ASUS Dual AMD Radeontm RX 6600 8GB GDDR6 gaming graphics card review

Does this ASUS Dual AMD Radeontm RX 6600 remain cool while playing games? Dual ball fan bearings can last up to twice as long as sleeve bearing designs. Axial-tech fan design features a smaller fan hub that facilitates longer blades and a barrier ring that increases downward air pressure. Find more in ASUS Dual AMD Radeontm RX 6600 8GB GDDR6 gaming graphics card review.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Beefy cooler and metal backplate
• Great 1080p gaming with Ultra graphics
• 8GB of memory
• AMD features like FSR, Radeon Boost, Smart Access Memory can make it faster

Cons

• Slower at ray tracing than Nvidia GPUs
• Upscaling tech is limited
• 1440p performance isn’t as impressive
• Fewer features than NVIDIA cards

Specs – ASUS Dual AMD Radeontm RX 6600 8GB GDDR6 gaming graphics card

• Steam processors: 1,792
• RT cores: 28
• Architecture: RDNA 2
• Process: 7nm
• Memory: 8GB GDDR6
• Memory speed: 224GB/s
• TMUs: 112
• Core clock: 2,044MHz
• Boost clock: 2,491MHz
• Memory interface: 128-bit
• Bus standard: PCIe 4.0
• TDP: 132W
• Recommended PSU: 500W
• Power connectors: 1x 8-pin
• Ports: 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DP 1.4a, HDCP 2.3 support
• Dimensions: 9.6 x 5.3 x 1.9 inches (243mm x 134mm x 49mm)

Price

The MSRP for the AMD RX 6600 is $329, but this varies depending on which aftermarket card you choose. There’s no reference GPU from AMD, but this ASUS Dual RX 6600 should set you back by about $450 if you can find a listing that isn’t from a scalper.

Compare ASUS Dual AMD Radeontm RX 6600 8GB GDDR6 gaming graphics card

ASUS Dual AMD Radeontm RX 6600 8GB GDDR6 gaming graphics card review

Design

 It is fairly short at 243 x 134 x 49mm but it still has a 2.5-slot form factor. It comes with RDNA2 series packing a Navi 23 GPU and 8GB GDDR6 memory but only has a 128-bit bus.

Ports

You’ll need a single 8-pin PCIe power connector for the ASUS DUAL Radeon RX 6600, while for display connectivity we’ve got 1 x HDMI 2.1 and 3 x DisplayPort 1.4 connectors — they’re all capable of 4K 120Hz+ and 8K 60Hz displays and TVs.

Frame rates

1080p gaming is where AMD is aiming with the Radeon RX 6600, and when compared against the GeForce RTX 2060, the new RDNA 2-powered Radeon RX 6600 holds its own. We have 79FPS average in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, 142FPS average in Battlefield V, 95FPS average in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, 136FPS average in F1 2021, and 114FPS average in Hitman 3 — not bad at all.

Ray tracing

Compared to the RX 6600 XT, the RX 6600 has four fewer ray tracing accelerators, 256 fewer cores, a slightly slower clock speed, and 32GB/s lower memory bandwidth. That doesn’t sound much, and truthfully it isn’t in the grand scheme of things, but it does result in approximately 10-15% performance downgrade compared to the RX 6600 XT.

Temperature & Cooling

Two Axial-tech Fans and a heatsink with three heat pipes cool down the card. It also sports 0dB technology, which turn off the fans when the GPU under 52°c allowing for silent operation on idle or light workloads.

Power consumption

AMD rates the Radeon RX 6600 XT with a TDP of 160W and ASUS’ Dual variant plays around with that figure. At max load, the card consumes around 12W while idle and 158W while under maximum load while playing games. Total load of the whole test bench is just below 300W, which means that you can comfortable run a similar rig with a reputable 400W – 500W PSU.

