Review RX 6600XT Reviews Thread

[Stuka87]

Rather than burry these in some 1000 page thread, may as well make them easy to find.

The performance is better than I expected. Fair bit faster than a 5700XT, but at a lot lower power consumption. Ray Tracing is poor, but that should not be a surprise. I do find it sad that TPU had to change their `Performance per Dollar` chart to include the obscene street prices

ASUS Radeon RX 6600 XT STRIX OC Review

The ASUS Radeon RX 6600 XT STRIX OC is a custom design variant with a triple-slot, dual-fan cooler. The card achieves excellent performance in Full HD, giving you 60 FPS or higher in every single game we tested. Temperatures are very low, and overclocking potential is good, too.

www.techpowerup.com

AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT Review: The Memory Compromise

Navi 23 only has 8GB GDDR6 on a 128-bit interface

www.tomshardware.com

 

[Mopetar]

I wouldn't consider this just a 1080p card because it actually does quite well in 1440p as well. Across the 20+ games that TPU used for their benchmark, the 6600XT that I looked at (Sapphire Pulse OC) had an average FPS just shy of 100 and it only drops below 60 in 5 of the titles tested. It's got 1080p (and 1440p) performance between a 2070 SUPER and a 2080, neither or which are going to be called 1080p cards.

Put another way, the 6600XT has roughly twice the performance of the 5500XT in TPU's benchmarks. If this is a 1080p card and it has twice as much performance as one of AMD's last generation cards, then what does that make the 5500XT because calling this a 1080p card doesn't leave much room for actual 1080p cards that can't offer playable experiences above that without turning down settings.

 

[Timorous]

I wouldn't consider this just a 1080p card because it actually does quite well in 1440p as well. Across the 20+ games that TPU used for their benchmark, the 6600XT that I looked at (Sapphire Pulse OC) had an average FPS just shy of 100 and it only drops below 60 in 5 of the titles tested. It's got 1080p (and 1440p) performance between a 2070 SUPER and a 2080, neither or which are going to be called 1080p cards.

Put another way, the 6600XT has roughly twice the performance of the 5500XT in TPU's benchmarks. If this is a 1080p card and it has twice as much performance as one of AMD's last generation cards, then what does that make the 5500XT because calling this a 1080p card doesn't leave much room for actual 1080p cards that can't offer playable experiences above that without turning down settings.

High refresh 1080p?

 

[Mopetar]

If you care about that, why stop with a 6600XT though? If we're just looking at MSRP prices (yeah I admit that's stupid, but I'm too lazy to look up what the market prices for everything is right now) at 6800 XT gets you over 200 FPS in the TPU average for only an extra $270, which is probably worth it for future proofing purposes.

It also looks as though the 6600XT wouldn't hit the FPS limit for most high refresh rate monitors in all but a small number of games, so it's questionable if you'd even want to use it for that. It's probably fine if you just care about one game like Counter Strike, but that's getting into a real niche argument.

 

[DeathReborn]

Hardware Unboxed with a fololow up in which he says the retailers refer to MSRP as a promotional price... man AMD keep screwing the pooch on this card.

 

[Mopetar]

AMD can't control what retailers charge. Tell me what the 'S' in MSRP stands for.

 

[Furious_Styles]

AMD can't control what retailers charge. Tell me what the 'S' in MSRP stands for.

Sane?

 

[Mopetar]

Hardly. Look at launch prices from Nvidia during Turing. Very little markup from retailers and many still wouldn't touch the cards at those prices.

The retailers would also be insane to charge less. All of those nice new 6600XT cards on eBay are mostly those sold at MSRP (what few of those there may have been) and are now being flipped with a huge markup.

 

[blckgrffn]

If you care about that, why stop with a 6600XT though? If we're just looking at MSRP prices (yeah I admit that's stupid, but I'm too lazy to look up what the market prices for everything is right now) at 6800 XT gets you over 200 FPS in the TPU average for only an extra $270, which is probably worth it for future proofing purposes.

