The RX 6600 XT was put through its paces in our testing lab, and the results were quite fascinating. The factory overclocked GPU performed admirably, with clocks throughout the test staying stable at about that 2.6 gigahertz advertised maximum. Not a bad showing at all, but then again, this is a factory overclocked card. Your mileage may vary.

One of the weird things about this launch was the use of these pins here. As the pre-launch rumors suggested, they're 100% for show. You can even see where they stopped being connected to anything. Yeah, this GPU is wired for only eight lanes of PCI Express, which seems like a waste of material. Like, why have a full x16 cartridge connector filled out with pins? I guess it helps with physical stability? I mean, this genuinely threw me for a loop when I first noticed it, but eight lanes of Gen 4 makes sense when you think about it.

Not only are they equivalent to 16 Gen 3 lanes, most GPUs at this performance level won't even begin to utilize the full bandwidth of a 16 lane slot. This means that you're giving up nothing by using one of these cards in one x16 slot and then populating the other with a dual NVMe card or something, without compromising the performance of either. Heck, if you're not squeamish, you can safely mod the card for use as a server chassis or something without losing any functionality. The pins simply are not connected, but now we've gotta talk about the price.

At $380 for the base model, it's a steep ask. When this card was announced, we went into the reasons why this price makes sense in today's marketplace, but it's going to continue being compared to the launch price of the RTX 3060 and especially the 3060 Ti, which is priced very competitively at $400. The only problem with this take though is that those prices no longer exist and arguably never did. Third parties were charging well in excess of that before those cards launched.

There's no founders edition for the 3060, and third parties are going to prefer higher margin cards with the precious few GPUs they're able to get. In my opinion, this MSRP only really exists as a contractual obligation to make it seem like it's cheaper than it really is in order to undercut the competition. And I suspect the same is true of the RX 6600 XT's MSRP too. Just look at how much backlash they got for saying $379.

It seems that they're so concerned with perception that they wouldn't even tell us how much this particular AsRock card costs, and neither did AsRock. If they pipe up before the video is done, I'll put the price on screen now. All of which is to say, it's impossible to tell you what the real MSRP of any of these cards is other than what Nvidia and AMD say they are.

That makes it difficult to put the RX 6600 XT into perspective. On the one hand, it's slower than the RTX 3060 Ti, that is its true price competitor, but on the other, whether that price exists or not depends on who you ask. Our recommendation therefore is this: if MSRP matters to you, the RX 6600 XT is an underwhelming but not disastrous GPU. You could do way worse.

If features matter to you, the competition has DLSS at this price point, and their video encoder is better for you streamers out there. And if scarcity pricing matters to you, well, our recommendation as always is to get it if you can. Be careful though, we've got a video coming on how scam GPUs are becoming even weirder, so be sure to get subscribed so you don't miss that.

And okay, I know that people don't like that buy it anyway recommendation. It sounds like I'm telling you to just be a mindless consumer, I get it, but the uncomfortable truth for both you and I is that even if you don't want it, it's a sound move for as long as demand outstrips supply.

Thankfully, I've got more than enough supply of segways for sponsors like iFixit. Thanks to iFixit for sponsoring today's video. The iFixit Essential Electronics Toolkit is a great basic kit for new users. It gives you what you need for the most essential electronics repairs in a compact size that includes the most popular precision bits. They're all held in place with high density foam, so you can throw it around without any of the bits falling out. They've got a lifetime warranty, so go ahead and get one today at iFixit.com/LTT.

Thanks for watching, guys. Go ahead and check out our recent video on just how viable old GPUs can be for modern games. Maybe if you're still rocking an old flagship, you don't need to worry about these selling outright away, you know?

