We’re in the midst of a pandemic and a global chip crunch, but that isn’t stopping AMD from releasing yet another new GPU. The $US380 ($514) RX 6600 XT is here, and it’s now the most affordable member of AMD’s current 6000-series GPU lineup. While its specs aren’t quite as eye-popping as some of its more expensive siblings, AMD says the 6600 XT was designed to deliver strong performance for gaming at 1080p.
The 6600 XT features 32 compute units with 8GB of DDR6 RAM, 32MB of AMD’s Infinity Cache, and a game clock of 2359 MHz. Additionally, with a power draw of just 160 watts, AMD says that RX 6600 XT requirements are low enough that owners should only need a 500-watt power supply, instead of the 800- or 1000-watt PSUs typically needed to support high-end cards like the 6900 XT or Nvidia’s 3080 Ti. In fact, ASRock is even making one version of the 6600 XT with a single cooling fan, so it can fit in smaller systems with micro- ATX or mini-ITX motherboards.
AMD’s main goal with the 6600 XT is to support gaming at 1080p at max settings across a wide range of titles, especially because two-thirds of new gaming monitors shipped in 2020 have 1080p resolutions. AMD claims that when compared to Nvidia’s RTX 3060, the 6600 XT offers 15% better performance on average in games like Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal, Forza Horizon 4, and others. Overall, the card fits performance-wise in between the RTX 3060 and 3060 Ti.
But with support for features like AMD Smart Boost, Radeon Anti-Lag, and AMD’s Super FX Resolution, the 6600 XT is still more than capable of supporting 1440p or even 4K gaming, you just might have to play around with the game’s graphics settings a bit. And for those who live and die by millisecond reactions, AMD also says its Anti-Lag feature can reduce input latency by up to 13%. When it comes to VR, AMD says that the 6600 XT exceeds all the minimum requirements for modern HMDs, so it should be more than capable of powering both traditional and VR gaming experiences.
Unlike AMD’s previous 6000-series desktop GPUs, there won’t be a reference model for the 6600 XT. AMD is relying on all of its usual partners, including Asus, MSI, ASRock, Gigabyte, and others, to produce retail versions of the card.
Of course that brings up the somewhat sore subject of availability, which has made it increasingly difficult for gamers to get their hands on new GPUs over the past 12-18 months. AMD says that it’s working “extremely closely” with its partners to get as many cards into gamers’ hands as possible, though without any specific numbers to go by, it’s hard to say how easy or difficult it will be to actually purchase one at launch.
But if you’re been waiting for a new and relatively affordable GPU to hold down your 1080p battlestation, the RX 6600 XT seems like a great component for the job. As always, we’ll have to wait until we can test one out to be sure.
AMD’s RX 6600 XT is slated to go on sale on Aug. 11 for $US380 ($514).
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.