AMD just unveiled the Radeon RX 6600 XT, claiming to offer capable specs and features for an extremely reasonable price. While a new PC GPU is always something to get excited about, announcements like this have lately been coming with a huge asterisk. While Nvidia and AMD continue to pump out graphics cards, actually buying one remains virtually impossible. A combination of chip shortages, crypto miners, and scalpers has resulted in GPU availability being nonexistent for the past year. And, unfortunately, it'll likely remain that way for some time to come.
Even so, that hasn't stopped companies from sticking with typical release cycles. In the case of AMD, it's released numerous GPUs under its RX 6000 Series — ranging from the top-of-the-line RX 6900 XT to the recently announced RX 6600 XT. With the RX 6000 Series, AMD is touting things like 4K - 1080p gaming, fast memory, RDNA 2 technology, DirectX 12 Ultimate support, and plenty more. The RX 6000 Series is now home to five GPUs with varying performance and prices, ensuring there's something for gamers at any budget.
With the all-new RX 6600 XT, AMD has created its cheapest GPU of the RX 6000 Series — coming in at just $379. That may lead some shoppers to think the 6600 XT doesn't have much to offer, but AMD managed to deliver a generous feature-set considering the low price. It's built on the same RDNA 2 design as the more expensive RX 6000 cards, is equipped with 32 compute units, has a 2359MHz clock speed (boosted up to 2589MHz), and 8GB of GDDR6 RAM. Those are lower numbers than any other RX 6000 GPU, but again, that's to be expected given the type of graphics card this is. In addition to the benefit of the low price, the RX 6600 XT also draws just 160W of power.
Performance Gamers Can Expect From The AMD RX 6600 XT
While it may not be the most jaw-dropping GPU on paper, the RX 6600 XT should still deliver great performance across some of the most popular games. Running titles at 1080p resolution with max graphics settings, AMD says gamers can expect 92 FPS in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, 137 FPS in Forza Horizon 4, and 177 FPS in Resident Evil Village. Those numbers become even more impressive when looking at competitive games. For DOTA 2, Rainbow Six Siege, and Valorant, AMD is touting 289 FPS, 441 FPS, and 553 FPS, respectively.
This isn't a card for people that want to dive into 4K gaming with ray-tracing, but for someone that's OK sticking with high-quality 1080p content, the RX 6600 XT looks like a really compelling package. The card is set to go on sale on August 11 for that $379 retail price, but don't be surprised if the RX 6600 XT falls victim to the pitfalls of every other GPU over the last year. It'll either be sold out or be going for hundreds of dollars more on eBay and other sites by unrelenting scalpers. That's the unfortunate catch that comes with any GPU these days, but if someone is lucky enough to get it at retail, the RX 6600 XT should be a great buy.
Source: AMD