AMD Radeon RX 6600
RM2,250
Pros | Cons |
+ Fast 1080p performance | - Can't handle much 1440p gaming |
+ Cool under workload | - Fewer features than Nvidia graphics cards |
+ More affordable price | |
+ Low power | |
Alongside the Radeon RX 6600 XT that was positioned as the ideal 1080p gaming graphics card, we also received a lower-tier Radeon RX 6600. As we're facing a GPU shortage issue in the market, prices can vary wildly, and the RX 6600 comes at RM2,250. But how will this budget-friendly card perform? Let's find out!
Since it's a much lower end than the already not-so-powerful RX 6600 XT, I didn't expect much from it. Under its hood, the RDNA 2 architecture is powered by 28 compute units and 1792 stream processors, a stepdown compared to the RX 6600 XT with 32 compute units and 2048 stream processors.
Between the two siblings, the GPU clock has been fairly reduced by 13% from 2359MHz to 2044MHz, while the boost GPU clock only sees a slight 4% decrease from 2589MHz to 2491MHz. Although both cards have 8GB of GDDR6 RAM the RX 6600 has a much slower memory bandwidth at just 224GB/s, making it the same as the older RX 5500 XT.
The decrease in core and memory frequency has also reduced the power rating from RX 6600 XT's 160W to 132W. Since it also supports PCIe 4.0x8 bandwidth like the higher-end version, we had no problem installing it.
It also comes with DirectX 12 Ultimate support, which is necessary for graphics on PC and next-generation Xbox consoles. The feature allows it to deliver movie-quality visuals through DirectX Raytracing (DRX), boost framerates through variable rate shading (VRS), increase the flexibility and performance of the geometry pipeline through mesh shaders, and enable fast gaming performance with high resolution through sampler feedback.
Its FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) feature, a competitor of Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), is used to boost framerates and deliver high quality as well as high resolution gaming experience. While it's not as powerful as Nvidia's technology. the FSR is more open as it supports more game titles and even the recent Far Cry 6.
The GPU also supports the AMD Smart Access Memory feature that enables more memory space to be mapped to the base address register, hence boosting game performance when paired with a Ryzen 5000 series processor or selected Ryzen 3000 series processors. To access the feature, you'll have to enable it in your BIOS.
In terms of ports, this GPU has only two DisplayPort 1.4 and two HDMI 2.1 ports.
When it comes to 1080p performance, it managed to score 3879 points for TimeSpy, 3717 points for Port Royal, and 5514 points for FreeStrike Ultra.
| 1080p, High Quality | 1440p, High Quality |
Cyberpunk 2077 | 60fps | 35fps |
Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 131fps | 82fps |
Borderlands 3 | 79fps | 56fps |
In Cyberpunk 2077, it reached 60fps while playing in 1080p while in Borderlands 3, it hit 79fps. In 1080p with high-quality graphical settings, it managed to max out at 131fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Buy or no buy?
If you're still using a 1080p gaming monitor and you're using an old GPU, the AMD Radeon RX 6600 is a good upgrade as it comes at a reasonable price. It comes with additional perks if you're playing games optimised for AMD cards, such as Far Cry 6 and Resident Evil Village.
However, if you're planning to go beyond 1080p, you should probably save your cash for a higher-end model as it's not strong enough to handle most games at 1440p or even 4K easily.
| AMD Radeon RX 6600 |
Architecture | RDNA 2 |
Manufacturing Process | 7nm |
Transistor Count | 11.1 billion |
Die Size | 237mm² |
Compute Units | 28 |
Ray Accelerators | 28 |
Stream Processors | 1792 |
Game GPU Clock | Up to 2044MHz |
Boost GPU Clock | Up to 2491MHz |
Peak Single Precision Performance | Up to 8.93 TFLOPS |
Peak Half Precision Performance | Up to 17.86 TFLOPS |
Peak Texture Fill-Rate | Up to 279.0 GT/s |
ROPs | 64 |
Peak Pixel Fill-Rate | Up to 159.4GP/s |
AMD Infinity Cache | 32MB |
Memory | 8GB GDDR6 |
Memory Bandwidth (up to) | 224GB/s |
Memory Interface | 128-bit |
PCIe Interface | PCIe 4.0x8 |
Board Power | 132W |
