Is it good for gaming – Sapphire 11310-01-20G PULSE Radeon RX 6600 Video card? It includes 2,048 stream processors, 32 Ray Accelerators for real-time raytracing, 128 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 8 GB of standard memory. This, however, is across a narrow 128-bit GDDR6 memory bus. AMD is running the memory at 16 Gbps (GDDR6-effective) and combining it with 32 MB of Infinity Cache on-die memory. Know more in Sapphire 11310-01-20G PULSE Radeon RX 6600 Video card review.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Trixx Boost is useful
- Excellent, fast 1080p gaming
- Power efficient and runs cool
- AMD features like FSR, Radeon Boost, Smart Access Memory can make it faster
- Reasonably fast and affordable
- Sapphire card is relatively compact
Cons
- Ray tracing lags behind Nvidia’s performance
- No extra features like BIOS switch or RGB lighting
- Struggles with ray tracing and higher resolutions
- 1440p performance isn’t as impressive due to memory setup (but Trixx Boost helps)
Specs – Sapphire 11310-01-20G PULSE Radeon RX 6600 Video card
- Dimensions: 185 x 105 x 40 mm (2 slot)
- Core Clock Speed: 2491 MHz Boost Clock
- Memory Size: 8GB GDDR6
- Stream Processors: 1792
- TDP: 132W
- Infinity Cache: 32MB
- Card Bus: PCI 4.0 x 8
- PSU Required: 500W
- Thermal Design: Sapphire Pulse Cooling
- Memory Clock: 1750 MHz
- Memory Bus: 128-bit
- Output: 3x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.1
- Power Connectors: 1x 8-pin PCIe
Price
We’re comparing the $399 Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 6600 XT against the various cards it’s replacing either spiritually or practically: The $279 Radeon RX 5600 XT, the $350 Radeon RX 5700, and the $400 Radeon RX 5700 XT, as well as Asus’s spin on this GPU, the $550 ROG Strix RX 6600 XT, and the $419 XFX Speedster Merc 308 Radeon RX 6600 XT.
Compare Sapphire 11310-01-20G PULSE Radeon RX 6600 Video card vs Gigabyte RX 6600 XT
| Graphics Card | Sapphire RX 6600 XT | ASRock RX 6600 XT | Gigabyte RX 6600 XT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Navi 23 | Navi 23 | Navi 23 |
| Process Technology | TSMC N7 | TSMC N7 | TSMC N7 |
| Transistors (Billion) | 11.1 | 11.1 | 11.1 |
| Die size (mm^2) | 237 | 237 | 237 |
| CUs | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| GPU Cores | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 |
| Ray Accelerators | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| Infinity Cache (MB) | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| Game Clock (MHz) | 2382 | 2428 | 2359 |
| VRAM Speed (Gbps) | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| VRAM (GB) | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| VRAM Bus Width | 128 | 128 | 128 |
| ROPs | 64 | 64 | 64 |
| TMUs | 128 | 128 | 128 |
| TFLOPS FP32 (Boost) | 9.76 | 9.95 | 9.66 |
| Bandwidth (GBps) | 256 | 256 | 256 |
| PCIe Slot Interface | x8 Gen4 | x8 Gen4 | x8 Gen4 |
| TBP (watts) | 160 | 180 | 160 |
| Launch Date | Aug-21 | Aug-21 | Aug-21 |
| Launch Price | $379 | $499 | $379 |
Sapphire 11310-01-20G PULSE Radeon RX 6600 Video card review
Design
The Pulse measures 240x118x43mm (our measurements — the official size is 240×119.85×44.75mm) and weighs just 611g. The ASRock Phantom by comparison weighs 898g and measures 306x131x47mm, while the Gigabyte Eagle measures 289x112x38mm and tips the scales at 674g. The Sapphire takes up just a bit more than a standard 2-slot width.
Ports
Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards come with RDNA 2 architecture, 8GB of GDDR6 memory, Infinity Cache, HDMI 2.1 connectivity, FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), ray tracing, and everything in between.
Frame rates
the Sapphire gets a solid 60fps in all games at 1080p, with esports titles (CS:GO, R6S and Warzone) sitting at over 100fps, and even Doom Eternal getting over 130. Even at 1440p it achieves 60fps in multiple games like those esports titles and some single-player and/or intensive games like Resident Evil Village and Dirt 5.
Temperature
2565MHz GPU boost, with GPU temps sitting at a rather respectable 57C while the GPU hotspot sits at around 68C — 135W for the GPU power consumption and full system power of less than 200-250W.
Cooling
The cooling AMD have gone for is one big heat sink across the whole PCB and a bit over, with the addition of one long heat pipe that from the middle goes out in both directions to reenter the heat sink at both ends. This ensures the heat is spread out as far as possible from the source, and while the heat sink is heating up it means that initial heat is easier to dissipate while being spread out
Power consumption
The Sapphire Pulse came in slightly below AMD’s official 160W TBP rating in Metro Exodus and FurMark and used 17–23W less power than the ASRock Phantom.
Overclocking in Sapphire 11310-01-20G PULSE Radeon RX 6600 Video card
The core clock and a boost clock of the GPU are also at the reference rate, running at 2,044MHz and 2,491MHz respectively. This is also toned down from the RX 6600 XT which has a reference clock of up to 2,359Mhz and a boost clock of up to 2,589MHz.
Average clock speeds on the Sapphire Pulse were lower than the Phantom by 100MHz in Metro, which was a bit surprising. Clocks were also about 90MHz lower in FurMark, though that hits power limits and cards often behave quite differently in that sort of workload than in gaming.
Alternate of Sapphire 11310-01-20G PULSE Radeon RX 6600 Video card
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.
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.
Editor’s recommendations
- ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce GTX 1660 Super Overclocked 6GB Edition review & price
- ASUS KO NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti V2 OC Edition 8GB GDDR6 gaming graphics card review
- ASUS TUF Gaming NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition Graphics Card review
- ASUS ROG Strix NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti OC Edition gaming graphics card review
- ASUS Dual AMD Radeontm RX 6600 8GB GDDR6 gaming graphics card review
