AMD Radeon RX 6600 Review – XFX SWFT 210 Tested
The New Entry-Level RDNA 2 GPU
AMD’s latest graphics card is here, with the Radeon RX 6600 (non-XT, if that helps) providing a theoretically lower-cost option for high-performance 1080p gaming. It isn’t new silicon, being another variant of the Navi 23 GPU found in the RX 6600 XT and Radeon RX 6600M, but it adds another option for prospective shoppers hoping for an RDNA2-powered desktop card.
Compared to the RX 6600 XT, we are looking at a GPU with four fewer Compute Units, which translates to 1792 shaders vs. the XT’s total of 2048. The effective memory speed is 14 Gbps, down from 16 Gbps with the XT. Infinity Cache remains 32 MB.
Here’s a look at the specs across most of the RDNA 2 lineup:
| AMD Radeon RX 6600 | AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6800 | AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compute Units | 28 | 32 | 40 | 60 | 72 |
| Game Clock | 2044 MHz | 2359 MHz | 2424 MHz | 1815 MHz | 2015 MHz |
| Boost Clock | Up to 2491 MHz | Up to 2589 MHz | Up to 2581 MHz | Up to 2105 MHz | Up to 2250 MHz |
| Infinity Cache | 32 MB | 32 MB | 96 MB | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Memory | 8GB GDDR6 | 8GB GDDR6 | 12GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Speed (Effective) | 14 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps |
| Memory Interface | 128 bit | 128 bit | 192 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 224 GB/s | 256 GB/s | 384 GB/s | 512 GB/s | 512 GB/s |
| Total Board Power | 132W | 160W | 230W | 250W | 300W |
The reduction to 14 Gbps from the GDDR6 results in memory bandwidth of 224 GB/s, down from 256 GB/s with the XT. As one would expect, the TBP (Total Board Power) is down as well, and sits at just 132W for this new card.
The XFX Speedster SWFT 210
AMD sent over an XFX SWFT 210 card for our review, and this design is identical to XFX’s RX 6600 XT version of the SWFT 210, a dual-slot card with a dual-fan cooler atop horizontal heatsink fins, with a metal backplate featuring a cutout for additional airflow.
The SWFT 210 has a Game GPU clock of 2044 MHz and Boost GPU clock of 2491 MHz (both stock), according to GPU-Z. The 8GB of GDDR6 are clocked at a stock 1750 MHz (an effective data rate of 14 Gbps).
Power requirements are a single PCI-E 8-pin connector for this card, and with a board power rating of just 132W for the RX 6600 this provides quite a bit of headroom.
As to pricing, Newegg has a listing up this morning and it appears to be $329.99 – but you have to be a Shuffle winner to get it. How much it will end up selling for outside of the Newegg Shuffle is anyone’s guess.
Performance Testing
As mentioned above, the Radeon RX 6600 is using the same Navi 23 GPU as the RX 6600 XT, but with four fewer Compute Units enabled, and with slower 14 Gbps memory on the same 128-bit bus. Performance will obviously be lower than the XT variant, but will it best an NVIDIA RTX 3060? Let’s find out.
| PC Perspective GPU Test Platform | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (1800MHz FCLK) | |||||||
| Motherboard | ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII HERO (Wi-Fi) BIOS 3703 AGESA V2 PI 1.2.0.3 Patch C |
|||||||
| Memory | 32GB (16GBx2) G.Skill Trident Z NEO DDR4-3600 CL14 | |||||||
| Storage | Samsung 980 PRO 2TB NVMe SSD Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD |
|||||||
| Power Supply | CORSAIR RM1000x 1000W | |||||||
| Operating System | Windows 10 64-bit (21H1, 19043.928) | |||||||
| Drivers | GeForce Game Ready Driver 471.41 Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.7.2 – 21.8.1 Adrenalin 21.30.17.06 (RX 6600 Press Driver) |
|||||||
Here are some results using the same tests as our Radeon RX 6600 XT review, so these will be 1080p benchmarks:
As you can see, our stock Radeon RX 6600 had an early victory over the GeForce RTX 3060 in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, but ended up trailing in the rest of the games in this very small collection. A larger sample size is needed, but it seems safe to assume that the RX 6600 is capable of “trading blows” with the RTX 3060, depending on the title and how well optimized it is for Radeon graphics.
As to performance compared to the RX 6600 XT, our MSI GAMING X sample was just over 12% faster overall than the stock RX 6600 non-XT from XFX reviewed today.
Power draw from our test system (measured at the wall) is impressive, as the Radeon RX 6600 XT comes in 38 watts under the RTX 3060. The performance scales with power when comparing the two RX 6600 versions, as we observed a 30 watt reduction from the RX 6600 XT with this system.
