ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT Review: Honest Review

ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT Review: Honest Review

The tremendous graphics card shortage and consequent price increases that have turned our market upside down have yet to be resolved. For more than a year, it has been nearly impossible to find a graphics card in India that is selling for anywhere near its MSRP – people have been forced to pay double or even triple what might be considered reasonable prices, and second-hand or low-end models are frequently the only options left to those with limited budgets.

Thanks to the recent resurrection of AMD, we had thought that the supply side would improve things with a bit more competition. More market options should provide better opportunities for the consumers in pricing and performance to discover something that works. However, the official AMD prices for India are rs. 31 990 (plus taxes) but with limited availability and absurd markups on the basis of the situation is still severe.

The Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800XT, which are high-end versions for fans who desire 4K to play, have been revised already. The Radeon RX 6600 XT has now been discovered and is being fully examined today, a more cheap derivative.

Based on the same RDNA2 architecture that its larger siblings, AMD targets players who want to boost high-quality 1080p HD gaming, with a bit of a boost of 1440p and even 4K in less resource-hungry games. In a perfect market, this GPU should be a great upgrade option for everyone with a 3 or more years old mainstream graphics card, but what money should you be prepared to spend for it?

Please read to learn.

Architecture and specifications of AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT GPU

The Radeon RX 6600 XT is not the most powerful GPU in the pile but has updated capabilities such as ray tracing, support for upscaling FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), DirectX 12 Ultimate, variable-rate shading, and HDMI 2.1. These are things that allow gamers to boost their visual quality at comfortable frame rates and refreshments at reasonable resolutions. After all, many individuals have 1080p displays and don't even want to upgrade to bigger ones.

The Radeon RX 6600 XT GPU contains 2.048 stream processors, each of which has its own logic of the ray accelerator, divided into 32 computer units. In case of no idling, the reference 'game clock' is 2.359MHz, while the maximum boost time is 2.589MHz. The Infinity Cache is stated to be 32MB, however here there is a lot less than on the Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT. It is said to be incredibly fast. Also up to specified resolutions and frame rates you get H.264 and H.265 encoding/decoding plus VP9 and AV1 decoding hardware. This GPU is manufactured on a 7nm technology like its siblings. All Radeon RX 6600 XT cards have a memory of 8GB GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with a memory bandwidth of up to 256GBps. AMD proposes a 160W TDP that could change based on the custom designs of board partners.

The Radeon RX 6600 XT employs only 8 PCIe lanes, AMD made an unusual choice. It complies with PCIe 4.0 so that you still have the same bandwidth of 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes, but just the latest standard on a platform. On an older machine, you can only receive half the possible PCIe 3.0 width on eight lanes, even in an x16 slot. Few GPUs fully saturate their PCIe connections, but some minor encounters could occur.

A somewhat new PC is also required to use the Smart Access function of AMD. This is a resizeable bAR (base address register) implementation that enables a CPU to access the full capabilities of your GPU and does not reduce latency to the conventional 256MB limit. Some games have a superior performance of up to 10 percent.

Design and specifications for ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600

The mid-range GPU is not designed such that all Radeon RX 6600 XT cards come with their own customized coolers. ASRock has very seriously grasped the concept of customization and we have a great deal to do in design here. This is an entirely enormous card first of all. It is around 305 mm long and approximately 40 mm long and hangs on the edge of an ATX standard board than the normal high-end cards. The slots on your motherboard are thick enough to prohibit three and also larger than ordinary cards.

ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT Review: Honest Review

All three supporters on the front have knotted blades to assist reduce airflow and noise. The RGB LED illumination is only the one in the center – its blades with frosted finish transparent, while the other two fans have grey smoky translucent blades. Whatever its blades, RGB LEDs are moved by the central fan in a round, smooth pattern. On the top, there's a different panel with an RGB LED and an ASRock Phantom Gaming branding. The lights may be tweaked using the software panel and tweaked with the suitable ASRock motherboard.

You'll see that the actual automobile PCB is not over 190 mm in length if you look closely. The rest of the room under the roof is completely occupied with heatsink aluminum fins. The 8-pin PCIe power connector also seems like it is situated in the center of the card, however, it should be located at the ends of the board. The metal backplate should be stiff, because it weighs 894 grams, for the complete contraction.

This card is known by ASRock as "OC Edition," however the speed is only slightly higher than the stock - the playtime is 2428MHz while its boost clock is 2607MHz. The back is fitted with three DisplayPort 1.4 and an HDMI 2.1. The card comes with plastic dust for all ports, plus a PCIe sled, which is a good addition, but nothing else is in the box. The business says that high-end components have been employed. The recommendation for stock of AMD for a 500W power supply, ASRock's 550W power supply has been added.

