Review AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT Review: The Memory Compromise

[Admin]

We put the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT through a full spate of gaming, power and thermal tests.

AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT Review: The Memory Compromise : Read more

 

[Zarax]

I know this is a lot to ask but given the ridicolous MSRP you might want to design a benchmark of discounted games (you could use isthereanydeal to see which ones have been at least once 50% off) that would be good to use with lower end cards or ones available used for acceptable prices.

Something like "Budget gaming: how do the cheapest cards on ebay perform?" could be a very interesting read, especially given your high standards in writing and testing.

 

[salgado18]

I like the decision to lower memory bus width to 128 bits. It lowers mining performance without affecting gaming performance, and can't be undone like Nvidia's software-based solution.

 

[ottonis]

Due to production capacity constraints, AMD's main problem is they can't produce nearly as many GPUs as they would like and are thus being outsold by Nvidia by far.

It's pretty obvious that AMD had one goal in mind with Navi23: increase production output as much as possible by shrinking die size while maintaining competitive 1080p gaming performance.
Apparently, they accomplished that task. Whether or not the MSRP will have to be adapted: we will see,but I guess not as long as the global GPU shortage lasts.

 

[InvalidError]

I like the decision to lower memory bus width to 128 bits. It lowers mining performance without affecting gaming performance, and can't be undone like Nvidia's software-based solution.

Still having a 128bits on a $400 GPU is outrageous, especially if VRAM bandwidth bottleneck is a major contributor to the 6600(XT)'s collapse at higher resolutions and DXR.

With only 8GB of VRAM, the GPU can only work on one ETH DAG at a time anyway, so narrowing the bus to 128bits shouldn't hurt too much. A good chunk of the reason why 12GB GPUs have a significant hash rate advantage is because they can work on two DAGs at a time while 16GB ones can do three and extra memory channels help with that concurrency.

 

[-Fran-]

I like the decision to lower memory bus width to 128 bits. It lowers mining performance without affecting gaming performance, and can't be undone like Nvidia's software-based solution.

Sorry, but you're not entirely correct there. It does affect performance. This is a very "at this moment in time" type of thing that you don't see it being a severe bottleneck, but crank up resolution to 1440 and it falls behind, almost consistently, against the 5700XT; that's not a positive look to the future of this card, even at 1080p. There's also the PCIe 3.0 at x8 link which will remove about 5% performance. HUB already tested and the biggest drop was DOOM Eternal with a whooping 20% drop in performance. That's massive and shameful.

I have no idea why AMD made this card this way, but they're definitely trying to angry a lot of people with it... Me included. This card cannot be over $300 and that's the hill I will die on.

Regards.

 

[ezst036]

The 6600 XT looks like a good Linux gaming card for Steam.

 

[InvalidError]

I have no idea why AMD made this card this way, but they're definitely trying to angry a lot of people with it... Me included. This card cannot be over $300 and that's the hill I will die on.

Were it not for the GPU market going nuts over the last four years, increases in raw material costs and logistics costs, this would have been a $200-250 part.

 

[-Fran-]

Were it not for the GPU market going nuts over the last four years, increases in raw material costs and logistics costs, this would have been a $200-250 part.

I would buy that argument if it wasn't for the fact both AMD and nVidia are reeking in the cash like fishermen on a school of a million fish.

Those are just excuses to screw people. I was definitely giving them the benefit of the doubt at the start, but not so much anymore. Their earn reports are the damning evidence they are just taking advantage of the situation and their excuses are just that: excuses. They can lower prices, period.

Regards.

 

[ottonis]

I would buy that argument if it wasn't for the fact both AMD and nVidia are reeking in the cash like fishermen on a school of a million fish.

Those are just excuses to screw people. I was definitely giving them the benefit of the doubt at the start, but not so much anymore. Their earn reports are the damning evidence they are just taking advantage of the situation and their excuses are just that: excuses. They can lower prices, period.

