ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT Review: Good Performance, if You Can Buy One

There’s nonetheless no finish in sight to the insane graphics card scarcity and ensuing worth spikes which have turned our market the other way up. For over a 12 months now, it has been just about unattainable to discover a graphics card in India promoting at wherever close to its MSRP – individuals have been compelled to pay double and even triple what may be thought-about affordable costs, and second-hand or low-end fashions are sometimes the one decisions left to these with out limitless budgets.

We had hoped to see issues enhance on the provision facet with somewhat extra competitors due to AMD’s current resurgence. Extra choices available in the market ought to imply higher probabilities for customers to search out one thing that works when it comes to worth and efficiency. Nonetheless, whereas AMD’s official worth in India is Rs. 31,990 (plus taxes), the state of affairs on the bottom continues to be dire with poor availability and outrageous markups.

We have already reviewed the Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800XT, that are high-end fashions aimed toward fans who need to sport at 4K. Now, a extra reasonably priced spinoff, the Radeon RX 6600 XT, has landed up, and is getting the complete overview therapy at the moment.

Primarily based on the identical RDNA2 structure as its larger siblings, AMD is focusing on avid gamers who need to step as much as full-HD 1080p gaming at top quality settings, with a little bit of a push into 1440p and even 4K in much less resource-hungry video games. In an excellent market, this GPU needs to be a great improve possibility for anybody with a mainstream graphics card that is three or extra years outdated – however how a lot cash do you have to really be keen to pay for it? Learn on to search out out.

The ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT delivers good 1080p efficiency in most video games

AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT GPU structure and specs

The Radeon RX 6600 XT just isn’t probably the most highly effective GPU in its stack, but it surely does promise up-to-date options together with ray tracing, assist for FidelityFX Tremendous Decision (FSR) upscaling, DirectX 12 Final, variable fee shading, and HDMI 2.1. These are issues that allow avid gamers take pleasure in visible high quality enhancements at snug body charges and refresh charges, at affordable resolutions. In spite of everything, lots of people have 1080p displays and are not even seeking to improve to bigger ones.

The Radeon RX 6600 XT GPU has 2,048 ‘stream processors’ clustered into 32 compute models, every of which additionally has its personal ray accelerator logic. The reference ‘sport clock’ which is the pace when not idling, is 2,359MHz, whereas the utmost enhance clock is 2,589MHz. There’s 32MB of on-die Infinity Cache, which is claimed to be very quick, however there’s a lot much less of it right here than on the Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT. You additionally get H.264 and H.265 encode/decode plus VP9 and AV1 decode {hardware} acceleration as much as sure resolutions and body charges. Like its siblings, this GPU is fabricated on a 7nm course of. All Radeon RX 6600 XT playing cards could have 8GB of GDDR6 reminiscence on a 128-bit bus for as much as 256GBps of reminiscence bandwidth. AMD suggests a 160W TDP, which could change primarily based on board companions’ customized designs.

AMD has made an attention-grabbing alternative – the Radeon RX 6600 XT makes use of solely eight PCIe lanes. It is PCIe 4.0 compliant, so that also provides you a similar bandwidth as 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0, however solely on a platform that helps the newer customary. On an older system, being restricted to eight lanes means you get solely half the theoretical peak PCIe 3.0 bandwidth, even in an x16 slot. Few GPUs totally saturate their PCIe hyperlinks however this may trigger some slight bottlenecks.

You may additionally want a comparatively trendy PC to make use of AMD’s Good Entry Reminiscence characteristic. That is an implementation of the Resizable BAR (Base Handle Register) which permits a CPU to entry your GPU’s complete reminiscence capability somewhat than the normal 256MB restrict, lowering latency. Some video games can see as much as 10 p.c higher efficiency.

