The AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics card launched in October 2021 as AMD‘s new budget-friendly option aimed squarely at 1080p gaming. Historically, xx50 and xx60-class GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA have been the sweet spot for PC gamers – powerful enough to play the latest AAA games at high settings and 60+ FPS without completely breaking the bank. The RX 6600 follows in this tradition, and despite some initial criticism of its $329 MSRP, falling prices and outstanding performance have made it one of the best values in PC gaming hardware today. Here are 9 compelling reasons to consider buying an RX 6600 for your gaming rig.
1. Superb 1080p gaming performance
First and foremost, the RX 6600 absolutely shines when it comes to 1080p gaming. AMD‘s latest generation RDNA 2 architecture provides a huge leap in performance and efficiency compared to the previous gen, allowing the RX 6600 to hit 60 FPS or higher at ultra settings in pretty much any modern game you can throw at it.
Looking at benchmarks from leading publications, the RX 6600 averages around 106 FPS across a variety of popular, graphically intensive titles like Assassin‘s Creed Valhalla, Cyberpunk 2077, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Watch Dogs Legion. Less demanding esports games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, PUBG and CS:GO will run at well above 144 FPS, perfect for high refresh rate monitors.
The RX 6600 isn‘t marketed as a 1440p card, but it‘s actually quite capable at this resolution as well if you don‘t mind turning a few settings down from ultra to high. It averages in the ballpark of 88 FPS at 1440p depending on the game. 4K gaming is out of the question, but that‘s to be expected at this price point. For the vast majority of gamers still playing at 1080p, the RX 6600 delivers more than enough horsepower.
2. Excellent power efficiency
It‘s not just raw performance that impresses with the RX 6600, but performance per watt. RDNA 2 is incredibly power efficient, with a typical board power of just 132W. For comparison, the competing NVIDIA RTX 3060 has a TBP of 170W. This means the RX 6600 only requires a single 8-pin PCIe power connector and a 450W power supply, making it easy to slot into almost any existing system without needing to upgrade your PSU. It‘s also great news for your electricity bill and the environment.
The RX 6600‘s power efficiency translates to low heat output and quiet operation as well. The card tops out around 70°C under full load and most aftermarket versions have no trouble staying whisper quiet with their dual or triple fan coolers. If you value a cool and quiet gaming PC, the RX 6600 definitely fits the bill.
3. Leading edge features
Buying an RX 6600 gives you access to all the latest features and technologies AMD has on offer. This includes FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), an advanced upscaling technique that boosts performance with minimal impact on visual quality. FSR is seeing rapidly growing adoption from game developers and can provide up to a 2.4x performance increase at 4K.
The RX 6600 also supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing for more realistic lighting, shadows and reflections. AMD‘s implementation isn‘t quite on the level of NVIDIA‘s RTX cards yet, but the gap is narrowing and the performance hit from enabling RT is lower than on previous AMD generations. Features like Radeon Anti-Lag, Radeon Boost, and AMD Link add even more to the package.
Another neat trick the RX 6600 has is Smart Access Memory (SAM). This allows Ryzen 5000 series CPUs to fully access the GPU‘s VRAM over the PCIe bus rather than being limited to 256MB chunks, reducing latency and improving performance by up to 16% in some games. If you have a Ryzen CPU and 500-series motherboard, SAM is a nice free performance boost.
4. Ample, fast GDDR6 memory
The RX 6600 is equipped with 8GB of GDDR6 memory, which is quickly becoming the standard for 1080p gaming. Slower GDDR5 is still found on some older and entry-level cards, but 8GB of GDDR6 is really the sweet spot in terms of capacity and speed for AAA gaming.
Having double the memory of the previous gen RX 5500 XT 4GB means the RX 6600 is well-equipped to handle high resolution texture packs as well as the demands of future games as VRAM requirements continue to creep up. The 128-bit memory bus and 16Gbps memory speed provide 256GB/s of bandwidth, and as we‘ll discuss later, AMD‘s Infinity Cache technology acts as a bandwidth multiplier to make the most effective use of this.
