The New RDNA2 Entry-Level GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6600 1080p Gaming Review

Just two months following the launch of AMD’s fifth current-gen RDNA2-based graphics card, Radeon RX 6600 XT, we’re greeted to the new entry-level model: Radeon RX 6600. At $329, this new card competes directly with NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060, which carries the same suggested price tag. Identical pricing will make comparisons a lot easier as we go through our performance results.

Like the RX 6600 XT, this new non-XT model still includes an 8GB frame buffer, although its effective bandwidth is a bit lower, at 224GB/s (vs. 256GB/s). With a light chopping off of its core count, the RX 6600 naturally draws less power, spec’d at 132W board power, vs. the XT’s 160W. Considering that NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060 is spec’d at an even higher 170W, the performance match-ups should be made all the more interesting.

AMD targets its new RX 6600 squarely at 1080p gaming, especially high-refresh esports 1080p gaming. As we’ll see in the results, however, the card will be able to handle 1440p in many cases, as well, especially if you are willing to tweak the detail levels.

As always, AMD’s board partners are going to have a plethora of different models to choose from. This is AMD’s second current-gen launch that doesn’t revolve around a reference design, so the card we received for testing comes from XFX. Pictured above, the SWFT 210 edition sports a clean black design (and is really lightweight to hold), with a large heatsink and dual fans to help keep the heat situation modest.

Before we go too much further, here’s AMD’s current lineup summed up in specs:

And with that, the RX 6600 is similar in specs and features to the others in AMD’s current line-up, so there isn’t too much more to talk about before getting into the performance results. So, let’s get to those, and comment more on this particular model throughout the review.

Benchmarking PC & Testing Methodology

As tested configuration: AMD Radeon RX 6800

As tested configuration: AMD Radeon RX 6800

As tested configuration: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT

As tested configuration: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT

As tested configuration: AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT

As tested configuration: AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT

As tested configuration: AMD Radeon RX 6600

As tested configuration: AMD Radeon RX 6600

As tested configuration: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070

As tested configuration: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070

As tested configuration: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

As tested configuration: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

As tested configuration: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

As tested configuration: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

All of our testing is completed using the latest version of Windows (10, 21H1), recent graphics drivers, and up-to-date games. Normally, ahead of a launch like this, we’d retest the chosen collection of GPUs with the most up-to-date drivers. This go-around, with the goal of saving time (and tedium), we sanity checked each and every game with the latest driver for both AMD and NVIDIA, and discovered similar performance across-the-board, no different from typical benchmark variance.

Most of the performance seen here was published in our AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT launch article from a couple of months ago. Since that publishing, Destiny 2 received an anti-cheat update that broke our frame capturing capabilities, so we swapped that game out for the newly-released Far Cry 6 instead.

Here are some other general guidelines we follow:

• Disruptive services are disabled; eg: Search, Cortana, User Account Control, Defender, etc.
• Overlays and / or other extras are not installed with the graphics driver.
• Vsync is disabled at the driver level (and in any tested game).
• OSes are never transplanted from one machine to another.
• We validate system configurations before kicking off any test run.
• Testing doesn’t begin until the PC is idle (keeps a steady minimum wattage).
• All tests are repeated until there is a high degree of confidence in the results.

As covered above, this article is going to focus squarely on 1080p benchmarks with eight titles, while we’re going to be saving more specific FSR testing for later (and not to mention rebar / Smart Access Memory, which we’re overdue on.) For those interested in synthetic tests, we have a full assortment of UL and Unigine tests on the following page.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3

Death Stranding

Death Stranding

F1 2021

F1 2021

Far Cry 6

Far Cry 6

Monster Hunter: World

Monster Hunter World

Total War Three Kingdoms

Total War Three Kingdoms

Watch Dogs Legion

Watch Dogs Legion

Here’s the full breakdown of our tested games:

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – AMD Ryzen partner
• Borderlands 3 – AMD Radeon partner
• Death Stranding
• F1 2021
• Far Cry 6 – AMD Radeon partner
• Monster Hunter: World
• Total War: Three Kingdoms
• Watch Dogs Legion – NVIDIA GeForce partner

Thanks to the substituting of Destiny 2 with Far Cry 6, we have a lopsided favor of AMD-sponsored games appearing here, so we’ll be revising our suite shortly to swap out some other games (mostly to modernize the selection), and flesh things out better that way.

Note: You can download all of the tested setting images at once here (ZIP, 8.2MB).

Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Configuration (1)

Assassin's Creed Valhalla tested settings

Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Configuration (2)

Assassin's Creed Valhalla tested settings

Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Configuration (3)

Assassin's Creed Valhalla tested settings

Borderlands 3 - Configuration (1)

Borderlands 3 tested settings

Borderlands 3 - Configuration (2)

Borderlands 3 tested settings

Borderlands 3 - Configuration (3)

Borderlands 3 tested settings

Borderlands 3 - Configuration (4)

Borderlands 3 tested settings

Death Stranding - Configuration (1)

Death Stranding tested settings

Death Stranding - Configuration (2)

Death Stranding tested settings

Death Stranding - Configuration (3)

Death Stranding tested settings

F1 2021 - Configuration (1)

F1 2021 tested settings

F1 2021 - Configuration (2)