Performance of ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT

As no reference cards are available, the ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT was offered for AMD testing. Our Standard test stand has the G.Skill F4-3400C16D-16GSXW DDr4 RAM, a 1TB Samsung 860 Evo SSD, and a Corsair RM650. Our standard test stand includes a standard testing standard. The 4K Asus PB287Q monitor was used. Since this is a PCIe 3.0 platform, it cannot harness the advantages of all new hardware as indicated above. At the time of testing were all the newest drivers and Windows 10 patches.

Earth in the Middle:

Shadow of War managed to maintain an average of 40fps with an Ultra grade set of 4K, but it showed some dips of 15fps with the lowest point and up to 152fps with a built-in benchmark. The average resolution was reduced to 1440p to a very reasonable 70fps.

Subway: Exodus includes a separate tool to benchmark. The average frame rate at 1080p was 38.49fps, which demonstrates some games can push too strong for this GPU at even this level. The average frame rate was up to 64,5 fps when the preset was dropped to the Ultra, which rose to 88,06 fps again at Normal quality. Turning to Troy: the Benchmark mode in Total War Saga, the average frame rate at 4K and Ultra was 21,5fps. The average quality setting at 1080p was 50,02fps. Choosing the more realistic.

The Ultra preset used by Far Cry5 was 70fps, average by 1080p, 63fps by 1440p et 49fps by 4K. Assassin's faith: Odyssey is a little harder, with an average of 4K of 34 fps. It reduced the imaging quality to a High preset to an average of 42fps in resolution to 1440p.

This game showed how well it could be done even on mid-range hardware by playing in one of the Doom Eternal's master levels. This game had no problems churning out a solid 60+fps while riding around with quality set to Ultra Nightmare and the resolution in 4K and only dipped in intensive combat at roughly 50fps. A little bit of light rip, but there were no big stutters.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt also played well with roughly 95fps, using 1440p resolution and high graphics and post-processing.

ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT Review: Honest Review

Mid-range hardware is a great use case for a new AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution feature, which enables games to look sharper and then to employ upscaling software without straining GPUs. This feature receives the backing of developers, however, there are still not a large number of games to implement. The in-game benchmark in Anno1800 recorded an average frame rate of 52,94 fps with 1440p and the Ultra High preset without FSR activated.

The outcome was an astounding 100,83 fps in the Ultra Quality FSR, which reached 71,03 fps and in performance. Image quality has degraded dramatically at the level of performance, but as you can see, you don't have a highly playable experience in this extreme.

Godfall is one of FSR's earliest games, too. The game managed 35.2fps, which is not as smooth as most gamers like at 1440p on the Epic quality prefix. This up to 52.7fps was quite better with Ultra-Performance FSR levels. This led to a very significant 70.3fps in the performance mode but with a significant loss in image quality. You may wish to fiddle with game quality and FSR level settings in order to find a balance.

The ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT effectively leverages its massive heatsink, and hence the three fans don't produce a sound at gaming. You could only spin at your utmost speed if you're highly worried about benchmarking. The fans revolve and remain silent when not required. There's no hot air spray that pushes the back as well.

Verdict of ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT

The Radeon RX 6600 XT GPU usually matches the GeForce RTX 3060 or is marginally quicker. It is part of a slightly higher MSRP, and although it's already rather a lot for a 1080 pc GPU, in normal circumstances it may be understood. The plain fact, however, is that MSRPs now does not imply anything at all. Although it is exceedingly difficult to get Nvidia's Founders' Edition cards straight from the distributor in India, and AMD does not offer such a solution at its official price. On the open market, Radeon RX 6600 XT costs little more than Rs 60,000 for the ASRock Phantom Gaming, which is clearly ridiculous. Sapphire, another company, has a model Radeon RX 6600 XT offered online at roughly Rs. 48,000. However, nearest to the ASRock card is priced mostly. They're all out of stock, in addition.

While AMD has done well, there is no quick or easy way for Indian players to get it into their hands. It is a shame, because the gamers, who had a lot of high-profile titles on the horizon with functionalities like ray tracking and FSR may have had a better time than they would have expected.

Radeon RX 6600 XT is not a bad GPU, however, the MSRP already has the maximum amount to spend if you can locate it. ASRock's Phantom Gaming Card in particular would be an excellent choice for a spacious PC chassis, as long as it looks like, but the GPU is not a brand-based graphics card but a different element.

ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6600 XT Review: Honest Review