It‘s true that some higher-end cards like the RTX 3060 come with 12GB of VRAM, but this is largely overkill for 1080p gaming. Unless you‘re heavily into modding or VR, 8GB is plenty and helps keep the RX 6600 affordable.
5. Runs cool and quiet under pressure
One of the most impressive aspects of the RX 6600 is how little heat it outputs relative to its performance. Despite averaging well over 100 FPS in most games at ultra settings, it never crests 70°C even without exotic cooling. Your mileage will vary slightly depending on the specific card model, case airflow, and ambient temperatures, but overall the RX 6600 runs exceptionally cool.
This is thanks in large part to the 7nm manufacturing process and a typical board power of just 132W. There‘s simply not that much heat to dissipate in the first place compared to more power hungry GPUs. AMD‘s reference design uses a dual axial fan cooler, but many board partners have stepped up to triple fan setups for the RX 6600 which allows for even lower temps and noise levels.
Sapphire‘s PULSE RX 6600, for instance, peaks at just 62°C and 33 dB under full load thanks to its beefy cooler design. The thermal headroom also gives you the option to adjust fan curves for a near silent gaming experience if you don‘t mind a few extra degrees. If you‘ve dealt with an older blower-style card or a furnace of a GPU in the past, the difference in noise and thermals with the RX 6600 will be night and day.
6. Best bang for your buck at 1080p
As the latest generation "sweet spot" GPU from AMD, the RX 6600 offers gamers the best price to performance ratio for 1080p gaming, period. At an MSRP of $329, it significantly undercuts both the RX 6600 XT ($379) and RTX 3060 ($329) while delivering 90-95% of their performance at 1080p. High-end GPUs like the RX 6800 and RTX 3080 are 50-100% more expensive for performance gains that largely go to waste at this resolution.
You‘re arguably not even sacrificing that much compared to the previous gen RX 5600 XT and RX 5700. Those cards launched at $279 and $349 respectively, so the RX 6600 at $329 lands right in between while offering a big jump in performance, efficiency and features. 8GB vs 6GB of VRAM, RDNA 2 architecture, ray tracing – the generational improvements are substantial.
It‘s true the ongoing GPU shortage has inflated prices across the board, and the RX 6600 is by no means immune. However, it‘s still the best value to be had and prices continue trending in the right direction. Many models are now available for under $400, and if you get lucky you might even snag one near the $329 MSRP. For a brand new current-gen GPU that will crush any game at 1080p, that‘s still a very solid deal in today‘s market.
7. Cutting edge Infinity Cache
One of RDNA 2‘s most exciting innovations is what AMD calls "Infinity Cache." In simple terms, it‘s a large pool of on-die cache memory that minimizes how often the GPU has to fetch data from the card‘s main GDDR6 memory. AMD says a 128MB Infinity Cache offers an effective bandwidth boost of up to 3.25x, massively improving performance and power efficiency.
The RX 6600 benefits greatly from its 32MB of Infinity Cache. In the 3DMark TimeSpy benchmark, for instance, the RX 6600 beats the RTX 3060 by about 12-15% at 1080p despite its narrower 128-bit memory bus. Infinity Cache allows the card to punch well above its weight.
It remains to be seen if NVIDIA adopts a similar cache system for its next-gen Ada Lovelace architecture, but for now it gives AMD a unique advantage that clearly pays dividends in terms of performance per watt. Combined with optimizations to the compute units, ray accelerators, geometry engine and more, Infinity Cache is a key component of why the RX 6600 is such an efficiency champion.
8. Competent ray tracing performance
While NVIDIA still holds the ray tracing crown, AMD has come a long way since the RX 6000 series launched. The RX 6600 features 28 ray accelerators, double that of the RX 6500 XT, allowing for playable frame rates in RT-enabled games at 1080p.
