It is said that “the virtue is not alone, there must be neighbors.” NVIDIA RTX 3060 greatly reduces the entry barrier of RTX 30. Although it is guilty of notoriety at the cost of performance, it is a cheap choice for users. Unfortunately, since the RTX 3060 was released on February 25th, AMD’s corresponding products have been late and staged a one-man show for a long time. Until October 13, AMD officially announced the RX 6600, which took about 8 months to challenge the RTX 3060. . Compared to performance, perhaps the RX 6600 does not have too many highlights. The manufacturers also know this well. The first products on the market will be on the market for $3,499~$3,799. Will everyone be excited?
Technical strategy of RX 6600
From RX 6600 XT to RX 6600, the core used is still Navi 23, and AMD differentiates the market by shielding some units. On the RX 6600, AMD made the following trade-offs:
1. 32MB Cache, vigorously optimized for 1080p Gaming
The most successful aspect of the RDNA 2 architecture is the addition of Infinity Cache, which effectively improves read and write bandwidth and latency. Therefore, AMD RX 6000 cards from the flagship RX 6900 XT to the entry-level RX 6600 are equipped with Infinity Cache to improve game performance. In terms of Infinity Cache capacity, the RX 6600 retains the complete 32MB Infinity Cache function of the RX 6600 XT, plus 8GB GDDR6 memory, which can provide excellent 1080p and even a certain 1440p Gaming performance.
2. As long as 450W Fire Bull is enough
I don’t know where to start. There are 550W Afro Niu on the market that does not support independent graphics cards. Independent graphics cards require at least 750 or even 850W. According to the official statement of NVIDIA and AMD, RTX 3060 requires 550W or above Adapter, while RX 6600 XT requires 500W or above Adapter. As for the RX 6600, it is further reduced to 450W or above, which is very attractive. Of course, 450W assumes that you use mainstream processors such as 65W TDP Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen 7. If you use flagship CPUs such as Core i9 or Ryzen 9, plus AIB manufacturers will generally improve Boost Clock, then higher output will be more popular. The cow is essential. For example, the ASUS Dual RX 6600 8GB used in the evaluation of this article, it is recommended to use more than 500W AC adapter.
RX 6600 vs RTX 3060
According to AMD, the RX 6600 will challenge the RTX 3060 head-on. Which one is better? Before testing, I compare the specifications of the two.
1. Also for RTX 2060 upgrade market
As a mainstream choice, many users are still using RTX 2060 graphics cards, and they have become a battleground for manufacturers. Therefore, both AMD RX 6600 and NVIDIA RTX 3060 emphasize the RTX 2060 upgrade market. In addition, in response to NVIDIA’s plan to launch a new version of RTX 2060 12GB in January next year, AMD RX 6600 is the first to compete.
2. Comparison of core area
The RX 6600 uses the Navi 23 core of the RX 6600 XT. With the help of the 7nm process, it has built-in 11.06 billion transistors and the core area is only 237mm2 . For comparison, RTX 3060 has 13.25 billion built-in transistors with a core area of up to 276mm2 . Since a smaller core will help increase production yield and reduce costs, theoretically RX 6600 is more cost-effective than RTX 3060.
3. Comparison of FP32 and Ray-Tracing performance
FP32 and Ray-Tracing are the two major indicators that affect the performance of today’s games. In terms of FP32 performance, RX 6600 and RTX 3060 are 8.93TFLOPS and 12.7TFLOPS, respectively. RTX 3060 has obvious advantages. This is because RTX 3060 CUDA Cores use 2X FP32 design. RX 6600 can only offset RTX 3060 with the acceleration of 32MB Infinity Cache. Advantages on FP32.
Another top priority function is Ray-Tracing. On the surface, RX 6600 has 28 RA Cores and RTX 3060 is 28 RT Cores. The two seem to be at peace, but NVIDIA RT Cores have qualitative advantages, coupled with higher FP32 performance, the overall advantage is even more obvious.