Regards.

The market has its own rules. As long as there is larger demand than the amount of GPUs AMD can produce, they will keep the prices high. That's just how (free) markets work.
You can't blame a company for maximizing their profits within the margins the market provides to them.
For a bottle of water, you usually pay less than a Dollar. Now, in the desert, with the next station being 500 miles away, you would pay even 10 Dollars (or 100?) for a bottle of water if you are thirsty.
This will not change as long as global GPU shortage is lasting.

 

[-Fran-]

The market has its own rules. As long as there is larger demand than the amount of GPUs AMD can produce, they will keep the prices high. That's just how (free) markets work.
You can't blame a company for maximizing their profits within the margins the market provides to them.
For a bottle of water, you usually pay less than a Dollar. Now, in the desert, with the next station being 500 miles away, you would pay even 10 Dollars (or 100?) for a bottle of water if you are thirsty.
This will not change as long as global GPU shortage is lasting.

You're misunderstanding the argument: I do not care about their profit over my own money expenditure. I understand perfectly well they're Companies and their only purpose in their usable life is maximizing profit for their shareholders.

So sure, you can defend free market and their behaviour all you want, but why? are you looking after their own well being? are you a stakeholder? do you have a vested interest in their market value? are you getting paid to defend their scummy behaviour towards consumers? do you want to pay more and more each generation for no performance increases per tier? do you want to pay a cars worth for a video card at some point? maybe a house's worth?

Do not misunderstand arguments about AMD and nVidia being scummy. You should be aware you have to complain and not buy products at bad price points or they'll just continue to push the limit, because that's what they do.

Regards.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

You're misunderstanding the argument: I do not care about their profit over my own money expenditure. I understand perfectly well they're Companies and their only purpose in their usable life is maximizing profit for their shareholders.

So sure, you can defend free market and their behaviour all you want, but why? are you looking after their own well being? are you a stakeholder? do you have a vested interest in their market value? are you getting paid to defend their scummy behaviour towards consumers? do you want to pay more and more each generation for no performance increases per tier? do you want to pay a cars worth for a video card at some point? maybe a house's worth?

Do not misunderstand arguments about AMD and nVidia being scummy. You should be aware you have to complain and not buy products at bad price points or they'll just continue to push the limit, because that's what they do.

Regards.

As I note in the review, Nvidia set the price for the RTX 3060 at $329. What happened? All the graphics card manufacturers (ASRock, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, PNY, Zotac, etc.) all raised their prices and took the profits. Yes, Nvidia still made plenty of money, but it could have made more money and left the AIB partners with less of the overall pie. And when it wasn't the AIBs jacking up prices (last year), we had scalpers buying everything using bots and putting the cards on eBay and other sites for then-atrocious prices. Except, those old prices look sort of nice in today's market.

The result is that AMD and Nvidia would be dumb to keep trying to sell cards for substantially lower prices than the market will bear. As long as enough people exist that will buy nearly every graphics card at an inflated price, the price of cards will trend upward until equilibrium is reached. If it's not AMD (eg, setting the price of the RX 6600 XT at $379) or Nvidia ($599 RTX 3070 Ti and $1,199 RTX 3080 Ti), it will be the AIBs or retailers or scalpers. Personally, I'd rather the companies doing the majority of the work — AMD and Nvidia — get the majority of the profits, rather than paying scalpers and other profiteers for doing nothing.

But yes, it still sucks that prices are high. They will continue to be high until supply increases and demand decreases.

 

[-Fran-]

As I note in the review, Nvidia set the price for the RTX 3060 at $329. What happened? All the graphics card manufacturers (ASRock, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, PNY, Zotac, etc.) all raised their prices and took the profits. Yes, Nvidia still made plenty of money, but it could have made more money and left the AIB partners with less of the overall pie. And when it wasn't the AIBs jacking up prices (last year), we had scalpers buying everything using bots and putting the cards on eBay and other sites for then-atrocious prices. Except, those old prices look sort of nice in today's market.