In Cyberpunk 2077 with RT medium settings, the RX 6600 manages 50 FPS on average. Turning on DLSS quality mode bumps that up over 60 FPS. Metro Exodus with RT high is also in the 50-60 FPS range, while lighter RT implementations like Shadow of the Tomb Raider‘s shadows hit 80+ FPS no problem. With FSR and sensible RT settings, the RX 6600 can deliver great visuals and performance in supported titles.
Ray tracing will only get better as AMD refines its hardware and developers get more familiar with coding for RDNA 2 GPUs on consoles and PC. The RX 6600 is well-positioned to grow over the coming years in RT performance just as NVIDIA‘s RTX 2060 did. It‘s still early days for ray tracing, and the RX 6600 is a capable starter card at an affordable price that will let you get your feet wet.
9. Stellar 1080p performance across all game genres
Throughout this article we‘ve looked at benchmarks and averages, but it‘s worth highlighting that the RX 6600 provides an excellent experience across all types of games. At 1080p and ultra settings, here is a small sampling of average frame rates:
- Hitman 3 – 121 FPS
- Resident Evil Village – 139 FPS
- Dirt 5 – 87 FPS
- Gears 5 – 102 FPS
- Assassin‘s Creed Valhalla – 78 FPS
- Doom Eternal – 175 FPS
- Borderlands 3 – 81 FPS
- Death Stranding – 124 FPS
Whether you‘re into fast-paced shooters, open world RPGs, racing games or anything else, the RX 6600 has you covered. Even in demanding, recently released titles it rarely dips below 60 FPS at max settings. Esports games like Rocket League, Valorant, Dota 2 and League of Legends will run at hundreds of frames per second.
Enabling Smart Access Memory with a Ryzen CPU provides an additional boost in many games as well. Far Cry 6, for instance, sees up to a 20% uplift in average FPS with SAM enabled. The gains do vary from game to game, but it‘s another way the RX 6600 can be faster than its specs suggest.
So whether you have a high refresh rate monitor and want to push competitive games to their limits, or you‘re after a cinematic 60 FPS experience in AAA single player titles, the RX 6600 is more than up to the task. It‘s the definition of a "sweet spot" 1080p GPU.
Honorable mention – Solid content creation performance
While the RX 6600 is clearly aimed at gamers first and foremost, it‘s no slouch when it comes to content creation either. Its 28 compute units and 8GB of GDDR6 memory give it some impressive chops for tasks like video editing, streaming, 3D rendering and more.
In Blender 2.93‘s Monster and Junkshop benchmarks, the RX 6600 finishes both renders in around 45 seconds flat. That‘s about 15% faster than the RX 5600 XT and nipping at the heels of the RX 6600 XT.
For game streamers, the RX 6600 supports AVC/H.264 and HEVC/H.265 encoding in dedicated fixed function hardware blocks. OBS and other streaming software can take full advantage of this, allowing you to game and stream simultaneously without tanking your frame rates or taking a big chunk out of your CPU cycles.
The RX 6600 may not be anyone‘s first choice for a dedicated video editing rig or 3D workstation, but if you‘re looking for a single card that can comfortably handle both gaming and content creation without spending a fortune, it‘s a very solid option. Creative apps only get more demanding over time, and the RX 6600 has a good combination of specs to keep up for the foreseeable future.
Closing thoughts
The AMD Radeon RX 6600 may not be the flashiest or most powerful GPU on the market, but it delivers where it counts for 1080p gamers. Excellent performance, great power efficiency, cutting-edge features and technologies, a generous amount of VRAM, cool and quiet operation – the RX 6600 excels in all the key areas.
It‘s simply the best value proposition for anyone still gaming at 1080p, which according to the latest Steam Hardware Survey, is about two thirds of all PC gamers. Rather than spending significantly more money on a higher-end card that largely goes to waste at this resolution, the RX 6600 is the smart choice that will provide an incredible 1080p experience for years to come. AMD has delivered a true gem for budget-conscious gamers.
