AMD has today released the AMD Radeon RX 6600, a new RDNA 2 GPU that has a focus on 1080p as well as high refresh rates. From the press release AMD said the Radeon RX 6600 cards are expected to be available today starting at $329 USD from the likes of ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, PowerColor, SAPPHIRE, XFX and various retailers.
“The latest generation of games deliver massive leaps in life-like visuals that are driving more graphics performance to meet the demand for the best possible 1080p gaming experiences,” said Scott Herkelman, corporate vice president and general manager, Graphics Business Unit at AMD. “To meet this demand, we’ve designed the Radeon RX 6600 to make these new breathtaking experiences available to more PC gamers, providing the performance of an enthusiast-class powerhouse in a midrange solution.”
Here's the specs along with a comparison to the XT model
Model |
Compute Units |
GDDR6 |
Game Clock4 (MHz) |
Boost Clock5 (MHz) |
Memory Interface |
Infinity Cache |
TBP |
AMD Radeon RX 6600 |
28 |
8 GB |
2,044 |
Up to 2,491 |
128-bit |
32 MB |
132W |
AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT |
32 |
8 GB |
2,359 |
Up to 2,589 |
128-bit |
32 MB |
160W |
On the NVIDIA side, it seems the closest competition is the GeForce RTX 3060. While we don't get any cards from AMD to test with, they did provide these images below to compare. From what Phoronix tested, it appears to stack up pretty well against NVIDIA.
If you plan to get one to use with Linux, you should look at Mesa 21.2 at a minimum.
The only desktop GPU I was able to get, without paying scalper prices, was an Nvidia GT710 (and I've got one of those in storage already)... So a laptop upgrade it was, even though my previous laptop was from late 2018.
Hopefully, this will be a GPU people can actually buy. Personally, I want to replace my 1060 with something AMD, because open source drivers...
Hopefully, this will be a GPU people can actually buy.
I just checked scan.co.uk and they're taking pre-orders at just under £530 for the 6600XT card. Which is pretty insane considering I bought my (slightly more powerful) 5700XT in February 2020 for less than that. Considering how close the 6600XT is to the 5700XT, I wonder why they're pitching it as a 1080p card, when I think the 5700XT was pitched as a 4K card two years ago. And it does do well at 4K in a lot of games, but needs FSR (or equivalent) upscaling for the big, modern 3D games, such as Cyberpunk or Horizon Zero Dawn.
But it honestly feels almost irresponsible to launch a new card in these circumstances. All it feels like is splitting an already tiny stock of silicon between an ever larger range of cards you're only to sell to scalpers. I know I'm being extremely cynical, but the last two years have been an absolute car crash for GPUs. I can't see how this is at all healthy for the PC gaming market. Looks like 4K gaming now demands at least a grand of spend on the GPU alone.
Man. I've been getting happier and happier that I bought a new PC including new AMD graphics card of some sort, not very long before all this nonsense started. Hopefully by the time I'm looking to upgrade again, it will all be long over.Hopefully, this will be a GPU people can actually buy.
I just checked scan.co.uk and they're taking pre-orders at just under £530 for the 6600XT card. Which is pretty insane considering I bought my (slightly more powerful) 5700XT in February 2020 for less than that. Considering how close the 6600XT is to the 5700XT, I wonder why they're pitching it as a 1080p card, when I think the 5700XT was pitched as a 4K card two years ago. And it does do well at 4K in a lot of games, but needs FSR (or equivalent) upscaling for the big, modern 3D games, such as Cyberpunk or Horizon Zero Dawn.
But it honestly feels almost irresponsible to launch a new card in these circumstances. All it feels like is splitting an already tiny stock of silicon between an ever larger range of cards you're only to sell to scalpers. I know I'm being extremely cynical, but the last two years have been an absolute car crash for GPUs. I can't see how this is at all healthy for the PC gaming market. Looks like 4K gaming now demands at least a grand of spend on the GPU alone.
cheapest Available is 550 euro
I will not buy the successor of my GTX 1050 TI for more than the 150 euro i paid for back then. 200 euro tops.
I would rather play without a discrete GPU than pay 550 euro for 1080p gaming. Hell, i'd rather play 8bit and 16bit games on a raspberry pi for the rest of my life than pay that price!
It goes for both green and red team! They both lost the plot between the price the HUGE power consumption the big cards need now.
cheapest is 520 euro
cheapest Available is 550 euro
I will not buy the successor of my GTX 1050 TI for more than the 150 euro i paid for back then. 200 euro tops.