The result is that AMD and Nvidia would be dumb to keep trying to sell cards for substantially lower prices than the market will bear. As long as enough people exist that will buy nearly every graphics card at an inflated price, the price of cards will trend upward until equilibrium is reached. If it's not AMD (eg, setting the price of the RX 6600 XT at $379) or Nvidia ($599 RTX 3070 Ti and $1,199 RTX 3080 Ti), it will be the AIBs or retailers or scalpers. Personally, I'd rather the companies doing the majority of the work — AMD and Nvidia — get the majority of the profits, rather than paying scalpers and other profiteers for doing nothing.

But yes, it still sucks that prices are high. They will continue to be high until supply increases and demand decreases.

Yes, I should have been explicit in including all other mid-points in the chain after AMD and nVidia sell their components to AIBs.

This being said, one counter argument: AMD is selling directly at MSRP, so it applies to AMD. I can't say nVidia "dodged" a bullet there, because they don't even care enough to directly sell their own cards (reference and FE) to consumers and they get all the friggen' passes from the press all the friggen' time. But I digress a bit there; point being, AMd and nVidia do have part of the blame of the total card's price, like it or not.

Regards.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Yes, I should have been explicit in including all other mid-points in the chain after AMD and nVidia sell their components to AIBs.

This being said, one counter argument: AMD is selling directly at MSRP, so it applies to AMD. I can't say nVidia "dodged" a bullet there, because they don't even care enough to directly sell their own cards (reference and FE) to consumers and they get all the friggen' passes from the press all the friggen' time. But I digress a bit there; point being, AMd and nVidia do have part of the blame of the total card's price, like it or not.

Regards.

Nvidia used to sell direct, but then switched to BestBuy "because of bots and scalpers" (but probably mostly so it could wash its hands of the problem). AMD sells direct as well, but not in any reasonable quantity that I can see. The RX 6000 cards on AMD.com have been perpetually sold out. When they're not sold out, it's usually for about 30 seconds or less. Which implies AMD is only selling tens or at best hundreds of cards direct, while all others go through the channel. And if you read my RTX 3060 review, I don't think I gave Nvidia a pass on pricing. Plenty of others called it out as well. Until and unless Nvidia and AMD can stop all scalpers and force their partners to use lower prices, we're stuck with the market shenanigans. (AMD and Nvidia obviously can't do that — it's out of their control. If it's not eBay scalping it will be something else. If it's not retailers it will be someone/something else.)

I remember thinking at the time of the RTX 3080 launch that it would be a few months before cards would be available at close to MSRP. It never happened. So nine months later, the RTX 3080 Ti price went up to $1200, rather than pushing the RTX 3080 price down and taking over the $700 spot. Except the RTX 3080 never sold in anything approaching significant quantities at less than $1000. In fact, over the past year, the price of RTX 3080 cards on eBay has averaged around $1,600 (with over 25,000 cards sold). Less than 10% of all RTX 3080 cards sold on eBay went for under $1,000, and most of those were in the Oct/Nov timeframe (before crypto mining killed GPU pricing).

 

[-Fran-]

Nvidia used to sell direct, but then switched to BestBuy "because of bots and scalpers" (but probably mostly so it could wash its hands of the problem). AMD sells direct as well, but not in any reasonable quantity that I can see. The RX 6000 cards on AMD.com have been perpetually sold out. When they're not sold out, it's usually for about 30 seconds or less. Which implies AMD is only selling tens or at best hundreds of cards direct, while all others go through the channel. And if you read my RTX 3060 review, I don't think I gave Nvidia a pass on pricing. Plenty of others called it out as well. Until and unless Nvidia and AMD can stop all scalpers and force their partners to use lower prices, we're stuck with the market shenanigans. (AMD and Nvidia obviously can't do that — it's out of their control. If it's not eBay scalping it will be something else. If it's not retailers it will be someone/something else.)

