performs as the self-proclaimed “Epic 1080p Gaming GPU.” We got the Gigabyte Gaming Pro OC version of the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT since there were no reference cards available.
A quick glance at the GPU
Yes, as I previously said, there is no reference card for the Radeon RX 6600 XT, which sets our benchmark and review apart from those of our colleagues who are evaluating other brand partner cards. That said, being a Gigabyte customer, I find the Gigabyte Gaming Pro OC to have a simple and modest design inside and out, similar to how their GPUs have always been – with triple fans on top hidden by a black and gunmetal grey finish.
On the side, you’ll see the Gigabyte logo, which is RGB-fied with RGBFusion 2.0 and controlled through a PC software, followed by the RADEON printing, which is monochrome. I wish it had a red light to it, similar to their Reference cards. A protective plate wraps around the GPU at the bottom, giving the impression that the card is one piece. There aren’t any notable changes with the Gaming Pro OC, but I suppose if something isn’t broken, there’s no sense in repairing it.
Specification
This is where things get interesting since the GPU just has one 8x Pin connection to power up, which makes you question whether it’s a power-efficient GPU. Well, not exactly — this card is still rated at 150W. These cards do not have the same specifications as AMD’s published Reference standard. Because this is the Pro OC, anticipate some modifications and a performance increase depending on what Gigabyte has done with this GPU. The specifications are shown in the table below.
System Configuration Benchmarking
We chose the following setup to benchmark this system since this is our first excursion into component reviews, and we put something together that works well enough to get decent results out of the GPU.
Metrics and Performance
We’ll be testing some of the games we have at hand at 1080p Ultra Settings, since this GPU’s target demographic is mostly customers who want a GPU to take their 1080p experience with newer titles.
For the most part, the benchmark results for what this GPU has to offer from our test indicate that it’s a competent GPU while playing games at 1080p. Doom Eternal @ Ultra Nightmare Graphics was one of the games we were curious in seeing how it works under high loads, and the performance was fairly constant, with average frames of 143 fps and no major dips in the frames while we were playing the game.
Control and Metro Exodus struggle to put on a decent show on the RX 6600 XT, but for what it’s worth, they’re still playable, with Control averaging well over 60 frames per second (78 on average) and Metro Exodus averaging 69 (great.) frames per second. Now, obviously, if you do the math, games with well over 100 frames per second should suffer a significant drop in 1440p gaming, and games like Control and Metro Exodus, which have nowhere near the 100-frame-per-second mark, will render the game unplayable, but you can still run some titles that provide a decent experience.
Another thing to note about the RX 6600 XT is that, although it features 32 ray tracing compute units, its performance isn’t as mature as NVIDIA’s RTX GPU, which is now three generations old (if you calculate the 20 Series Super cards as a generation). NVIDIA has the upper hand here.
Now, AMD attempts to make up for it with features like FSR, which is still in its early stages with very limited game support, one of which being Godfall – which we will try to share our experience with in a future article – and other FidelityFX features. While it’s a step in the right direction, it’s not quite the audacity of a performance to be awed by.
But there were other aspects of this GPU that impressed me, such as the power consumption during a gaming session of Doom Eternal, where we observed a good range of consumption from 60W to little over 80W. In Godfall, the GPU reached 130W and remained there for the rest of the game, ranging from 100 to 130W.
Thermals, on the other hand, are excellent – as previously said, this GPU is housed in a Corsair 4000D Airflow Case – and the GPU temperature is not suffocated. It idled around 50-51 degrees Celsius and peaked at 60-62 degrees Celsius throughout our test. We didn’t observe any instances of the GPU over 70 degrees. So, on general, you can say that Gigabyte’s thermal solution is very excellent.
Finally, when it comes to clock speed, you’ll note that throughout a gaming session, the GPU manages to maintain the memory clock at 2.0GHz, which is very excellent, and the engine close is in a respectable range. The majority of the negative dips you saw were caused by us closing or reopening the games.
NVIDIA RTX 3060 vs.
Now for the big test: how does it stack up against the NVIDIA RTX 3060, which is NVIDIA’s response to an entry-level gaming GPU and essentially a 1080p GPU.
In terms of gaming performance, the RTX 3060 clearly outperforms the RX 6600 XT in certain cases while the RX 6600 XT outperforms the RTX 3060 by a hairline in others. But, for the most part, games like Control, which make full use of RTX, are where the 3060 really shines, with excellent overall performance.
As previously stated, NVIDIA’s Ray Tracing technology is a clear victor in this category, with its 2nd Generation Ray Tracing cores. The additional 4GB of VRAM (totaling up to 12GB) may seem to be overkill in terms of specifications, but the GPU is capable of handling 1440p games.
So, should you go with the RX 6600 XT?
To be quite honest, the RX 6600 XT is a strange GPU, and not because of its specifications. It’s only for sale because of the asking price. The fact that the RTX 3060 was priced at $329-339 USD at launch, the RX 6600 XT begins at $379, and we have no official pricing for these board partner cards, which are typically somewhat more expensive than AMD’s SRP.
Given the current situation, where chip shortages are real, GPU shortages are causing existing GPUs that have already been announced with their price placed at an all-time high, such as these cards – the Radeon RX 6600 XT is probably the only GPU you could get your hands on with no issues, well, maybe a few minor issues. However, if you’re coming from a GPU like the 20 Series, it’s best to hold off because the 20-series cards are still capable today. For those on the GTX 1060 or 50s, or even older Radeons who want that performance boost to play newer titles with better performance, the RX 6600 XT is kind of it for now.
Conclusion
The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT – based on the SRP, it’s clearly too much of an ask for a card that begins at $379 (remember, this isn’t the price of the Gigabyte we evaluated here, for which we still don’t have a pricing). However, when compared to the current scalper pricing, this card seems to be a lot less terrible. According to our testing, it’s a good improvement for someone upgrading from a GTX 10 Series or older Radeon cards, which is pretty much the demographic this Radeon RX 6600 XT is targeted for.
So, if all you care about is 1080p gaming with decent frame rates, go for it. But if you want to wait till it truly lowers and get something a bit more competent, well, the decision is yours, my buddy.
Thanks to AMD Malaysia for providing us with the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT and Gigabyte Malaysia for providing us with the AORUS Elite RTX 3060 for this comparison.