Final Thoughts
As with all graphics card launches in recent memory, the biggest story with the new Radeon RX 6600 will (unfortunately) be about availability, rather than performance. It just doesn’t matter how impressive – or underwhelming – any GPU launch is.
List pricing is another meaningless area in reviews these days, as this will be set by retailers and decided by the market. When we looked at the RX 6600 XT from MSI, the card (a GAMING X version) ended up being listed at $579.99 on Newegg – $200 above AMD’s MSRP for a stock version of the GPU.
Two years ago the idea that a card marketed as a 1080p gaming solution selling for over $300 would have been hilarious. Now they can hit $600 or more. No one is laughing anymore.
So we’ve reached the conclusion of another depressing GPU launch in the 2020-202X era. When will it end? Late this year? Hardly. Early next year? End of next year? Who knows. But this review has become mired in the grim reality of graphics cards today.
In the imaginary world of MSRP and availability, AMD’s new Radeon RX 6600 is a good option for high-end 1080p gaming in the current market, and one that can compete with the RTX 3060, depending on the title. In addition to good performance, the RX 6600 doesn’t draw much power, and our XFX SWFT 210 sample was very quiet as well.
Review Disclosures
This is what we consider the responsible disclosure of our review policies and procedures.
How Product Was Obtained
The product is on loan from AMD for the purpose of this review.
What Happens To Product After Review
The product remains the property of AMD but is on extended loan for future testing and product comparisons.
Company Involvement
AMD had no control over the content of the review and was not consulted prior to publication.
PC Perspective Compensation
Neither PC Perspective nor any of its staff were paid or compensated in any way by AMD for this review.
Advertising Disclosure
AMD has not purchased advertising at PC Perspective during the past twelve months.
Affiliate Links
If this article contains affiliate links to online retailers, PC Perspective may receive compensation for purchases through those links.
I really appreciate your review. but sadly, there’s not much point in doing a gaming review of any graphics cards these days. They’re all going to be bought up by bots instantly and used for crypto mining. The 6600xt can’t be had for less than 2x MSRP. Unless a gamer is lucky to get a 6600 today when they go on sale, they might as well just forget ever buying one.
The only card that I see which even stays in stock for a few minutes is the crappy 1060.
The current silicon crunch and China’s banning of crypto mining is only going to make the demand for GPU mining worse as it shifts the demand from bitcoin to the more GPU friendly coins. We’re looking at 2023 before this lets up–when new fab capacity starts to come online. 🙁
My RX580 is getting very long in the tooth and my new 1440p144 monitor is way too much glass for it to handle. The older 2560x1080p60 display was just fine.
I can’t argue with you about the way reviews are viewed these days – but the situation is complicated. If I don’t accept a sample and review the card from AMD, will they sample us in the future, when the situation improves for consumers again?
And if not gaming, certainly I don’t think you mean we should focus on crypto mining!? (I don’t want to be burned at the stake, so I won’t do that.)
Understood and that’s why I read it and viewed your ads. I intend to stick by you guys through this hardship.
How about doing a GPU compute review of the card? I can give you some open science type of GPU applications that you could do some performance evaluations of. I assume you have access to other cards you can use to show relative performance. I don’t know of anyone else doing this kind of systematic evaluation, so maybe it’s an unfilled niche?
And, no, I don’t suggest doing crypto performance reviews. For one, they do enough of that themselves–read their forums if you want to see more–and the software updates too frequently for a single review to be of much use. You’d have to do new updates every time new versions of code came out. You’d either wear out your PCI-E slot or you’d need a bunch of identical systems to host all the different cards. I wouldn’t recommend it.
I don’t think you need to make special concessions to your reviews because of the current climate other than to take note of what the market is doing at the moment when the card is released. Honestly, most people bitching are people pissed at miners because they couldn’t buy one if they were so inclined, not that they are actually planning to do so in the immediate future. I mean if I bought every carbon fiber mountain bike I read a review of I’d be homeless and have enough carbon fiber to build an F35 and a McLaren P1.
If you want to branch out the reviews outside of gaming I would suggest video editing encoding performance. I don’t do much in it personally but I build machines for people that do and its always a bit of a hunt to figure out what cards are the ones to get. Davinci Resolve and Premier seem to be the most popular solutions at the moment?
This GPU looks nice though, excellent performance per watt and I appreciate the none gigundous size for what is supposed to be mid-range which is what the 6600XT should have been as well.
I’ve been waiting to buy a card for over a year. Since I recently upgraded my monitor from 2560x1080p60 to 1440p144, I am now beyond ‘interested’ or ‘curious’. I have money sitting right here which I would use to by a card *if I could find one anywhere near MSRP*!
Availability is not too bad here in the UK albeit at inflated prices. I’d love to know who in the supply chain was having their pound of flesh.