F1 2021 tested settings

Far Cry 6 - Configuration (1)

Far Cry 6 tested settings

Far Cry 6 - Configuration (2)

Far Cry 6 tested settings

Far Cry 6 - Configuration (3)

Far Cry 6 tested settings

Monster Hunter World - Configuration (1)

Monster Hunter: World tested settings

Monster Hunter World - Configuration (2)

Monster Hunter: World tested settings

Monster Hunter World - Configuration (3)

Monster Hunter: World tested settings

Total War Three Kingdoms - Configuration (1)

Total War: Three Kingdoms tested settings

Total War Three Kingdoms - Configuration (2)

Total War: Three Kingdoms tested settings

Watch Dogs Legion - Configuration (1)

Watch Dogs Legion tested settings

Watch Dogs Legion - Configuration (2)

Watch Dogs Legion tested settings

Watch Dogs Legion - Configuration (3)

Watch Dogs Legion tested settings

Watch Dogs Legion - Configuration (4)

Watch Dogs Legion tested settings

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Compared to its GeForce competition, Radeon’s strength in Valhalla is so strong, that you’d imagine it were an AMD-sponsored title – despite the fact that Assassin’s Creed games have generally favored NVIDIA’s GPUs in the past. Since Valhalla‘s launch, we’ve seen Radeon keep a bit ahead of GeForce in each particular Radeon match-up, and that continues to hold true here.

Impressively, AMD’s new $329 SRP RX 6600 performs 15% faster than the RTX 3060 with its average FPS in this title, while matching its percentile low.

Borderlands 3

On the topic of AMD-sponsored titles, Borderlands 3 is one, and when you look at the results, it’s not entirely a surprise. Since its launch, Borderlands 3 has favored Radeon cards, although the end price-for-price battles between the vendors generally keep quite close – but still ultimately gives AMD the edge.

Here, AMD’s new RX 6600 performs 6% ahead of the RTX 3060, this time improving the percentile low a little bit, as well.

Death Stranding

Death Stranding is easily one of the most beautiful games in our tested lineup, and fortunately, it doesn’t require a high-end GPU to enjoy – at least at 1080p or 1440p. This is one title where AMD’s reference results showed the RTX 3060 a couple of frames ahead, but in our testing, the opposite proved true. Still, both the RTX 3060 and RX 6600 perform effectively the same here, easily hitting over 100 FPS, and coming close to that magical 144Hz target for high-refresh gaming.

F1 2021

So far, we’re seeing AMD’s new RX 6600 dominate against the RTX 3060, and yes – that will change over the next few games. In F1 2021, however, the RX 6600 performs 13% faster with its average, and delivers a slightly better percentile low, as well. This is another game that doesn’t require high-end hardware to run well, so 1440p is definitely an option here.

Far Cry 6

A new entrant to our suite, Far Cry 6 has just released, and as expected, the game is quite beautiful all-around. Based on our perusing of comment sections, it does seem that the game is a little buggy right now, with HD Texture use sometimes resulting in actually worse textures in certain cases. Because of that, we left the setting off for our initial testing, just in case it led to any strange results.

At max detail, outside of enabling the HD Textures, it’s actually NVIDIA’s RTX 3060 that comes slightly ahead of the RX 6600 in this AMD-sponsored title. It’s good to see that sponsorship doesn’t always equate to guaranteed wins right out-of-the-gate. Overall, both vendors seem to be equaled here, with even the comparative RTX 3070 and RX 6700 XT performing virtually identically.

Monster Hunter: World

Monster Hunter: World is a title that’s favored NVIDIA hardware ever since its launch, which doesn’t just include the average frame rate, but also the percentile lows. With driver iterations, AMD has helped squash its percentile low issue a bit, although as you can see between these particular models, NVIDIA does still lead the pack.

In our RX 6600 vs. RTX 3060 match-up, NVIDIA’s card comes slightly ahead, at about 7% faster. Yet again, this is a title that can run at 100 FPS with these GPUs, so 1440p is not out of the question.

Total War: Three Kingdoms

Our collection of tested games include both AMD- and NVIDIA-sponsored titles, but Three Kingdoms is unique in that it’s actually an Intel-sponsored title. While the focus of that sponsorship was with the CPU, we can’t help but wonder how that company’s upcoming Arc graphics cards will handle this game. Fortunately, we’re only months away from finding out.

Again going back to our targeted match-up here, NVIDIA’s RTX 3060 performs 12% better on average than the RX 6600. Yet again, frame rates are so good at 1080p, that this game would also run at 1440p on both GPUs just fine.

Watch Dogs Legion

To wrap-up our game benchmarks, Watch Dogs, despite being an NVIDIA-sponsored title, gives AMD’s new RX 6600 the edge over NVIDIA’s RTX 3060. It’s important to note, however, that this is without ray tracing involved, which is a match-up NVIDIA would almost certainly win thanks to its inclusion of ray tracing cores, and not to mention DLSS.

For those interested in synthetic benchmarks, the following page includes a whack of results from UL’s 3DMark and VRMark, as well as Unigine’s Superposition. For the sake of time, we’re going to skip commentary on that page, as the results are interesting from a technical aspect, but don’t always paint a proper picture of real-world gaming performance. If you want to skip those, you can head over to page 3 for power consumption notes, and our final thoughts.