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- 1080P became theultimate goal for gamersback when the seventhgeneration of consoles launched,and even the PCs of mere mortalswere able to reach thatholy grail with AAA titlesby the time the Radeon HD5970 and G-Force GTX 480came out in 2010.So why are we still getting excitedabout 1080P graphics cards in 2021,especially when theycost, what almost $400?Am I in a time loop?Oh man, not again!Maybe if I review it, it'll stop,or maybe if I tell youabout our sponsor, iFixit.Do you like to repair your own electronicsinstead of having to spend hundredson expensive replacementor repair services?Find out more about iFixit'sEssential Electronics Toolkitat the end of the video.(upbeat techno music)The RX 6600 XT is a strangerelease in many ways.Yeah, it makes sense to release a GPUthat's less than half thedie size of the RX 6800XT.And, yeah, it makes sensethat it would use 16 gigabit GDDR6 chips.Both of those things make it far easierto manage supply constraintsthat have been strangling productionand are projected to continueinto 2022 or even 2023,depending on who you ask.No, what's strange is the pricing,which we will get to, I promise,but also the fact that becausethere isn't an AMD branded cardthis time around, AMDhas made the decisionto send factory overclockedcards to reviewers,which means that everythingyou see from this point onneeds to be taken with a pinch of salt.Sure, the card has allthe same basic features.It's got eight gigabytes ofGDDR6 memory, 32 compute units,and as many megs of infinity cache,and all the goodies that come with RDNA2,like Ray Accelerators,real-time Ray tracing support,but that's where the similaritiesbetween the basic spec andwhat they've sent us end.And what they've sent usis AsRock's seriously overbuiltPhantom Gaming D card.With a whopping three fansand as many heat pipesto handle the 160 Watts worth of heatthis thing is supposed to be kicking out.The overclock itself is pretty mildat about 80 megahertz in gameand under 20 megahertz at peak boost,which Andy says will be typicalof other factory overclocked cards,so this atypical cooleris probably overkill.The back plate for its part is thinand seems to mostly be for showwith what looks to be a pairof thick boy thermal padson the back of the PCB.I say looks like,because in order toget the back plate off,you need to take the cooler off,and we've got benchmarks to dobefore we mess with the card'sthermal characteristics.You know the drill: GPUbench, latest updates,AMD's immediate family,and the two Nvidia GPUsthat the 6600 XT is mostlikely to take head-on.You'll note we're usingmore RAM than before.Dual write memory is goodfor you, you should try it.Helps keep Ryzen fed anyway.All our games will berunning 1080P max settingswith Ray tracing turned tominimum where applicable.Starting off with some surprising wins,Forza Horizon 4 andAssassin's Creed Valhallaput AMD's mid tier GPU aheadof NVIDIA's RTX 3060 Tiby about 15 to 25%, whichis absolutely fantasticconsidering the cards arepriced so close together.Unfortunately, thispattern doesn't hold upas we move on to othergames like Final Fantasy 14and F1 2021, where evenwith Ray tracing off,the Radeon loses out by about 10%,putting it closer to the cheaper RTX 3060.This gets even worse whenRay tracing is enabledand especially for aglobal illumination titlelike Metro Exodus,where we see the diminishedRay Accelerator countreally bring the pain.Thankfully, global illuminationis not really common yet,but it's worth testing them all the same.None of these results areespecially bad, to be clear.The lowest non Ray tracingresult was still well over 60 FPSand 1% minimums.And it's consistently muchfaster than the RTX 3060,but when you're forkingover 3060 Ti money,it all starts to looklike an advertisementfor that card instead.As always with cardsthis low on the ladder,productivity isn't a major consideration,but we're including benchmarks here,because it's very possiblethat you need somethingaffordable for work at home.And given that for $20 more,the RTX 3060 Ti punches upto trade blows with the RX 6700 XT,it's no surprise that the cutdown 6600 XTcan't really compete here eithereven against the RTX 3060.That's not to say thatthere aren't some AMD winsin productivity though, eventhough the infinity cacheis much smaller with this card,its ridiculously fast speed helps itin memory intensive taskslike in the energy andmedical tests in SPECviewperf.Although, chances are this class of cardwill never see that kind of workload,so it's a hollow victory.Sort of like how ourwater bottles are hollow.You gotta fill themwith victory, you know?Lttstore.com.For thermals, consideringneither the coolingnor the clocks are stock,and this card's probably notdestined