The new RX 6600 XT graphics card is here, and AMD are saying that it’s faster than
Nvidia’s faster RTX 3060 - one small problem though, it’s also meant to cost more than
the 3060 as well, so I’ve also compared both with the RTX 3060 Ti to find out just
where the 6600 XT fits in in 17 different games at both 1080p and 1440p resolutions.
Let’s start with the differences in specs.
AMD’s new 6600 XT has 8 gigs of VRAM, just like the RTX 3060 Ti, however the memory is
slower.
The lower tier RTX 3060 has more VRAM at 12 gigs, which is even more than the Ti because,
Nvidia reasons.
AMD says they’re targeting the 6600 XT towards 1080p gaming, so I think 8 gigs there is fine.
This is the system that I’m using to test all three GPUs in, so AMD Ryzen 9 5900X CPU
and 32 gigs of DDR4-3200 CL14 memory in dual channel.
I’ve used MSI’s B550 Tomahawk motherboard and resizable BAR was enabled on all cards.
Let’s dive straight into those gaming benchmarks, we’ll look at things like pricing and availability,
power draw and content creator workloads afterwards.
Let’s start out with Cyberpunk 2077.
I’ve got the 1080p results on the bottom half of the graph, and 1440p results above.
The green bars show the Nvidia RTX 3060 and 3060 Ti, while the red bars show the Radeon
RX 6600 XT.
At 1080p the 6600 XT was reaching 12% higher average FPS compared to the 3060, but then
at 1440p the gap closes with the 6600 XT only offering a 4% lead.
Meanwhile the more expensive 3060 Ti was 16% ahead of the 6600 XT at 1080p, and 26% ahead
at 1440p.
Now this game supports DLSS, and the Nvidia cards are able to get significant performance
boosts with this enabled.
This feature isn’t present for Radeon graphics, and right now the game also doesn’t have
support for AMD’s FSR, so the 6600 XT gets left in the dust as a result.
Of course 80 FPS at high settings at 1080p is more than playable, but the fact is with
DLSS the cheaper 3060 is now 27% faster, whereas it was behind prior to enabling this simple
setting.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is a game that I’ve found to generally favor Radeon graphics,
which helps explain why it’s 14% ahead of the higher tier RTX 3060 Ti at 1080p.
Things flip around at 1440p though, the 3060 Ti is back in front, however it’s only by
a couple of FPS - at least for the average FPS, the 1% lows, or dips in performance on
the 6600 XT were now lower than even the 3060.
In Red Dead Redemption 2 the 6600 XT was very close to the 3060 Ti at 1080p, less than a
couple of FPS behind, and it was 21% faster than the 3060 too, a great result for it.
It’s also quite capable at 1440p too, close to 80 FPS, though it’s just 8% ahead of
the 3060 now.
This game also recently added DLSS support, but with quality mode set I didn’t find
as big of a gain compared to Cyberpunk.
At 1440p the RTX 3060 was now ever so slightly ahead of the 6600 XT, but the 6600 XT still
had the edge at 1080p with just a 5 FPS lead, not much but hey like my buddy Vin Diesel
always says, winning’s winning.
Control is another game that supports both DLSS and ray tracing, let’s start with default
stock results.
The 6600 XT was just a couple of frames ahead of the 3060 at 1080p, at least in terms of
average FPS, the 3060 was a couple of FPS ahead in the 1% lows, but either way not really
a practical difference in my opinion.
At 1440p though the 3060 is able to take a slightly larger lead.
If we enable DLSS, well, both of the Nvidia cards are able to get quite a large boost,
it’s well known that this is one of the better DLSS implementations out there.
Even the 1% lows from the RTX 3060 are ahead of the average FPS the RX 6600 XT is able
to offer, regardless of the resolution.
I’ve also tested ray tracing, and this was a win for Nvidia too, granted this is an Nvidia
sponsored game that launched before AMD had ray tracing support, so that may be why.
Nvidia could also gain a further lead here by turning on DLSS, I didn’t do that as
I just wanted to get an idea of differences purely in ray tracing only, as this is a feature
all GPUs here support.
Borderlands 3 is another game where Radeon graphics typically do quite well.
