Mario Petkovski
If you are wondering whether the AMD RX 6600 8GB is worth buying or not, I would say it’s still the best hope for 1080p gaming. Last year, at a time when GPU prices were skyrocketing, the RX 6600 was the savior for gamers who weren’t able to afford abnormally priced GPUs. At that time, it was the best option they could get.
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Currently, it is still one of the best options, if not the best, for you to buy if you are looking for a true 1080p gaming experience. Now that prices have almost settled down, it is also quite affordable and won’t cost you a fortune to buy.
Having said that, I have written a complete review of the AMD RX 6600 to help you decide whether it is worth buying or not.
AMD RX 6600 8GB: Verdict
If you want a straight to the point answer on whether the AMD RX 6600 is still worth it in 2022, here’s the gist of it:
AMD RX 6600 8GB Review
Summary
The AMD RX 6600 8GB is a true 1080p graphics card that can run games at ultra-max settings without any significant frame drop. Launched a year ago with a starting price of $329, after seeing a huge price surge due to global chip shortages, the RX 6600 is now available at a better price of $239 on Amazon. This makes it a great deal for anyone looking to buy this graphics card for 1080p gaming.
NOTE: Prices mentioned are prices that were present at the time of writing and publication of the review.
Where Does It Stand Against Other GPUs?
As you have already judged by the above benchmarks, it is safe to say that the AMD RX 6600 is a decent GPU that puts up a good fight against the mighty RTX 3060 at 1080p, even doing better in some places. However, for 1440p, it is still below average. So if you don’t mind going below 60 FPS on some games, it can still provide a decent 1440p experience.
Its XT version, i.e., the RX 6600 XT, isn’t much of a significant improvement over this one. So if you are wondering what’s the major difference between the XT and non-XT versions (as both of them have 8GB of VRAM), it’s just a few minor tweaks like four compute units disabled and lesser GPU cores and that gives you the non-XT version.
Benchmarks
Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world first-person action role-playing video game released in December 2020. While testing with the RX 6600 8GB at 1080p high-quality, it was averaging around 60 FPS which I would consider decent considering it was more or less in competition with the much pricier RTX 3060 that is almost $100 up than the RX 6600 with 4GB extra VRAM.
Pushing it to 1440p resolution high-quality will do more harm than good as the RX 6600 fails to cross even the 50 FPS mark here. The frame rate drops to 35, making the game unsuitable to run. So if you want to play Cyberpunk 2077 on this graphics card, consider avoiding 1440p completely or you’ll put more stress on the card.
Fortnite
Fortnite is an online battle royale game where up to 100 players fight and the last standing wins the game. Running on the RX 6600, the game was averaging pretty impressive, keeping its tab above 80 FPS. Sometimes, it even crossed 100 FPS and very rarely went below 80 when there were too many intense scenes going on. Otherwise, the RX 6600 performed extremely well while running Fortnite at 1080p ultra-max settings.
Apex Legends
Yet another battle royale game, Apex Legends, did well at 1080p ultra-max settings on the RX 6600. Most of the time, the game was averaging around 150 – 170 FPS while sometimes also touching the 190 mark. But it never went below 150 FPS and that’s a good thing. So if you are a fan of battle royale games, especially Apex Legends, I bet you will enjoy playing it on your system.
Watch Dogs: Legion
Watch Dogs: Legion is an action-adventure game and the third installment in the Watch Dogs series. Here, the RX 6600 performed even better than the RTX 3060 averaging around 65 FPS — one FPS above the RTX 3060’s 64 FPS — at 1080p ultra-max settings.
When tested at 1440p, the results were not impressive as the RX 6600 managed to get around 45 FPS only, though it’s still better than the Cyberpunk 2077’s 35 FPS. But again, it entirely depends on the game.
Overwatch 2
Sequel to the 2016 hero shooter game, Overwatch, Overwatch 2 is the second installment in the series, which was released in October 2022. Again, the RX 6600 was performing better than expected and was able to get around 130 FPS at 1080p max-ultra settings, closely competing with the 12GB RTX 3060 graphics card.
Surprisingly, the RX 6600 managed to pull around 100 FPS on Overwatch 2 at 1440p max settings, rarely going below it.
Is It Worth Buying?
When AMD RX 6600 first launched, its suggested price was $329, which was almost the same as the RTX 3060, a 12GB GDDR6 graphics card with much better ray-tracing performance than the RX. Soon, due to global supply chip shortages, the price skyrocketed, making the RX 6600 and other GPUs much more expensive than their original price.
At that time, if you had asked me about buying this graphics card, I would have recommended you to do so. Even at a time when GPU prices were abnormally inflated, the RX 6600 was still the better option because of its low price compared to others at the time. And today, it is still the best option.
So if you want a true 1080 gaming experience, you can bet on the AMD RX 6600.
Pros
- Great 1080p gaming performance at ultra-max settings
- 8GB GDDR6 memory
- Consumes less power
- Affordable Price
Cons
- Not suitable for 1440p or above resolutions
- Average ray-tracing performance
The Takeaway
The AMD RX 6600 is available at a much more affordable rate, around $239 on Amazon as I write this post. Considering its performance at 1080p ultra-settings, it is a perfect graphics card unless you want to go higher than that. Even at 1440p, you can expect a decent experience especially if you are running older games on your PC.
Nevertheless, the AMD RX 6600 is a well-balanced GPU with impressive gaming performance at a reasonable price.
ALSO READ: Best Motherboards For Intel i7 8700K | 2022
References:
- AMD Radeon 6600X Review https://www.techspot.com/review/2343-amd-radeon-rx-6600/
- AMD Radeon 6600X Review: RDNA2 Goes Mainstream at $329 https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-6600-review-xfx
- AMD Radeon 6600X Review: Finally, a true 1080p graphics card https://www.pcworld.com/article/543823/amd-radeon-rx-6600-review-finally-a-true-1080p-graphics-card.html
- AMD RX 6600 Fortnite Season 3 Chapter 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTPMbQynIYg
- RX 6600 with RSR (Apex Legends) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwlBnVSkVH8
- Overwatch 2 on RX 6600 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7uJ7abm6-A
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