for a workstation,we'll do something alittle different todayand use two loops of five laps in F1 2021to simulate gameplayand see if that game clockcan endure some heat.As it turns out, AMD'stotal power estimatewas pretty accurate,with an average of about180 Watts and a peak of 225,well below the RTX 3060 Ti.But unfortunately also aboutas far above the RTX 3060.The extremely overbuilt coolerdoes the job fantastically though,with temperatures hoveringaround 60 degrees at all timesin our closed chassis bench.It kept boosting too,with clocks throughoutthe test staying stableat about that 2.6 gigahertzadvertised maximum.Not a bad showing at all, but then again,this is a factory overclocked card.Your mileage may vary.And here's another weirdthing about this launch.See these, these pins here.As the pre-launch rumorsuggested, they're 100% for show.You can even see where they stoppedbeing connected to anything.Yeah, this GPU is wired foronly eight lanes of PCI Express,which seems like a waste of material.Like, why have a fullx16 cartridge connectorfilled out with pins?I guess it helps with physical stability?I mean, this genuinely threw me for a loopwhen I first noticed it,but eight lanes of Gen 4makes sense when you think about it.Not only are they equivalentto 16 Gen 3 lanes,most GPUs at this performance levelwon't even begin toutilize the full bandwidthof a 16 lane slot.This means that you're giving up nothingto use one of these cards in one x16 slotand then populate theother with a dual NVMe cardor something,without compromising theperformance of either.Heck, if you're not squeamish,you can safely mod the cardfor use as a server chassis or somethingwithout losing any functionality.The pins simply are not connected.But now, we've gotta talk about the price.At $380 for the basemodel, it's a steep ask.When this card was announced,we went into the reasons whythis price, while painful,makes sense in today's marketplace,but it's going to continue being comparedto the launch price of the RTX 3060and especially the 3060 Ti,which is priced verycompetitively at $400.The only problem with this take thoughis those prices no longerexist and arguably never did.Third parties were chargingwell in excess of thatbefore those cards launched.There's no founders edition for the 3060,and third parties are goingto prefer higher margin cardswith the precious fewGPUs they're able to get.In my opinion,that MSRP only really existsas a contractual obligationto make it seem like it'scheaper than it really isin order to undercut the competition.And I suspect the same is trueof the RX 6600 XT's MSRP too.Just look at how much backlashthey got for saying $379.In fact, it seems thatthey're so concernedwith perception that theywouldn't even tell ushow much this particular AsRock card costsand neither did AsRock.If they pipe up before the video is done,I'll put the price on screen now.All of which is to say,it's impossible to tellyou what the real MSRPof any of these cards isother than what Nvidiaand AMD say they are.That makes it difficultto put the RX 6600 XT into perspective.On the one hand, it'sslower than the RTX 3060 Ti,that is its true price competitor,but on the other, whetherthat price exists or notdepends on who you ask.Our recommendation therefore is this:if MSRP matters to you,the RX 6600 XT is an underwhelming,but not disastrous, GPU.You could do way worse.If features matter to you,the competition has DLSSat this price point,and their video encoderis better for you streamers out there.And if scarcity pricing matters to you,well, our recommendation asalways is to get it if you can.Be careful though,we've got a video comingon how scam GPUs arebecoming even weirder,so be sure to get subscribedso you don't miss that.And okay, I know thatpeople don't like thatbuy it anyway recommendation.It sounds like I'm telling youto just be a mindless consumer, I get it,but the uncomfortabletruth for both you and Iis that even if you don't want it,it's a sound move for as longas demand outstrips supply.Thankfully, I've got morethan enough supply of segwaysfor sponsors like iFixit.Thanks to iFixit forsponsoring today's video.The iFixit Essential Electronics Toolkitis a great basic kit for new users.It gives you what you needfor the most essential electronicsrepairs in a compact sizethat includes the mostpopular precision bits.They're all held in placewith high density foam,so you can throw it aroundwithout any of the bits falling out.They've got a lifetime warranty,so go ahead and get onetoday at iFixit.com/LTT.Thanks for watching, guys.Go ahead and check out our recent videoon just how viable old GPUscan be for modern games.Maybe if you're stillrocking an old flagship,you don't need to worryabout these selling outright away, you know?\n"