Sure enough, the 6600 XT was ahead at 1080p, even beating the more expensive RTX 3060 Ti
both in terms of average FPS and 1% low.
At 1440p the 3060 Ti is able to pull back ahead, at least in average FPS, but it’s
one of the smallest leads that it’s able to maintain at this resolution out of all
17 games that I’ve tested.
Even the 1% low from the 6600 XT was ahead of the 3060’s average FPS, regardless of
resolution.
Call of Duty Warzone also seems to favor the 6600 XT, which was fairly close to the 3060
Ti at both resolutions.
The 3060 Ti just had a 5% lead over the 6600 XT at 1440p and a 4% lead at 1080p, so impressive
stuff for the 6600 XT, which was around 20% ahead of the 3060.
This is another game that implements DLSS though, and once enabled the 3060 is able
to overtake the 6600 XT.
It’s still very close at 1080p, though the difference is a bit larger at 1440p.
This game also has ray tracing support, but I didn’t think taking the hit to average
FPS in a game like this that benefits from high frame rates was worth testing.
Fortnite on the other hand is a game that tends to favor Nvidia, and sure enough the
6600 XT was getting beaten by the 3060 at both resolutions in this one.
I mean it’s not as if above 100 FPS at max settings 1080p is at all unplayable or anything,
but generally for competitive titles like this the more frames the better, and this
is yet another popular game that implements DLSS.
Enabling this feature gives a significant boost to both of the Nvidia cards, even the
1% lows from the 3060 are well ahead of the average FPS that the 6600 XT can achieve.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that if you’re playing a lot of Fork Knife then
Nvidia is probably the way to go.
Watch Dogs Legion was about the same on the 6600 XT and 3060 at 1440p, less than a couple
FPS lead by Radeon, however the 6600 XT has a larger 9% lead at the lower 1080p resolution,
while the 3060 Ti was 20% ahead of the 6600 XT.
You might be sick of hearing me say this, but this is another game with DLSS support,
so it’s possible to easily boost performance on both Nvidia cards such that the 3060 takes
the lead ahead of the 6600 XT.
The game also has ray tracing, but hey I can only test so many configurations.
Microsoft Flight Simulator also seemed to go better with Nvidia.
The 3060 and 6600 XT were very close at 1080p, though the 3060 had a subtle edge in average
FPS, but not by much.
At 1440p though this turns into a clear win for the 3060, while the 3060 Ti is able to
offer us a 1% low ahead of the averages that the other two cards can produce.
Rainbow Six Siege was similar with regards to the 6600 XT and 3060 being close together
at 1080p, and this was also the case at the higher 1440p resolution too.
Meanwhile the higher tier RTX 3060 Ti was able to offer fairly significant gains over
the other two, coming in 24% ahead of the 6600 XT at 1080p, and 34% ahead of the 6600
XT at 1440p.
Hopefully you like racing games, because we’ve got two!
F1 2021 was tested with ray tracing set to medium, because this is just the default of
the highest ultra high setting preset.
I suppose we’re going to start seeing ray tracing effects make their way into defaults
as time goes on, so I didn’t disable it.
Anyway the 6600 XT was in between the two Nvidia options at either resolution, though
at 1440p the 3060 Ti has more of a lead.
I’ve also tested Dirt 5, and while this has ray tracing options too they’re not
enabled by default so I chose not to use them.
Again the 6600 XT was in between the 3060 and 3060 Ti, though edging closer towards
the 3060 Ti.
The 6600 XT had a well above average 21% boost to average FPS over the 3060 at 1080p, and
a 19% gain at 1440p, though the Ti was then 13% ahead of the XT.
I’ll just briefly skip through the remaining few games before getting to the fun stuff,
just pause the video if you want a closer look.
These results are more of the same of the trends we’re already seen, but it’s important
to test as many games as possible to get a better rounded average.
On average out of these 17 games tested at 1080p the Radeon RX 6600 XT was almost 14%
faster compared to the Nvidia RTX 3060.
The 3060 was only ahead in Fortnite and Flight Sim, which are at the bottom of the graph,
while titles like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Borderlands 3 had big gains on the Radeon
card.
Stepping up to the higher 1440p resolution though and the 6600 XT was now just 7% ahead.