It also looks as though the 6600XT wouldn't hit the FPS limit for most high refresh rate monitors in all but a small number of games, so it's questionable if you'd even want to use it for that. It's probably fine if you just care about one game like Counter Strike, but that's getting into a real niche argument.

Yeah, but a 6800XT can run you $1300-$1800. A $550 6600XT is in a completely different bracket.

A 6700XT is regularly $700-$900 or more.

I don't think AMD was planning anything north of $300 for the MSRP on this maybe 6 months ago. The market has simply changed since the release of the first RDNA 2 products.

Take the MSRP, double it, maybe 2.5x it for the desirable cards and a little less for less desirable ones and that's where we've landed it seems.

I thought the MSRP on the AMD cards was too close to even make sense at launch prices, the doubling effect makes it seem more rational

 

[aigomorla]

It also looks as though the 6600XT wouldn't hit the FPS limit for most high refresh rate monitors in all but a small number of games, so it's questionable if you'd even want to use it for that. It's probably fine if you just care about one game like Counter Strike, but that's getting into a real niche argument.

its been tag'd the mining card.
it pulls the simular numbers to the 1660 super and RX580 with a lot lower power draw.

Sorry, you wont see this card before some miner grabs them in there 8 gpu mining rig.
AMD knows this, hence why i think they limited it to 8x, as miners only use 1x unless its a physical requirement like the 3060ti.
And they can charage whatevery they want for it, as miners only look at cost over time, and at those hash rates, it would take only 6 months at scalpers prices to pay off.

So yeah... good luck getting one, and if you got one... congrats.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

its been tag'd the mining card.
it pulls the simular numbers to the 1660 super and RX580 with a lot lower power draw.

Sorry, you wont see this card before some miner grabs them in there 8 gpu mining rig.
AMD knows this, hence why i think they limited it to 8x, as miners only use 1x unless its a physical requirement like the 3060ti.
And they can charage whatevery they want for it, as miners only look at cost over time, and at those hash rates, it would take only 6 months at scalpers prices to pay off.

So yeah... good luck getting one, and if you got one... congrats.

Not being into mining, your explanation makes a lot of sense, as to why they did 8x.

 

[jpiniero]

Not being into mining, your explanation makes a lot of sense, as to why they did 8x.

AMD's lowest tier chip has had 8 lanes only. It's just to save space, it has nothing to do with mining.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

AMD's lowest tier chip has had 8 lanes only. It's just to save space, it has nothing to do with mining.

Uh huh.

 

[Mopetar]

In a world without mining this probably would have been released as a sub-$300 card. I don't know if they're going to have any discrete cards based on an even smaller Navi chip at some point, but the low-end GPUs from the last generation also had 8 lanes instead of 16 so it just seems to be a matter of saving money.

The design choices regarding how many lanes it should have would have been made well in advance of the latest mining boom so it's really reaching to assume it has anything to do with mining, particularly when the performance difference between 8 and 16 lanes seems to be a single game based on what's been posted so far.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

In a world without mining this probably would have been released as a sub-$300 card. I don't know if they're going to have any discrete cards based on an even smaller Navi chip at some point, but the low-end GPUs from the last generation also had 8 lanes instead of 16 so it just seems to be a matter of saving money.

The design choices regarding how many lanes it should have would have been made well in advance of the latest mining boom so it's really reaching to assume it has anything to do with mining, particularly when the performance difference between 8 and 16 lanes seems to be a single game based on what's been posted so far.

Yes, of course, no company ever learns from history, or established precedent. I like Occam's Razor too, but when the suits and MBAs are part of the equation, it stops being the best explanation far too often.

 

[aigomorla]

particularly when the performance difference between 8 and 16 lanes seems to be a single game based on what's been posted so far.

this is just utterly lazy designing then.
Id rather see it as AMD did this on purpose to save lanes on a card they knew very little gamers would get there hands on.
Then intentionally gimped a card and overcharged it to the public.

