The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is the latest and cheapest graphics card to come out of the Red Team's designworks, and it faces one simple challenge: to compete with Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3060. 3060. To that end, AMD has included more of the RDNA 2 architecture we've come to love, but in a shrunken, slimmer package that falls just short of my expectations.

AMD has long been the dominant force in budget graphics cards, often dominating the charts in the performance-per-dollar race versus Nvidia. Recently, however, both companies have not been focusing as much on the inexpensive side (thanks to the global chip shortage), and there is a growing void of inexpensive chips.

But some straddle the ephemeral notion of "entry-level" today; AMD already offers the $379 RX 6600 XT, and Nvidia's cheapest is the $329 RTX 3060. Both are far from the entry level we once knew, but this is what we are working on now and what AMD is facing with the RX 6600.

The Radeon RX 6600 neatly fills the gap under the Radeon RX 6600 XT in the Red Team's RX 6000 series lineup, and there are few real surprises when comparing these two cards. However, there are a few differences between the two that should be noted, making it more important to consider paying extra for the XT model if possible.

First, the main similarity: AMD's RDNA 2 architecture is the best ever and has already been used in many graphics cards, including the Radeon RX 6900 XT and the latest gaming consoles from Microsoft and Sony. Of course, it is also the architecture that drives the RX 6600 XT and RX 6600.

To learn more about the RDNA 2 architecture, we recommend reading our review of the Radeon RX 6800 XT. There you can learn more about the changes and improvements of the RDNA 2 architecture.

The RDNA 2 architecture has proven to be an impressive improvement over AMD's first-generation RDNA, so the inclusion of this architecture is generally a good thing. Particularly in the case of the RX 6600, the RDNA 2 architecture is useful for boosting performance per watt, and as we will discuss later in this review, the RX 6600 has an advantage over the RTX 3060 12GB.

The RX 6600 comes with 132W of TBP (total board power), which AMD recommends combining with a PSU of at least 450W. This is lower than the 170W of Nvidia's RTX 3060 TBP, which is recommended with a 550W PSU. In some situations, a combination with a 550W PSU may save money.

On the power side, all is rosy. However, these modest power demands seem to come at a greater cost elsewhere, due to the reduced number of cores and clock speeds.

The RX 6600 is a far cry from the 5,120 cores of the Navi 21 chip in the top RX 6000 series cards. Instead, it features a scaled-down version of the same Navi 23 GPU as the RX 6600 XT; the RX 6600 has 1,792 cores (28 CUs), down from 2,048 cores (32 CUs) on the RX 6600 XT.

It may not seem like a big deal, but 4 CUs at this grade can result in a significant loss in performance, and the RX 6600 loses out to its XT sibling in other ways as well.

For one thing, it is not as blazingly fast as we are used to seeing; the RX 6600's reference boost clock is 2,491 MHz, which is also the maximum boost clock of the Powercolor review machine. The game clock (the clock speed AMD expects during gaming) is set at a more modest 2,044 MHz. [This is a feat that all RDNA 2 GPUs have accomplished through careful and clever tweaking. However, it falls short of the RX 6600 XT, which has a boost of 2,589 MHz and a game clock of 2,359 MHz.

In a real game environment, the RX 6600 easily updated its game clock, regularly hitting 2,337 MHz, but still about 300 MHz slower than the RX 6600 XT's actual in-game clock speed.

What this means is that the RX 6600 lags behind the RX 6600 XT by a considerable margin in the game, as you can see in the performance graph below.

However, one of the advantages of the RX 6600's slim specs is that AMD's partners may be able to offer slimmer coolers. Even the reference Powercolor Fighter's relatively small cooler keeps the temperature of this card surprisingly low during operation. I'd like to think we'll see more RX 6600 graphics cards at or around MSRP, but in today's Wild West of graphics card retailing, there's really no way to say for sure.

It is also worth noting that both the RX 6600 and RX 6600 XT use PCIe 4.0 x8 connections, which is fine if you have a PCIe 4.0-capable PC, but connecting this card to a PCIe 3.0 slot may result in a performance drop: 1 frame or two and will not have a significant impact, but keep this in mind, especially when comparing scores at 4K.

When this card is paired with the latest AMD Ryzen CPUs, the use of Smart Access Memory (SAM) can provide a small performance boost.

Note that our test bench is not compatible with PCIe 4.0, as it is powered by Intel 10th generation gaming chips and the Z590 chipset.

AMD Radeon RX 6600 1080p Performance

AMD Radeon RX 6600 1440p Performance

AMD Radeon RX 6600 4K Performance

AMD Radeon RX 6600 Ray Tracing Performance

AMD Radeon RX 6600 Power and Thermal

The Radeon RX 6600 and RX 6600, like the RX 6600 XT, do not break new ground in gaming GPUs today. Except for the badge, it offers what was already (theoretically) available at this price point. And, having said that, they are being quite generous to the Red Team.

It is comparable to the RTX 3060 12GB, providing backup when the going gets tough. Nevertheless, with 4GB less VRAM, often lower gaming performance, and one of the more valuable features, FidelityFX Super Resolution, available cross-vendor, many will see this card as nothing more than a second-best replacement for Nvidia's card It is doubtful that they will see it as anything other than a second-best replacement for Nvidia's card.

When you add the additional benefits of DLSS support and a superior ray-tracing core, the pendulum swings even further in Nvidia's favor. It must be said, however, that neither card is particularly well suited for ray tracing in more demanding games, though you may get the odd ray tracing effect here and there.

However, there may be a silver lining in AMD's decision to shrink the RX 6600. Perhaps. while we cannot rule out the possibility that the decision was made to avoid cannibalizing the RX 6600 with the RX 6600 XT, by lowering the clock speed, power, and consequently performance threshold, AMD may be able to use up more of its Navi 23 GPUs for the RX 6600 The RX 6600 is a very good example of this. At least more than a higher power, higher clock version might be available. This would theoretically help improve the RX 6600 supply. [But let's not forget that AMD is a master of inventory and uses almost every chip and chiplet TSMC manufactures wisely for something. Right now, meeting demand with raw volume is a problem, so perhaps they have thrown the performance of the RX 6600 into the sacrificial fire.

It is quite possible that without the chip supply crisis, the RX 6600 would have been a more competitive card.

Whether one should buy the Radeon RX 6600 depends on whether the RTX 3060 12GB is in stock and available for close to the MSRP of $329. Nvidia offers generally higher-performance graphics cards than AMD in this price range, and they tend to perform well in most games; the Radeon RX 6600 requires in-game optimization, SAM, and PCIe 4.0 to produce the best frame rates.

This means that the RTX 3060 12GB is a good overall buy, as long as you can actually afford it. [i.e., the Radeon RX 6600 may not necessarily be the graphics card you want, but it offers a great alternative at a cheaper price. At least as long as the MSRP cards are in stock at launch.

If the RX 6600 XT launch is anything to go by, RX 6600 inventory will survive the launch blitz and may last for days or even weeks afterward, as the more aftermarket coolers you add to the RX 6600, the less this card is worth.

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