I remember thinking at the time of the RTX 3080 launch that it would be a few months before cards would be available at close to MSRP. It never happened. So nine months later, the RTX 3080 Ti price went up to $1200, rather than pushing the RTX 3080 price down and taking over the $700 spot. Except the RTX 3080 never sold in anything approaching significant quantities at less than $1000. In fact, over the past year, the price of RTX 3080 cards on eBay has averaged around $1,600 (with over 25,000 cards sold). Less than 10% of all RTX 3080 cards sold on eBay went for under $1,000, and most of those were in the Oct/Nov timeframe (before crypto mining killed GPU pricing).

This is an interesting coincidence:

View: https://youtu.be/b7iQ-rjkS3o?t=3137


And I'm not saying you're wrong on your take or that AMD and nVidia are the only ones gauging prices; my point is we have to be wary and complain to every single one that scalps and tries to rip off people. Look at Newegg for example. How much they've been screwing customers and I haven't seen anyone writing angry articles about it? GN just did their "explosive" review of the Gigacrap PSUs, but barely touched on the subject of "bundles". The only way "capitalism" works for people like us, is if news outlets and ourselves are very loud and clear with our wallets and voices. That's my main point. Get angry and do not give them a pass. If you're doing that, then good. AMD and nVidia need to be told that so they pass the message down the chain and, more importantly, their increasing inventory tells them their shenanigans are not accepted. Alas, their stock is still moving just fine, which is worrying and saddens me...

Regards.

 

[ottonis]

So sure, you can defend free market and their behaviour all you want, but why? are you looking after their own well being? are you a stakeholder? do you have a vested interest in their market value? are you getting paid to defend their scummy behaviour towards consumers? do you want to pay more and more each generation for no performance increases per tier? do you want to pay a cars worth for a video card at some point? maybe a house's worth?

Do not misunderstand arguments about AMD and nVidia being scummy. You should be aware you have to complain and not buy products at bad price points or they'll just continue to push the limit, because that's what they do.

Regards.

I don't think anybody has been "defending" these prices. Others and I have just described the logic and the mechanics of the market, which are solely driven by demand and offer.

Apparently we are living in a time when purchasing graphics cards has become an unpleasant financial burden, so people I know currently use their old gear and don't upgrade except they absolutely have to.

 

[husker]

And I'm not saying you're wrong on your take or that AMD and nVidia are the only ones gauging prices; my point is we have to be wary and complain to every single one that scalps and tries to rip off people. Look at Newegg for example. How much they've been screwing customers and I haven't seen anyone writing angry articles about it? GN just did their "explosive" review of the Gigacrap PSUs, but barely touched on the subject of "bundles". The only way "capitalism" works for people like us, is if news outlets and ourselves are very loud and clear with our wallets and voices. That's my main point. Get angry and do not give them a pass. If you're doing that, then good. AMD and nVidia need to be told that so they pass the message down the chain and, more importantly, their increasing inventory tells them their shenanigans are not accepted. Alas, their stock is still moving just fine, which is worrying and saddens me...

Although I relate to your anger, I think it is misdirected. What if I feel that $150 or even $100 is a fair price? Should I get angry and urge people to write letters? See, what I think is a fair price is irrelevant. There is no rule that aligns the intrinsic value (price) of an item with its production cost. The intrinsic price of item tends to be what the market will bear. One of the best gauges of this is to put something on eBay and what it sells for is usually close to its true market value. Based on the current selling prices for graphics cards, AMD is UNDER valuing their card, not over valuing it. Once, long ago, I bought a Garmin GPS before cellphones did it all. The exact same model cost $100 more simply if it were pre-loaded with more points of interest. It probably didn't cost Garmin more than a few dollars to add the data; but this is called marketing and market value.