I would rather play without a discrete GPU than pay 550 euro for 1080p gaming. Hell, i'd rather play 8bit and 16bit games on a raspberry pi for the rest of my life than pay that price!
It goes for both green and red team! They both lost the plot between the price the HUGE power consumption the big cards need now.
Have you found any in stock? Here (Canada), there is nothing to show for... Yeah got some price ranges on Newegg (From 500$ CAN and up), but it's "Out of stock" everywhere.
...and suddenly my addiction to little plastic models appears to be a cheap hobby by comparison.
You're not cynical, you're realistic. All of this trouble with GPUs is behind me constantly pushing back any kind of remote idea of getting an upgraded system. I'm starting to wonder when it will impact the games - they'll realise nobody has the kind of system that can run what they want and will have to adjust requirements accordingly. Or just push it out on a streaming service and leave desktop systems out of it entirely.
With the current state of the market, paying for a PC just for gaming is almost stupid. If you just want to play new games, it's 100% better inversion to go for the PS5/xbox.
Last edited by x_wing on 13 October 2021 at 6:39 pm UTC
...and suddenly my addiction to little plastic models appears to be a cheap hobby by comparison.
You're not cynical, you're realistic. All of this trouble with GPUs is behind me constantly pushing back any kind of remote idea of getting an upgraded system. I'm starting to wonder when it will impact the games - they'll realise nobody has the kind of system that can run what they want and will have to adjust requirements accordingly. Or just push it out on a streaming service and leave desktop systems out of it entirely.
With the current state of the market, paying for a PC just for gaming is almost stupid. If you just want to play new games, it's 100% better inversion to go for the PS5/xbox.
Yep... But if you got a massive Steam Library that you don't want to let go... The Steam Deck might be a good alternative to PS5 or Xbox.
I'm wondering if the futur of PC gaming is not going to be in the APU market... Since they are unfit for mining... All Ryzen 6000 series will have integrated GPUs... AM5 socket with good DDR5 speeds... And the Steam Deck laying the foundations for the APU market segment... Maybe something good will come out of it... Maybe.
Last edited by Mohandevir on 13 October 2021 at 7:24 pm UTC
I never expected to be stuck so long on my Vega 56. However, until I start seeing new cards for MSRP or less, that's going to be my card. I expect that eventually either the demand will lessen or chip production will catch up or the world will end. We'll see.
I'm still stuck on my RX 590 and I still fear that the GPU fan will die one day, because I hear some clicking coming from it for a few months.
But in past years I usually didn't play new games and I don't need 4k or ultra high details. If the game runs and it's fun, it's enough for me. So I will wait till the price will come down or the market situation will changes in other way.
Last edited by Zlopez on 13 October 2021 at 9:44 pm UTC
I only just recently got a 6800xt for £1100 so around £400 to £500 above MSRP. I will say however that I am extremely happy with my new GPU and highly recommend getting one of these cards if the price is acceptable for your circumstances. Don't expect GPU prices to stabilise until 2023 and with Xmas on the horizon its only going to get worse. If you need a new GPU now then get one if you can.
Note to buyers that HDMI 2.1 features are not supported on Linux on AMD GPU's E.G FSR, FREESYNC so you must use HDMI 2.0 for FREESYNC or use the closed source driver.
I never expected to be stuck so long on my Vega 56. However, until I start seeing new cards for MSRP or less, that's going to be my card. I expect that eventually either the demand will lessen or chip production will catch up or the world will end. We'll see.
I'm still stuck on my RX 590 and I still fear that the GPU fan will die one day, because I hear some clicking coming from it for a few months.
But in past years I usually didn't play new games and I don't need 4k or ultra high details. If the game runs and it's fun, it's enough for me. So I will wait till the price will come down or the market situation will changes in other way.
I'm still running my old R9 290...
Note to buyers that HDMI 2.1 features are not supported on Linux on AMD GPU's E.G FSR, FREESYNC so you must use HDMI 2.0 for FREESYNC or use the closed source driver.
I'd say if you are going for such high end card as 6800 XT investing in a good monitor is worth it as well, and all high end ones like 144 Hz (or higher) adaptive sync IPS models have DisplayPort, so HDMI woes are usually a non issue.
I'd recommend something like LG 27GL850 (2560x1440, 144 Hz) or LG 27GP850 (2560x1440, 160 Hz).
Last edited by Shmerl on 14 October 2021 at 2:04 am UTC
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