Overclocking

Clock speeds of the ASUS Dual Radeon RX 6600 XT is rated up to 2593MHz (Boost) / 2382MHz (Game) at Gaming Mode and up to 2607MHz (Boost) / 2402MHz (Game) at Boost Mode. The card averages out at 2408MHz in a 2-minute run and peaks at 2508MHz in Game Mode.

Alternate of ASUS Dual AMD Radeontm RX 6600 8GB GDDR6 gaming graphics card

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER

Any custom PC builders looking to create something budget-friendly should love the NVIDIA GTX 1660 SUPER. It delivers a smooth 1080p performance and doesn’t have an unreasonable price.

Memory: 6GB GDDR6 | Memory bandwidth: 336Gbps | Memory bus: 192-bit | Boost clock: 1,830MHz | CUDA cores: 1,408 | Process: 12nm | Power: 125W

The GPU demand has even driven up the price of last-gen cards. If you can find one at a reasonable cost, chances are you’ll nab it up.

Pros

• Attractive price
• NVIDIA Turing architecture
• G-Sync technology
• Enough performance for smooth 1080p

Cons

• Not intended for 1440p
• No DLSS

Not everyone sees a need to game at a higher resolution than 1080p. Displays are more affordable, and fewer pixels generally allows for a much higher frame rate. If you’re not looking to overspend on a GPU, NVIDIA’s GTX 1660 SUPER should make a great pick. It’s not an RTX card, so it doesn’t offer dedicated ray-tracing cores, though a driver update does allow it to technically be compatible. DLSS 2.0 is not supported. It’s still based on Turing architecture that makes it relatively power efficient. This GPU also sits atop our list of best cheap graphics cards.

It has 6GB of GDDR6 VRAM (the base GTX 1660 uses GDDR5) and rather high memory bandwidth at 336GB/s, allowing it to edge out even the 8GB version of the AMD RX 5500 XT in terms of raw performance. You’re going to see elevated, smooth frame rates at 1080p with pretty much any game, even at high settings.

Do note that rumors of an RTX 3050 desktop release are picking up, and many are expecting to see the new budget GPU land early 2022. It’s unlikely that it will be the solution to any stock shortages, but if you can hold out for a while it might be worth it to see how much budget performance it brings compared to the GTX 1660 SUPER.

AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT

AMD’s Radeon RX 6700 XT is a price performer with a listing of about $480. It costs more than the RTX 3060 Ti, but it also delivers better raw power. This is especially important for those who want to push QHD frame rates and don’t care as much about ray tracing or image upscaling.

Memory: 12GB GDDR6 | Memory bandwidth: 384Gbps | Memory bus: 192-bit | Base clock: 2,321MHz | Boost clock: 2,581MHz | Stream processors: 2,560 | Process: 7nm | Power: 230W

If this is the GPU you want and you can find one at a reasonable price, nab it up. No specific recommendations while most hardware is sold out.

Pros

• Stellar 1440p (QHD) performance
• 16GB of VRAM
• Capable of ray tracing
• Costs less than other RDNA 2 cards

Cons

• Costs more than RTX 3060 Ti
• Ray tracing and FSR support not as good

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT slots in somewhere between the NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ti and NVIDIA RTX 3070 in terms of raw performance. It also costs about $80 more than the list price of the 3060 Ti, so you have to be sure you’re looking for better power and not a better feature set. If you want to push high frame rates at 1440p and even want to dabble a bit at 4K, the RX 6700 XT will do a great job.

While the RX 6700 XT offers ray tracing, its support isn’t as good as NVIDIA’s, and you will likely see a harder hit to performance. This is true even though AMD’s cards now have FSR, an alternative to DLSS. Our NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ti vs. AMD RX 6700 XT comparison has more information.

Bottom line? The 12GB of VRAM sets the RX 6700 XT up nicely for the future, and FidelityFX Super Resolution is beginning to cut into NVIDIA’s DLSS technology. If you can find an RX 6700 XT close to retail price, it should make a great card for QHD gaming.

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