It appears that the 3060 seems to be able to better stretch its legs here, so to speak,
but in most games the 6600 XT was still beating the 3060.
Now here’s how far ahead the higher tier 3060 Ti was compared to the 6600 XT, so again
around a 14% lead at 1080p, close to what we saw when comparing the 3060 with 6600 XT,
so almost like AMD is in the middle at this resolution.
Again results of course depend on the specific game, only two titles on the 6600 XT were
ahead of the 3060 Ti at the bottom of the graph.
At 1440p the 3060 Ti was ahead in all 17 games now, with a 22% improvement to average FPS.
As we saw with the 3060, it seems that the 3060 Ti just does better at this higher resolution
when compared to the 6600 XT.
If we instead compare the few games where DLSS was available, well at 1080p the 6600
XT now ends up being around 15% slower compared to the 3060 with DLSS enabled on quality mode.
Only Red Dead Redemption 2 was still performing better with the 6600 XT, and then at 1440p
the gap gets even bigger in favor of the 3060.
With DLSS enabled for Nvidia, the 6600 XT is now almost 25% slower in these 6 games.
Now I haven’t tested AMD’s FSR, and I suppose you could argue that that’s not
fair because I included a lot of DLSS results, but the simple fact is none of the 20 plus
games that I regularly test currently have FSR support, so it seemed even less fair for
me to go out of my way and explicitly pick games that do have FSR support that might
have lower player bases just for the purposes of having some.
Now while I have absolutely no doubts at all that FSR will be a popular feature in the
future, it’s just not currently implemented in the popular games that I personally test.
It is still rolling out though, so the game support list will increase over time, but
for now I don’t think there’s any denying that Nvidia’s DLSS has just been around
for longer and is more widespread in games today.
I should also note that when I did test the Nvidia cards with DLSS I used quality mode
where possible.
It depends on the game, but most of them do have other DLSS presets that will either give
lower or higher FPS compared to what I’ve shown here.
Now let’s discuss price differences - or at least try.
Pricing and availability will of course change over time, so refer to those links down in
the description below for updates.
Unfortunately I am making this video before the embargo of the 6600 XT ends, so the only
pricing details I have is that it’s $380 USD for the MSRP.
But let’s face it, MSRP has been a pretty useless metric for the last year or so due
to availability issues, but hey I’ll be happy to see if I’m wrong!
The RTX 3060 is meant to have a $330 MSRP, but yeah just checking Newegg right now it’s
at least double this in the real world for options that are actually in stock, so MSRP
doesn’t really mean anything.
Likewise, the 3060 Ti is meant to be $400, just $20 more than the 6600 XT, but again
in stock options are more than double this.
Assuming MSRPs were actually accurate, I think it’s worth paying that little extra to get
the 3060 Ti over the 6600 XT, as the 3060 Ti generally was ahead even without the benefits
of DLSS, and then in those games that do have DLSS support it kind of puts it on another
level, but again this probably will change over time as FSR support starts to roll out.
Now let’s also check out some content creator workloads and the power draw.
I’ve tested DaVinci Resolve with the Puget Systems benchmark, and both of the Nvidia
options were performing significantly better than the Radeon 6600 XT.
This wasn’t too surprising for me, as in the past I’ve generally found AMD’s graphics
to be behind in these tests.
There’s a bit less of a difference in Adobe Premiere, especially between the two Nvidia
options, but again the 6600 XT was behind even the lower and in theory cheaper RTX 3060.
I’ve only tested power draw in Control at 4K, and at higher resolutions the game was
performing better on Nvidia in terms of average FPS, however at the same time the system with
the 6600 XT installed was also using less power from the wall.
All things considered, I really only think the 6600 XT is worth considering over something
like the 3060 if it only costs a little bit more money and if your focus is mainly on
1080p gaming, as both of the Nvidia options seem to have good gains at 1440p.
For creator workloads, well Nvidia also seemed to have the win and then in games that have
DLSS support then, yeah, it’s an Nvidia win again.
So with all of that in mind let me know which of these graphics cards you’d pick down
in the comments below, and if you’re new to the channel then get subscribed for future
graphics card comparisons like this one.
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on Patreon, and come and check out some of my other comparison videos over here next
- I’ll see you in one of those.