Our new friends over at Gigabyte South Africa were kind enough to send us our very first Gigabyte graphics card to review. My personal gaming PC journey started with a Gigabyte RX580 card so the brand holds a dear place in my heart. We are lucky enough to be able to spend some time with the Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb card. AMD released the Radeon RX 6600 XT around August of this year and it has received some mixed reviews. So I am here to give my opinion on this card. Seeing as I am currently using an Nvidia RTX 2080 I will naturally make many comparisons and references to this card as it is my daily-use card.
So without any further ado, let’s jump straight into it!
Design
Many other custom cards try to really stand out by making their designs somewhat different. Other brands like to add in over-the-top designs or excessive amounts of RGB lighting. The Gigabyte, non-Aorus and Eagle, versions of cards are generally more toned down featuring a more plain and basic design. The Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb is no different. The Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb is a two-slot design with a three-fan Gigabyte Windforce signature fan setup. Starting from the top, much like all the newer variants of both AMD and Nvidia we see the top plate being open towards the rear end for better cooling. The top plate is sprayed a very pretty-looking grey with small black designs made towards the left top side. The plain and simple Gigabyte name is written in square white font in the centre. Simple and plain, the way I like it! I approve! Moving on.
The side view of the Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb is much of the same. The heatsinks are very exposed from the side view, all for the reason of ventilation to keep temperatures to an all-time low, even under heavy loads. The side covers are a combination of black and grey plastics with Radeon embellished on the left of the card closest to the UI with a Gigabyte name placed on a grey accent of the side. The Gigabyte name is the only RGB that the Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb has and that is another great point in my opinion. Less is certainly more when it comes to RGB. The side of the Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb also shows a lot of the internals of the card such as capacitors giving it a very industrial look. It only features one 6+2pin connector on the side for power, which compared to many other cards, including my very large RTX 2080, makes for a much neater build.
Going to the bottom of the Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb we see three fans all equally sized. The same black and grey plastic design follows throughout. The two outer fans spin anti-clockwise and the centre one spins clockwise to create a quick and effective dissipation of heat and thanks to the open piece in the top cover plate-like mentioned before, the Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb is able to stay cool even under the most strenuous loads.
Specifications
| Graphics Processor | AMD Navi 23 XT |
| GPU Base Clock | 1968 MHz |
| GPU Boost Clock | 2607 MHz |
| Graphics Memory Type | GDDR6 |
| Graphics Memory Amount | 8 GB |
| HDMI Outputs | 1 |
| DisplayPort Outputs | 3 |
| VirtualLink Outputs | No |
| Number of Fans | 3 |
| Card Width | double |
| Card Length | 28.2 cm |
| Board Power or TDP | 160 watts |
| Power Connector(s) | 1 8-pin |
Who is it for?
AMD has created the RX 6600 XT to be a high-end performer at 1080p and midrange at 1440p, or this is the idea comparing where it lays in the AMD stable. Compared to the Nvidia stable, this would be a card to fight to likes of the RTX 3060Ti. An extremely large influence on this is the current state of affairs in terms of pricing for GPU’s and with the Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb coming in at a price tag of around R11 000 at the time of writing this. It does become tough to ask for the very capable Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb to stand head and shoulders above a host of Nvidia cards that are all very capable and have very competitive pricing.
If you are an AMD fanboy and can make use of the full AMD setup which warrants and is able to make use of the AMD CPU and GPU combination features then the Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb is a strong contender seeing as Fidelity FX is becoming a good competitor for RTX and DLSS in recent times.
Features
AMD has really improved on their cards from just pumping their cards with large amounts of memory like they used to do in earlier years they have now improved and added many features to combat the mighty Nvidia DLSS and Ray Tracing capabilities and the Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb is no different. Flipping over the box and reading through the lovely brief pack that Gigabyte was so nice to send. AMD mention the following.
