When AMD launches their RDNA 2 GPUs earlier this year, the PC building and gamer community was thrilled. We expected great things from AMD and they delivered in GPUs that could compete with the best its competitors can offer at more reasonable prices. There was still a problem though, after the launch.
It was not about stock shortages and the chip shortage. It was more about the price category that AMD launched the RDNA 2 cards in. It was in the high-end portion of the market. While it was understandable, the GPUs were a little out of reach for most of the gaming community.
If you look into Steam’s trends too, the most popular category in gaming PCs is not in the high-end market. A lot of them still work with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1060 GPUs. A lot of those GPUs also power displays at 1080p Full HD resolution. The most popular resolution in PC gaming then, is still 1080p Full HD.
For the purpose of powering Full HD displays, the AMD Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6900 cards are a little overpowered, and a little overpriced. AMD understands this, of course. That is why you get the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT.
We start with the numbers first, of course. The Radeon RX 6600 XT packs 32 RDNA 2 compute units, 8 less than the RX 6700 XT. Instead of 12GB, it has 8GB of GDDR6 RAM. It is clocked a little higher than the RX 6700 XT though at a base clock of 2,359 MHz with boost speeds at up to 2,589 MHz. Of course, less cores and smaller RAM size also means lower power draw at 160W compared to 230W of the RX 6700 XT.
The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is made for budget conscious users. With less total required power, your power supply unit (PSU) can be of a smaller and less powerful variant too, a 550W PSU should be enough in this case. At US$ 379 (MYR 1,603*) it is also a lot more friendly to the wallet.
The Radeon RX 6600 XT is built to take on high-framerate Full HD 1080p gaming. At the same times, different games can be a little demanding. AMD’s FideltyFX technology that comes with the RX 6600 XT should allow games to be upscaled to Full HD resolution to deliver the best experience when gaming with more demanding modern titles. With DirectX 12 Ultimate support too, games should look stunning on your Full HD displays.
Of course, it also comes with AMD’s Smart Access memory technology to allow your AMD Ryzen processors access to the ample memory of the GPU for even better gaming performance. There is also AMD’s Radeon Anti—Lag technology on-board, which means you get even better response times from your keyboard and mouse, and even controllers which gives you the extra edge in games like Call of Duty: Warzone.
The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT will be available from AMD’s various board partners. You should start seeing units of the new GPU hitting shelves starting August 11th, 2021. Pre-built systems from OEMs and System Integrators are also expected to include the Radeon RX 6600 XT builds August 2021 onward. As mentioned, prices start from US$ 379 (MYR 1,603*) but will vary from one board partner to the other. More information on the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT can be found on AMD’s website.
* Approximately based on exchange rate of US$ 1 = MYR 4.23 on xe.com as of 30/07/2021