Also if the card is 8x... make the card a physical 8x.
Why the hell you gotta trick the market base by making it a physical 16x and then having it gimped to 8x.

Yeah, thats like labeling a car 4x4, but in having the feature only move either the front 2 wheels or the rear wheels one at a time and not simultaneously.

Seriously if your going to go and put that much work on a physical 16x interface.... then you may as well make it 16x.
If its 8x, why even bother with a physical 16x.... its not like the card is a 3090 with a MASSIVE heatsink that would use a physical 16x to support the weight.

This is a bad card... i hope no one buys it... and goes with the 6700XT ($479) or the 3060 ($349).
I for one will never recommend this card, unless you remove the display ports entirely and make it a dedicated headless mining card.
Which i think will be the next iteration for this card... a 8x headless mining card.

 

[blckgrffn]

this is just utterly lazy designing then.
Id rather see it as AMD did this on purpose to save lanes on a card they knew very little gamers would get there hands on.
Then intentionally gimped a card and overcharged it to the public.

Also if the card is 8x... make the card a physical 8x.
Why the hell you gotta trick the market base by making it a physical 16x and then having it gimped to 8x.

Yeah, thats like labeling a car 4x4, but in having the feature only move either the front 2 wheels or the rear wheels one at a time and not simultaneously.

Seriously if your going to go and put that much work on a physical 16x interface.... then you may as well make it 16x.
If its 8x, why even bother with a physical 16x.... its not like the card is a 3090 with a MASSIVE heatsink that would use a physical 16x to support the weight.

I mean, the 5500XT was the same way and that was before we could really have PCIe 4. There was some blowback then but it seemed like the market collectively shrugged.

My guess is many of these are destined for OEM systems that are native PCIe 4 and for them they'd rather save $2 per unit.

If the performance is only maybe a thing when in a PCIe 3 slot then... 🤷‍♂️

I had my Dad running his 5700 in a motherboard slot that was wired 4x with a 16x physical slot due to the fewer PCIe lanes his Intel CPU had. I freaked out a bit but after some benchmarks couldn't really find a scenario where it mattered. Of course that was before Doom Eternal, but it's worth noting ID Tech is both awesome and used by very select titles, Unity and Unreal are both more concerning and seem ambivalent about the PCIe slot config.

In any case, still think AMD meant for this to be a the $200 champion (after back and forth price cuts from nvidia) and the market just seismically shifted beneath all our feet. I agree at $400 in 2019/2020 dollars I'd be deeply disappointed and view the cost cutting as unjustified.

 

[Mopetar]

this is just utterly lazy designing then.

I'm not sure what you mean. If there's no actual performance difference then what's the point of having twice as many lanes? Should the Navi 14 cards have also had 16 lanes? All of the Turing cards have 16x PCIe 3 which is the same bandwidth as 8x PCIe 4. Are any of them so horribly crippled by that even though many of those cards were designed for market segments beyond where the 6600XT slots in?

Id rather see it as AMD did this on purpose to save lanes on a card they knew very little gamers would get there hands on.

The design would have been done well in advance of the mining boom. But assume for the sake of argument that someone actually thought that and brought it up. If really they had any reason to suspect that there would be a massive boom they would have been far better off investing in cryptocurrency than anything else because the prices of several increased by more than an order of magnitude in the the past year and are still up significantly even after falling off to some degree.

We already know that neither AMD or Nvidia saw the boom coming because they both priced their first cards incredibly aggressively. The 3080 at $700 was regarded as some of the best value Nvidia had offered in a long time and AMD came in with a competitive offering in the 6800 XT at $650, which was cheaper than Radeon VII which their new cards utterly demolish in terms of performance. Why do that if you know the cards will be unobtanium and the market prices will be much closer to double?

 

[Timorous]

I have done some more testing with my card in SW:TOR.