4. 32MB Cache + 8GB vs 12GB
32MB Infinity Cache + 8GB 128bit GDDR6 is the specification of RX 6600, and 12GB 192bit GDDR6 is the specification of RTX 3060. In terms of memory capacity and specifications alone, RTX 3060 has advantages in quantity and quality. The author believes that 32MB Infinity Cache enables AMD RX 6600 to have higher performance under 1080p Gaming, offsetting the disadvantages of insufficient performance of FP32 and Ray-Tracing to a certain extent. Above 1440p Gaming, RTX 3060 has obvious advantages in memory specifications. Explain the details of the test below.
5.AMD FSR vs NVIDIA DLSS
Since AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution was launched, only a few games started to support it. AMD said that on the day of the launch of the RX 6600, more than 50 games supported AMD FSR technology, which is a good result. However, more than 120 games of NVIDIA support DLSS technology. There is still a significant distance, AMD still has to redouble its efforts.
In addition, if compared with NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR performance still needs to be improved. I have tested the performance of RX 6600 XT and RTX 3060 under AMD FSR and NVIDIA DLSS with “Edge of Eternity” earlier, and found that the acceleration effect of RTX 3060 in DLSS is better than FSR, and the overall performance is better than RX 6600 XT @ FSR is good. As for the RX 6600, because there is not much change in the architecture, the performance is lower than that of the RX 6600 XT. It is difficult to compare the AMD FSR stunt with the RTX 3060 optimized by NVIDIA DLSS.
6. Comparison of power consumption
In terms of power consumption, I think the RX 6600 is more advantageous. AMD stated that the power consumption of the entire card of the RX 6600 is 132W, as long as 450W AC adapter is sufficient, while AIB manufacturer recommends 500W AC adapter. As for NVIDIA RTX 3060, the power consumption of the whole card is 170W, and 550W AC adapter is recommended. In response to the advantages of RX 6600 in terms of low power consumption, AMD emphasizes the advantages of RX 6600 over RTX 3060 in terms of performance per watt (Per Watt).
A hundred flowers blooming AMD RX 6600 graphics card market
The RX 6600 non-public graphics cards released in the first round include ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, Sapphire, XFX and Yeston. In terms of product design, there are big differences between manufacturers, and the dual-fan solution is the mainstream, but there are also some special solutions such as the ASRock RX 6600 Challenger ITX which uses a single-fan small card design, and the Gigabyte RX 6600 Eagle uses a three-fan solution. Even in terms of price, before the deadline, the author received four-card quotations, which were the cheapest Gigabyte RX 6600 Eagle at $3,499, followed by Sapphire Pulse RX 6600 at $3,599, MSI RX 6600 Mech 2X at $3,799 and ASUS Dual RX 6600 at $3,799.
XT grade material ASUS Dual RX 6600
The AMD RX 6600 card used in this evaluation is provided by ASUS. The model is Dual RX 6600, which is a non-OC standard version. Having said that, I tested with ASUS’ GPU Tweak II and found that the GPU Boost Clock reached 2629MHz, which exceeded the AMD Reference solution’s 2491MHz, and even higher than the ROG Strix RX 6600 XT and Dual Radeon RX 6600 XT OC’s 2607MHz, which should not be underestimated. . No wonder the manufacturer recommends the use of 500W adapters, which is slightly higher than the 450W adapter recommended by AMD.
2X wind life
The ASUS Dual RX 6600 is somewhat similar to the ROG Strix RX 6600 XT OC introduced last time, and some of the functional designs use the latter. Although the power consumption of the RX 6600 is not high, the factory still prepares a high-performance axial fan for it, which is characterized by a smaller fan hub for longer blades, and a barrier ring design to increase downward air pressure. At the same time, the double ball bearing design is adopted in the flat card, and the service life is twice that of the general oil-sealed bearing design. In addition, in order to reduce the noise during work, the fan also has a stop function, which stops rotating when the GPU working temperature is low, achieving a silent environment of 0dB(A). Under the fan, there is an aluminum alloy cooling module composed of 3 heatpipes. The maximum working temperature of the GPU tested by the author is 52℃, which is excellent.