The 8-pin PCIe energy connector is on the finish of the circuit board, however the cooler extends a lot farther

ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT design and specs

There is no such thing as a reference design for this mid-range GPU tier, so all Radeon RX 6600 XT playing cards will ship with customized coolers designed by their producers. ASRock has taken the concept of customisation very significantly, and we now have quite a bit occurring right here when it comes to design. To start with, this card is completely huge. It is 305mm lengthy, which is about 40mm longer than common high-end playing cards, and it’ll hold over the sting of an ordinary ATX motherboard. It is thick sufficient to dam three slots in your motherboard and can also be taller than customary playing cards.

The three followers on the entrance all have notched blades which ought to assist with airflow and noise discount. Solely the one within the center has RGB LED lighting – its blades are clear with a frosted end, whereas the opposite two followers have translucent smoky gray blades. Whether or not its blades are spinning or idle, the central fan’s RGB LEDs are animated in a round sample which appears to be like neat. There’s one other panel on the highest that additionally has RGB LEDs and an ASRock Phantom Gaming brand. You’ll be able to sync the lights with those on a appropriate ASRock motherboard, and tweak them utilizing the downloadable software program management panel.

In case you look intently, you will see that the precise PCB of the cardboard just isn’t greater than 190mm lengthy. The remainder of the house beneath the shroud is occupied completely by aluminium heatsink fins. This additionally makes the only 8-pin PCIe energy connector appear like it is positioned in the course of the cardboard, but it surely’s on the finish of the particular board the place it needs to be. The metallic backplate ought to give this whole contraption some rigidity which is sweet as a result of it weighs 894g.

ASRock calls this card “OC Version” on the field however speeds are solely very barely raised over inventory – the sport clock is 2428MHz whereas the enhance clock is 2607MHz. You get three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.1 port on the rear. The cardboard comes with plastic mud stoppers for all ports, plus a sled for the PCIe connector, that are good touches, however there’s nothing else within the field. The corporate in fact claims to have used high-end elements. AMD’s inventory suggestion is for a 500W energy provide however ASRock has padded that to 550W.

You get three DisplayPorts and one HDMI output, all with plastic mud caps

ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT efficiency

The ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT was offered for testing by AMD, since there are not any reference playing cards. Our customary check bench consists of an AMD Ryzen 2700 CPU, ASRock X470 Taichi Final motherboard, 2x8GB of G.Ability F4-3400C16D-16GSXW DDR4 RAM, a 1TB Samsung 860 Evo SSD, and a Corsair RM650 energy provide. The monitor was a 4K Asus PB287Q. As this can be a PCIe 3.0 platform, a number of the advantages of all-new {hardware} as described above cannot be exploited. All the most recent drivers and Home windows 10 patches have been utilized on the time of testing.

Artificial testing lets us evaluate completely different GPUs with similar workloads beneath similar situations. The desk beneath outlines how the brand new Radeon RX 6600 XT GPU fared towards its prime competitors, the GeForce RTX 3060, in addition to a couple of different reference factors in these industry-standard exams.

Center Earth: Shadow of Warfare managed a mean of 40fps operating at its Extremely high quality preset at 4K, however there have been some dips with the bottom level touching 15fps and highs going as much as 152fps, as reported by the built-in benchmark instrument. Bringing the decision all the way down to 1440p allowed the common to rise to a really respectable 70fps.

Metro: Exodus comes with a separate benchmarking instrument. Operating at 1080p with the Excessive preset, the common body fee was 38.49fps, which reveals that even at this decision, some video games can push too onerous for this GPU. Stepping all the way down to the Extremely preset raised the body fee common to 64.5fps, and at Regular high quality, that rose once more to 89.06fps. Transferring on to Troy: A Complete Warfare Saga’s Battle benchmark mode, the common body fee was 21.5fps at 4K and Extremely high quality. Selecting the extra life like Prime quality setting at 1080p resulted in a mean of fifty.02fps.

Far Cry 5 ran at 70fps on common at 1080p, 63fps at 1440p, and 49fps at 4K, utilizing the Extremely preset. Murderer’s Creed: Odyssey is a little more demanding, and ran at 34fps on common at 4K. It took a step down in decision to 1440p in addition to lowering the picture high quality to the Excessive preset to get a mean of 42fps.

