CONCLUSION

   AMD released the Radeon RX 6600 XT 8GB with a single goal, to go up against the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB model and it’s clear from our charts that it’s able of doing exactly that. Yes, due to its higher RAM amount the RTX 3060 does lead in 4k but in 1440p and 1080p the RX 6600 XT either comes up on top or goes toe to toe with the RTX 3060. Of course, this also has to do a lot with the title so even though Borderlands 3 just loves the new Radeon cards the same can’t be said about The Outer Worlds for example. That being said what I was surprised quite a bit to see was the Raytracing performance of the RX 6600 XT which is actually very good since its performance hit is less than that of the RTX 3060. More good news is that power consumption is also very good and perhaps less than what I was expecting. On the other hand however I can’t say the same applies to temperatures and even noise levels when the card is stressed.

   The Radeon RX 6600 XT 8GB family of graphics cards by AMD are available right now and as for the SAPPHIRE PULSE model well you can currently find it for USD379.99 inside the USA (Newegg.com) and for 481Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de). As expected, its price tag on this side of the Atlantic is a bit higher than expected but if both SAPPHIRE and distributors can keep it there, I think the PULSE Radeon RX 6600 XT 8GB will do well. At the end of the day the new PULSE Radeon RX 6600 XT 8GB may not be the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB “killer” but it does trade blows with it (and generally outperforms it in 1080/1440p resolutions) and that along with its impressive ray tracing performance are enough to get the Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Very Good Performance
- Ray Tracing Performance
- Factory Overclock
- Good Overclocking Headroom
- Power Consumption
- Supported Technologies
- TRIXX Software

CONS

- Temperatures (Stress)
- Noise Levels (Stress)