Higher intensity I/O Brackets
According to the manufacturer, the I/O Brackets on the card are ROG Strix RTX 30 grade Stainless Steel 304 panels with a strength coefficient of 520, which is higher than the general SPCC’s 250 strength coefficient. As for the PCB, Super Alloy Power II power supply components, including Infineon IR35217 digital power supply chip and SiC654A 50A Dr.MOS chip, etc., are used to ensure the stability of the graphics card for a long time.
SPEC︰
- GPU Boost Clock︰2629MHz
- Cooling equipment: 2x 100mm, 2.5-Slot
- Memory: SK Hynix 16Gbps 8GB GDDR6
- Interface: PCI-E 4.0 x16 (x8 Bandwidth)
- Display output: 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
- Power Connector︰1x 8pin PCI-E
- Recommended Fire Bull: 500W
- Dimensions: 243 x 134 x 49mm
- Enquiry: ASUS HK (3582 4770)
- Price: $3,799
AMD RX 6600 vs NVIDIA RTX 3060
testing platform：
graphics card︰
ASUS Dual RX 6600 8GB GDDR6 (Boost Clock︰2629MHz)
ASUS ROG Strix RX 6600 XT OC 8GB GDDR6 (Boost Clock︰2607MHz)
Colorful iGame RTX3060 Ultra 12G GDDR6 White (Boost Clock︰1777MHz)
ZOTAC Gaming RTX 3060 Ti AMP White LHR 8GB GDDR6 (Boost Clock︰1665MHz)
AIO Water Cooling ︰ ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 360
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (8C/16T 3.6~4.4GHz)
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero (AMD X570)
Memory: 2x AData XPG Spectrix D60G @XMP 4000 CL=18
SSD︰WD_Black SN850 NVMe SSD 2TB
Fire Bull: Cooler Master GX GOLD 850 full module
Operating system: Windows 10 x64 21H1
Driver: WHQL-Radeon-RX6600-21.30.17.06-Adrenalin-SW, NVIDIA 496.13 Game Ready
Test score
80% performance equivalent to RX 6600 XT
In terms of specifications, the RX 6600 seems to retain most of the functions of the RX 6600 XT, but the measured performance shows a significant performance degradation from the RX 6600 XT to the RX 6600. Under the most ideal 1080p setting, the RX 6600 can still maintain more than 80% performance, but when the image quality is set higher, or at the level of 2.5K and 4K, the RX 6600 will suffer a significant performance degradation. In the worst case For example, “Watch Dogs: Legion” is only 52.17%. Is it worth to save a fortune and buy RX 6600 next? I think the RX 6600 XT seems to be more worthwhile.
Ray-Tracing performance is obviously not as good as RTX 3060
The last time I tested the RX 6600 XT, it was a win against the RTX 3060, but if you change to the RX 6600, then the RTX 3060 has a clear advantage, especially in the test of the Ray-Tracing game. Of course, the RX 6600 still has advantages in some games. For example, in the 2K@Ultra High setting of “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey”, it beats the 69fps of the RTX 3060 at 71fps, so the actual situation depends on the needs of users. After all, no matter how high the test performance is, if you don’t need it, why bother to spend money on it!
Conclusion
As a cheap choice, the author’s evaluation of RX 6600 is that 1080p Gaming performance is OK, and Ray-Tracing performance is OK under Medium. As for 1440p and 4K, there will be a significant drop, so it is basically not the user’s first choice for performance. Although in terms of price, the $3XXX price of RX 6600 is very attractive, but today when RX 6600 XT and RTX 3060 are priced at $4XXX, the price is not too far apart, but the performance is higher. The ideal entry card for home.