The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT: A Solid Performer Stuck in a Cruel Market
The global graphics card market remains in a state of chaos, with a severe shortage and astronomical price hikes leaving gamers frustrated and struggling to find cards at even remotely reasonable prices. While AMD’s resurgence has injected some welcomed competition in the market, it hasn’t been enough to quell the market frenzy. Despite its official MSRP of Rs. 31,990 (plus taxes), the Radeon RX 6600 XT, AMD’s latest mid-range GPU, is experiencing the same availability issues and exorbitant markups as other models. This review delves into the performance and features of the ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT, exposing just how much of a struggle it is for gamers to get their hands on this quality card in India’s current market.
A Deep Dive into the Radeon RX 6600 XT: Architecture and Specifications
The Radeon RX 6600 XT stands out with its impressive suite of modern features, including ray tracing, support for FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) upscaling, DirectX 12 Ultimate, variable rate shading, and HDMI 2.1. This arsenal of features caters to gamers who want to enjoy enhanced visual quality at comfortable frame rates and refresh rates, particularly at the popular 1080p resolution.
Under the hood, the Radeon RX 6600 XT houses 2,048 stream processors, organized into 32 compute units, each equipped with its own ray accelerator logic. The reference game clock is 2,359MHz, while the maximum boost clock reaches 2,589MHz. This GPU features 32MB of on-die Infinity Cache, a fast memory cache, albeit smaller than its Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT siblings. The GPU also benefits from hardware acceleration for H.264 and H.265 encode/decode plus VP9 and AV1 decode, up to certain resolutions and frame rates. Like the other RDNA2-based GPUs, this card is built on a 7nm process. All Radeon RX 6600 XT cards are equipped with 8GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering up to 256GBps of memory bandwidth. AMD suggests a 160W TDP, which can vary depending on board partner customizations.
One interesting design decision by AMD is the use of only eight PCIe lanes for the Radeon RX 6600 XT. Though PCIe 4.0 compliant, this restricts the bandwidth compared to 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0, especially on older platforms. While few GPUs fully utilize their PCIe links, this could lead to slight bottlenecks in some cases.
Furthermore, to take advantage of AMD’s Smart Access Memory feature, which allows the CPU to access the full memory capacity of the GPU (instead of the traditional 256MB limit), a modern PC is required. Smart Access Memory, an implementation of Resizable BAR, can potentially deliver up to 10 percent performance gains in certain games, reducing latency.
ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT: A Closer Look at the Design
Since there’s no reference design for the mid-range Radeon RX 6600 XT tier, each card comes with a custom cooler from its manufacturer. ASRock has taken this customization aspect seriously, with a unique and bold design. The card is undeniably massive, measuring 305mm long (nearly 40mm longer than average high-end cards), effectively extending beyond the edge of a standard ATX motherboard. The substantial size blocks three expansion slots on the motherboard and surpasses standard card heights.
The front of the card showcases three fans with notched blades, aimed at improving airflow and reducing noise. Only the center fan utilizes RGB LED lighting, with transparent frosted blades, while the other two fans have translucent smoky grey blades. The central fan’s RGB LEDs create a neat circular animation pattern whether the blades are running or idle. There’s another panel on the top with RGB LEDs and the ASRock Phantom Gaming logo. The software control panel allows users to sync the lights with compatible ASRock motherboards and customize the lighting effects.
Upon closer inspection, the card’s PCB is only 190mm long, with the remaining space under the shroud dedicated to aluminum heatsink fins. This design creates the illusion of the single 8-pin PCIe power connector residing in the middle of the card, while it’s actually positioned at the end of the board where it should be. The metal backplate provides rigidity to the weighty card, which weighs in at 894g.
Despite the "OC Edition" branding on the box, the ASRock card’s clock speeds are only slightly boosted over stock – with a game clock of 2428MHz and a boost clock of 2607MHz. The card offers three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.1 port on the rear, complete with plastic dust stoppers. The package also includes a sled for the PCIe connector, adding a touch of convenience. The company emphasizes the use of high-end components, and while AMD recommends a 500W power supply, ASRock suggests a slightly higher 550W.
ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT: Unveiling the Performance
The ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT, supplied for testing by AMD (since there are no reference cards available), was put through the paces on a standard test bench equipped with an AMD Ryzen 2700 CPU, ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate motherboard, 2x8GB of G.Skill F4-3400C16D-16GSXW DDR4 RAM, a 1TB Samsung 860 Evo SSD, Corsair RM650 power supply, and a 4K Asus PB287Q monitor. The testing was conducted with the latest drivers and Windows 10 patches applied.
Synthetic benchmarks provided a platform to compare the Radeon RX 6600 XT to its key competitor, the GeForce RTX 3060, along with other benchmarks, as outlined in the table below:
| Benchmark | ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT | Asus Strix GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition | Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super Founders Edition | AMD Radeon RX 57
