INTRODUCTION

   High refresh rates (in rare cases exceeding even 300Hz) along with some very demanding PC titles have allowed for 1080p gaming to still be a thing even though 2022 is almost upon us. This is actually something many people i know have debated over, 4k UHD resolution and low fps (usually up to 60) vs 1080p FullHD resolution and high fps (over 300). Personally, i think that the "sweet spot" between image quality and performance is still 1440p QHD (1600p even better) but if you want something more on both fronts then yes, the 4k (2160p) and 1080p resolutions are clearly the way to go. Still manufacturers always need to cover all segments of the market, from enthusiasts and demanding gamers, to gamers and casual users, there always needs to be a card for all. The brand new Radeon RX 6600 XT model released officially by AMD today is one such model and with me i have the PULSE model by SAPPHIRE.

   SAPPHIRE Technology continues to be a world leading manufacturer and global supplier of innovative graphics and mainboard products, delivering its AMD Radeon based products to the PC markets addressing gaming, eSports and performance graphics enthusiasts as well as delivering an array of professional graphics products and embedded system solutions. Recently SAPPHIRE has penetrated new markets with a series of GPU Compute server systems targeting the blockchain and commercial cryptocurrency mining businesses.

   The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is a PCIe 4.0 x16 graphics card (with DirectX 12.0 Ultimate support) based on the 7nm "Navi 23" chip which features 32 RDNA2 compute units, 2048 stream processors, 64 raster units (or render output units), 32 ray accelerators and 128 texture mapping units. Unlike previous models this time over for the memory end of the card AMD decided on using a total 8GB of JEDEC standard 16Gbps GDDR6 memory (Samsung) on a 128-bit memory bus. A small chunk (32MB) of Infinity Cache memory is also present on the GPU side which should help with the overall performance of the card (even if by a little). The SAPPHIRE PULSE model that i have here with me today is a dual-slot (2.2) design card that sports two ball-bearing side fans, single aluminum heatsink (covers almost the entire surface of the card), 2 nickel plated copper heatpipes and aluminum back plate (extra protection and rigidity). Finally in terms of connectivity SAPPHIRE has equipped their AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT PULSE with three full sized DP v1.4 (with DSC) ports and a single HDMI v2.1 port. The PULSE AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT looks promising so let's check it out.