Skip to main content

The AMD RX 6600 XT is 15% faster than the RTX 3060, but there’s a catch

Following months of leaks and rumors, AMD finally pulled back the curtain on the RX 6600 XT. The new graphics card is a 1080p addition to the RDNA 2 range, which should provide high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p with a little help from FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR).

The Radeon RX 6600 XT is set to launch on August 11 for $379. In addition to board partner designs, AMD will supply units to desktop makers like Acer, Alienware, and HP. Although AMD showed off a render of a reference design, it won’t be manufacturing a reference model for the 6600 XT.

Benchmarks for the RX 6600 XT.

The card targets 1080p high refresh rate monitors with performance somewhere between an RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti. In Doom Eternal, for example, the RX 6600 XT averaged 155 frames per second (fps) compared to 134 fps with the RTX 3060. Similarly, the card hit 92 fps in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla compared to 69 fps on Nvidia’s card. Overall, AMD claims the card is 15% faster on average.

It’s important to point out that these benchmarks come from AMD, so we’ll need to wait for further testing to draw any firm conclusions. AMD also ran the tests with Smart Access Memory (SAM) enabled, which is a feature that can boost frame rates with Ryzen 5000 and select Ryzen 3000 processors.

Here are the specs we know right now:

RX 6600 XT
GPU Navi 23
Interface PCIe 4.0
Compute units 32
Stream processors 2,048
Ray accelerators 32
Game clock 2,359MHz
Memory 8GB GDDR6
Memory speed 16Gbps
Bandwidth Up to 256 GB/s
Memory bus 128-bit
TDP 160W

Although the performance is impressive, the suggested price of $379 is higher than the direct competition. That’s only $20 less than the RTX 3060 Ti and $50 more than the RTX 3060, the latter of which matches the RX 6600 XT in games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Horizon Zero Dawn. 

AMD set the price to be representative of where the market currently is. At launch, select designs from AMD’s partners will be available at $379, though the company pointed out how challenging this price is to meet given the ongoing GPU shortage.

RX 6600 XT models from board partners.

The biggest win for the RX 6600 XT looks like FSR. At 1080p with max settings and ray tracing turned on, the card was able to surpass 100 fps in Godfall and boost frame rates by up to 74% in The Riftbreaker. It also managed to increase the frame rate in Resident Evil Village, though only by a modest 13%.

FSR also allows you to push the resolution above 1080p. With ray tracing off at 1440p, AMD showed the RX 6600 XT jumping from 113 fps to 243 fps in Resident Evil Village. Similarly, Marvel’s Avengers climbed from 57 fps at native 1440p to 96 fps in FSR’s aggressive Performance mode.

RX 6600 XT benchmarks with FSR turned on.

With FSR available, the RX 6600 XT looks like the 1080p gamer’s dream. However, availability will likely be a problem. “We are doing our best to get supply, but the demand is unprecedented,” an AMD spokesperson said.

AMD isn’t releasing a reference design for the RX 6600 XT, but models from ASRock, Gigabyte, MSI, Asus, PowerColor, and more will be available on August 11.

Editors' Recommendations

Jacob Roach
Senior Staff Writer, Computing
Jacob Roach is a writer covering computing and gaming at Digital Trends. After realizing Crysis wouldn't run on a laptop, he…
AMD RX 7900 XTX: we tested ray tracing in 14 games, with mixed results
Radeon logo on the RX 7900 XTX.

AMD's recently launched RX 7900 XTX has received a warm reception, mainly on the back of the value it offers compared to Nvidia's competing RTX 4080. One area where Nvidia still has a lead, though, is ray tracing. AMD is lacking in the ray tracing department, but the RX 7900 XTX has made some big strides compared to the previous generation.

In the last-gen battle, ray tracing was a non-option on most AMD GPUs. Nvidia still clearly has a lead, but I wanted to look deeper into the ray tracing experience on AMD's latest generation. It's a massive improvement compared to last-gen cards, even if there are still some significant hurdles for Team Red.
RX 7900 XTX ray tracing, tested in 14 games

Read more
AMD responds to GPU overheating issues with RX 7900 XTX
RX 7900 XTX installed in a test bench.

As the number of AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX owners reporting overheating grows, the company has responded. Initially, complaints were met with a simple statement that temperatures of 110 degrees Celsius were normal and not a cause for concern.

That meant requests to return AMD RX 7900 XTX reference graphics cards were denied. While reaching 110 degrees Celsius might be acceptable, thermal throttling is unexpected behavior. AMD is now asking anyone experiencing throttling to contact AMD customer support for assistance. This isn't the first problem with AMD's latest GPU so hopefully, this is taken care of quickly.

Read more
AMD graphics cards have this one unsung advantage over Nvidia
amd gpus have this one unsung advantage over nvidia software main window skewed

AMD graphics cards have gotten a lot of the limelight recently, especially as the new RX 7900 XTX undercuts Nvidia's RTX 4080 in performance. But as AMD has continued to refine its GPU performance, another big area of improvement has been bubbling under the surface -- AMD Software.

It's been AMD Software, Radeon Software, Adrenalin, and various other names in the past, but regardless of the name, AMD has continued to iterate and improve the software experience for its GPUs. And the version we have now is a big reason why AMD can go up against the best graphics cards.
Everything, all in one place

Read more