Running on the default Bios and not the OC bios. Frame rates are averaging 79fps when I turn v-sync off, this is at 4k with max settings. There are drops but that happens during transitions as it loads in a new area. In actual game play I don't notice anything. Would not be surprised if most of the drops are CPU related rather than GPU.

Card is hitting around 2590 and peaks at 2607. Temps are 57-58 degrees and hotspot is around 72 with the highest peak at 76. Power is 110 to 120W. In terms of noise I don't hear it. My pc has a low pitched hum and the card does not seem to add to it all.

All in I have to say I am pretty happy with it for my use case.

 

[DownTheSky]

RX 6600XT Sapphire Pulse. I finally broke 10k in Time Spy. This after an undervolt by 50 mV and power limit increased by 10%. Maximum fan set @67%, it's audible but not too much. Clocks are @ 2600Mhz core and 2200Mhz mem. Junction temp 82C. In the end I can say I'm pretty happy with it.

https://imgur.com/SAPQU2W

Btw to add to the discussion. I think the performance penalty in Doom Eternal is just with Ultra Nightmare textures because of texture streaming. I can't test it as I don't have PCIe 4.

 

[aigomorla]

[snip]

LOL... i also use a 1060 6GB as my second card driving my other monitors.
Question tho, doesn't catalyst and geforce drives cause issues when they are on the same system?

I always was always told not to mix both on a single system.

A $550 6600XT is in a completely different bracket.

Please direct me to where i can buy a 6600xt for 550 dollars.
I want 7 of them in white, and call it snow white, while giving each of the cards name "sleepy, grumpy, bashful, happy, dopey, doc, sneezy"
Ironically thats also the number of cards my ASUS Z170 Prime can also handle, and its also white.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

All in I have to say I am pretty happy with it for my use case.

In the end I can say I'm pretty happy with it.

That's great to read. Despite all the hate, two actual owners that had to pay for the cards, instead of getting free review samples, are happy with it. How strange is that?

 

[aigomorla]

How strange is that?

im not kidding about wanting 7 of them...

55W @ 32MH is a excellent card for mining.
You will hear no complaints from me if its in regards to mining, as the only high end cards i use for mining are the ones i retire personally, but i still have 1 low power mining rig.

I would love another to go along with my 7 x 1660 Super rig.

And yes doing the math @ 650 dollars even, with today's prices, you could break even in about 8-9 months im guessing, assuming Eth doesnt tank back to sub 2k. Oh and i don't need to worry too much on electricty on a 500W system.... cuz i have lots of solar.

 

[Stuka87]

LOL... i also use a 1060 6GB as my second card driving my other monitors.
Question tho, doesn't catalyst and geforce drives cause issues when they are on the same system?

I always was always told not to mix both on a single system.

Things can get dicey when you mix them. Intel and nvidia/AMD seems to work perfectly fine. But AMD and nVidia together can cause some weirdness. And while not currently true, but once upon a time nVidia forced some features to be disabled if they detected an AMD card.

 

[aigomorla]

Things can get dicey when you mix them. Intel and nvidia/AMD seems to work perfectly fine. But AMD and nVidia together can cause some weirdness. And while not currently true, but once upon a time nVidia forced some features to be disabled if they detected an AMD card.

yeah thats what i learned first hand too when i did mix...

Catalyst and Geforce do not like to play nice together.... neither does Vulkan when you have both drivers installed.
Was wondering if they fixed something, and they play nicer..

 

[H T C]

Please direct me to where i can buy a 6600xt for 550 dollars.
I want 7 of them in white, and call it snow white, while giving each of the cards name "sleepy, grumpy, bashful, happy, dopey, doc, sneezy"
Ironically thats also the number of cards my ASUS Z170 Prime can also handle, and its also white.

It wasn't out of stock when i posted this @ TPU, a few days ago:



All out of stock now, @ this Portuguese store. Can't speak for other Portuguese stores.