Conclusion
...Sapphire can't do much more to keep costs in check whilst delivering a solid product.Sapphire acutely understands there is little reason to spend a lot of money developing ornate cooling solutions for the Radeon RX 6600 XT GPU.
There are two reasons for this. The first is the high SEP set by AMD relative to the competition, and the second is the meagre power consumption of this latest 7nm GPU.
Such thinking leads on to the Sapphire RX 6600 XT Pulse. It's not flashy or brash, the cooling is adequate, and noise levels and temperatures decent.
Sapphire can't do much more to keep costs in check whilst delivering a solid product. The £349 SEP isn't entirely plausible as most etailers are charging more. Even if it were, we feel as if rival GeForce RTX cards offer a better all-round package, albeit they also suffer from similar stock shortages and price gouging shenanigans. Perhaps you buy whatever card is available, at a decent fee, and simply lament the state of play in 2021.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Sapphire does all it can to make the RX 6600 XT tempting. Unfortunately for the company, the retailer price needs to drop to £299 for this to be worthy of a shopping list.
Single power connector
Overclocks well
Performance lags at higher res
Persistent stock issues
HEXUS.where2buy*
The reviewed card is available from Scan Computers.
HEXUS.right2reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
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HEXUS Forums :: 17 Comments
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kalniel
I think you're misunderstanding Stockholm Syndrome. What we have is a supply constrained/over-demand market, which means if people need a GPU they have to pay inflated prices (by recent standards). I don't think anyone is happy about it or in any way feels affinity with AMD or Nvidia as a result of the supply constraint, it's simply a case of needs must. But didn't you recently buy a 3060ti?
Maybe I should have said buy at silly street prices! ;)
The RX6600XT uses a tiny mainstream 237MM2 GPU with a tiny memory bus. The RTX3060TI FE uses a Navi 22 class GA104 which is 100MM2 bigger. One is a low tier enthusiast card,the other a mainstream one.
When people are justifying cards massively over RRP as fine there is a problem. So £50,£100,£200,etc. Scalpers do this as it works. People are calling it a “bargain” just because the market is wonky. They have got so jaded they have accepted the pricing so it is “Stockholm Syndrome” IMHO. You see it in the sort of prices people are willing to pay.
Yet all the other parts you can get,are under the same constraints yet seem fine. CPUs even have dropped in price. Everything seems fine.
The RTX3060TI I got was exactly at RRP,and was 40% faster than the GPU it replaced,ie,the RTX2060 Super,whilst the price was cheaper than the RTX2060 Super for a lot of its life. It also maintained its RRP even after the “supply issues”. Nvidia could have easily made it EOL and let the market rip - yet they chose not to.
The RTX3060TI has 20% higher performance and nearly 2X the RT performance of the RX6600XT,and was considered decent value by Hexus:Nvidia extends the reach of its gaming Ampere architecture by releasing the best value model yet. GeForce RTX 3060 Ti takes much of the ‘70’s goodness and distils it down to a £369 price point.Good value if available at £369
The RTX2080 Super was well over £500. An RTX3060TI FE at £369,is 2/3 the price and faster.
Look where the RX6600XT is on that chart.
The RX6600XT is using a GA106 equivalent GPU and costs the same as a RX5700XT. Hence why Hexus says the following:Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Sapphire does all it can to make the RX 6600 XT tempting. Unfortunately for the company, the retailer price needs to drop to £299 for this to be worthy of a shopping list.
AMD also didn't use a local retailer for its reference models. Hence unlike Nvidia,in 2021 you couldn't find any in the UK. They are always over RRP here.
By buying products like the RX6600XT at nearly £400 you are telling Nvidia,they are “charging too much” for a lower end enthusiast GPU like the RTX3060TI FE.
So the reality I can see it slowly disappearing its FE model. We can then have the other POS,ie,the RTX3060 replace it entirely.
Then the RTX4060TI can be nearly £500,and the RX7700XT over £500,and the whole 60/600 series GPUs pushing £400,maybe more. I would love to be wrong,but unless of them flinches they can form a little cartel.
We better hope Intel hopes to shake the market up a bit! ;)