 

[cknobman]

Just need to wait out the market and the trends.
The insane pricing/value on graphics cards will eventually work itself out.
Nothing will kill a PC gaming market like extortion and supply issues.

At this point I wont be buying any PC gpu's for the foreseeable future.
Why spend >$400 on crap like this when I could just get an Xbox Series X for $500?
Its a whole system and stomps this card only into the ground.

 

[InvalidError]

There is no rule that aligns the intrinsic value (price) of an item with its production cost.

Yes there is: effective competition.

In a truly competitive market, if your net profit margin exceeds 12% or so, multiple competitors will want a piece of your market and drag the prices down to costs+10% or so. Today's prices are only possible because the cost of entry is astronomically high largely thanks to copious amounts of red tape mainly in the form of often questionable patents.

 

[hannibal]

Just need to wait out the market and the trends.
The insane pricing/value on graphics cards will eventually work itself out.
Nothing will kill a PC gaming market like extortion and supply issues.

At this point I wont be buying any PC gpu's for the foreseeable future.
Why spend >$400 on crap like this when I could just get an Xbox Series X for $500?
Its a whole system and stomps this card only into the ground.

because console games cost $70+ and i have hundreds of games in steam from several sales where you can get quite new game at $10 or less…
If you are allready console gamer… Well current situation is good. But if you are pc gamer… you dont become a console gamer because of current prices. and aib and everyone else can sell these at current prices! So these prices will stay. I remember that flagship phone was something like $500+ Then there was phones that did go far above $1200… what happened… those phone did sell very Well! And now middle range phones cost $500 to $700… and it has been so for year… no need to have any pandemic. Just normal ”up the price” situation and we are newer gonna see flagship phones at $600 any more… not even chinese ”flagship” killers because $899 is flagship killer price! We are just moving to ”normal” prising in gpus and… lets see. These prices are gonna stay! These are good for manufacturers and they can just sell old last gen flagships at $700 and people think that it wa good deal when current flagships are $1500… this will happen, because it has happened in cell phones allready! And if you can not afford, who cares… they will sell low end cellphones/gpus at $300+ So be happy and buy or dont have gpu… hmm…

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Yes there is: effective competition.

In a truly competitive market, if your net profit margin exceeds 12% or so, multiple competitors will want a piece of your market and drag the prices down to costs+10% or so. Today's prices are only possible because the cost of entry is astronomically high largely thanks to copious amounts of red tape mainly in the form of often questionable patents.

That's only true up to a point, unless by "astronomical costs" you also mean "global shortages and the inability to get more wafer starts at any of the leading node manufacturers." You can't compete without the right tools, and in this case the tools are all backordered a few years.

 

[lazyabum]

It would be nice the RX 6600 XT sold at MSRP than $1,000+. The gamers are now spectators.

 

[thisisaname]

I would sum this card up as "overpriced and disappointment"

 

[InvalidError]

That's only true up to a point, unless by "astronomical costs" you also mean "global shortages and the inability to get more wafer starts at any of the leading node manufacturers." You can't compete without the right tools, and in this case the tools are all backordered a few years.

If there was more effective competition at the design and manufacturing end of things, there would be more supply diversity throughout the supply chain to supply them and shortages probably wouldn't have been as severe if not avoided altogether.

 

[waltc3]

I thought this was a decent review. For $380 the 128-bit bus is out of line, imo. The only thing I can pick at a bit is that you kept emphasizing that "DLSS is an advantage AMD doesn't have," but then you could also say that "FSR is an advantage nVidia doesn't have," as well... I do think that FSR will be used on more titles than DLSS because of how much more friendly it is for developers to implement than DLSS. Also, my AMD 50th An Ed 5700XT is a fair bit faster than the averages you posted, and I should point out that my native res is 4k and although it isn't a speed demon, I don't have any games that run so poorly at 4k that I have to drop the resolution, but that's really a small thing. I do see a 6800XT in my future, however, when I can buy it on the AMD store for MSRP...hopefully soon!