Taking part in via certainly one of Doom Everlasting’s Grasp Ranges, this sport confirmed simply how effectively it will possibly run even on mid-range {hardware}. With the standard set to Extremely Nightmare and the decision at 4K, this sport had no hassle pushing out a stable 60+fps whereas operating round, and solely dipped to about 50fps in intense battles. There was somewhat gentle tearing however no main stutters. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt additionally performed easily at round 95fps whereas strolling round, with the decision set to 1440p and each graphics and post-processing set to Excessive.

Mid-range {hardware} is a superb use case for AMD’s new FidelityFX Tremendous Decision characteristic which permits video games to be rendered at decrease resolutions after which use software program upscaling to look sharper with out placing pressure on a GPU. This characteristic is gaining developer assist, however there aren’t an enormous variety of video games on the market but which have applied it. Operating at 1440p and utilizing the Extremely Excessive preset with out FSR enabled, Anno 1800’s in-game benchmark reported a mean body fee of 52.94fps. On the Extremely High quality FSR degree, that went as much as 71.03fps, and on the Efficiency degree, the end result was a exceptional 100.83fps. Picture high quality did degrade visibly on the Efficiency degree, however as you’ll be able to see, you do not have to go to this excessive to have a really playable expertise.

Godfall can also be one of many first FSR-enabled video games. Set to 1440p on the Epic high quality preset, the sport managed 35.2fps which isn’t as clean as most avid gamers would really like. The Extremely Efficiency FSR degree took that as much as 52.7fps which was fairly a bit higher. Efficiency mode introduced that as much as a really substantial 70.3fps, however with main loss in picture high quality. You may need to mess around with sport high quality in addition to FSR degree settings to discover a stability.

The ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT makes use of its monumental heatsink successfully, and so the three followers make barely any sound when gaming. They could spin

The RGB LED results won’t be to everybody’s tastes however they’re controllable in software program

as much as their highest pace solely when actually confused in benchmarks, besides there is no noise. When not wanted, the followers spin down and keep utterly silent. There’s additionally no jet of sizzling air being pushed out the again.

Verdict

The Radeon RX 6600 XT GPU is mostly on par with or marginally sooner than the GeForce RTX 3060. It is available in at a barely greater official MSRP, and though that is already rather a lot for a GPU on the 1080p degree, it may need been comprehensible in regular occasions. Nonetheless, the easy truth is that MSRPs imply completely nothing proper now. Whereas extraordinarily tough, it’s a minimum of potential to purchase Nvidia’s Founders’ Version playing cards instantly from the distributor in India at its official worth, and AMD presents no such association. Within the open market, the ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT sells for barely over Rs. 60,000 which is plainly ludicrous. One different model, Sapphire, has a Radeon RX 6600 XT mannequin listed on-line at round Rs. 48,000, however most others are priced nearer to the ASRock card. On high of that, they’re all out of inventory.

Though AMD has delivered good efficiency, there is no fast or simple option to get it into the arms of Indian avid gamers. It is a pity, as a result of this might have been a good time for avid gamers, with loads of high-profile titles on the horizon, and options like ray tracing and FSR that give individuals higher experiences than they may have anticipated.

The Radeon RX 6600 XT just isn’t a nasty GPU, however the MSRP is already pushing the restrict of how a lot you need to pay for one if you’ll find it. ASRock’s Phantom Gaming card, particularly, could be a great candidate, so long as you’ve gotten a roomy PC case and just like the appears to be like of it, however the GPU is extra of a differentiating issue than the model promoting you a graphics card primarily based on it.

ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT
Worth: Rs. 60,400 (MOP)

Professionals

• Good efficiency at 1080p and better in some video games
• Quiet followers, no noise 

Cons

• Extraordinarily costly 
• Outsized, heavy cooler

Scores (out of 5)

• Efficiency: 4
• Worth for Cash: 2
• General: 3