- RDNA 2 powered
- 8Gb GDDR6 128-bit memory
- Windforce 3x Cooling system (mentioned earlier)
- Screen cooling ( mentioned earlier)
- Graphene nano lubricant
- RGB fusion 2.0
RDNA 2 is the successor of RDNA which is the architecture that AMD is using. The advantage of RDNA 2 is the significant increase in performance and efficiency over previous architectures. But the biggest drawcard for RDNA 2 is the ability to introduce DirectX Raytracing, mesh shaders, sampler feedback as well Variable Rate Shading. All of this means better-looking games at less of a draw on your system.
The rest of the features speak for themselves. RGB fusion 2.0 is the software package that Gigabyte use to power their RGB on their products. This is one department where Gigabyte can improve on. Comparing it to the ASUS command center or Dragon Center from MSI. RGB Fusion 2.0 is severely lacking, not in the capabilities, but in the presentation. The interface is not attractive and even the Zotac Firestorm software that I use on my RTX 2080 is better, and that is saying something.
performance
For our testing, we are using my personal setup, as we have not been able to have a dedicated testing rig, due to financial constraints. The setup is as follows:
8700K i7 @ 4.7GHz
MSI Z390 Pro-A motherboard
32Gb Corsair Vengeance Pro RAM 3200MHz
Zotac RTX 2080 extreme
Fractal design 1000W platinum rated PSU
For our testing, we decided to use a specific group of AAA titles to test what the Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb is capable of compared to the likes of my tried and tested, ol’ faithful RTX 2080. We decided to turn graphical settings up as high as we could and see how that would affect our frame rate. If you are more concerned about high refresh rates, these games can all be played with adjusted settings to try to improve frame rates.
Another reason for this selection of games is the fact that many of them feature both DLSS and Fidelity FX CAS with upscaling integrated right into the game which makes for a more competitive compared to the DLSS capable Nvidia cards.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb
1080p – 63fps
1440p – 52fps
Zotac Nvidia RTX 2080 Extreme
1080p – 75fps
1440p – 63fps
Red Dead Redemption 2
Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb
1080p – 75fps
1440p – 58fps
Zotac Nvidia RTX 2080 Extreme
1080p – 78fps
1440p – 63fps
Far Cry 5
Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb
1080p – 140fps
1440p – 104fps
Zotac Nvidia RTX 2080 Extreme
1080p – 144fps
1440p – 108fps
F1 2020
Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb
1080p – 175fps
1440p – 128fps
Zotac Nvidia RTX 2080 Extreme
1080p – 175fps
1440p – 134fps
And finally, no EarlyAxes review would be complete without checking out how the RX 6600 XT handles our beloved…
R6 Siege
Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb
1080p – 310fps
1440p – 183fps
Zotac Nvidia RTX 2080 Extreme
1080p – 271fps
1440p – 181fps
These tests have certainly left us a little perplexed. Looking at the performance numbers the RX 6600 XT is not lacking in the power department. Being able to keep up with the RTX 2080 which is still very capable even though it is now a generation older. The most obvious reason for the performance tests not quite showing what the performance looks like it should be on paper is exactly what makes Nvidia such a powerhouse.
Drivers, AMD struggles to optimize for DirectX 11 titles, naturally, this could all be fixed with a simple driver update and that would see the RX 6600 XT speed past many of the Nvidia contenders that currently have good performance for its price and a rock-solid driver base.
Verdict
The Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb is great and aimed at 1080p and 1440p gamers. With performance that rivals the RTX 2080 while using less power, it’s a great option. With AMD’s Infinity cache technology, the RX 6600 XT is a great competitor for the RTX 3060 which is tough to come by at times.
What makes this card even more impressive is the fact that thanks to Gigabyte and their cooling the card runs around the 50-60 degree mark with fans set to auto. That is extremely impressive considering other similar cards run around 10 degrees hotter. This review should not be needed for any die-hard AMD fans out there, but for those who are looking for a readily available card that is capable to compete with the Nvidia giants, and with some driver updates, possibly slay those giants, the Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 XT OC PRO 8Gb should be on your radar.
special thanks to Gigabyte South Africa for the review content
