XFX Radeon RX 6600 XT MERC 308 Review

How Much Does It Cost?

What do you think I am, psychic? I have no idea, beyond it’ll likely be above the $350-370 MSRP. Even then, stock issues, scalping and other issues are likely to persist, albeit to a lesser degree than we’ve previously seen. Things are improving, but me telling you a price right now will likely be inaccurate pretty swiftly.

You can check Amazon UK for up to date stock and prices of the XFX Radeon RX 6600 XT MERC 308 here.

The price of these new cards is interesting, as the market is hurting pretty bad right now. Demand is through the roof, but production costs are higher than ever. Many parts of the world are still stuck in various levels of pandemic, and global manufacturing costs are up, as are international shipping costs (by quite a drastic amount). That means, compared to two years ago, that these more affordable cards are sitting at the price we would have hoped to see more powerful 1440p focused models by now. However, it is what it is, and these are the new entry levels models right now for those eager to get their first gaming PC off the ground or even upgrade some much older systems.

Overview

The XFX Radeon RX 6600 XT MERC 308 is quite a bit larger than the other 6600 XT’s we’ve tested. However, it broadly seems to perform about the same as its more compact rivals, and I would honestly have a hard time telling you which was which based on their real-world performance. That being said, it was a little bit faster in most games, but we’re talking 102 FPS vs 104 FPS here. It’s quicker than the RTX 3060 in some games, but the two are fairly well matched. The RTX 3060 Ti is obviously faster, but Nvidia cards are significantly above MSRP or out of stock right now, making a real comparison virtually impossible for most consumers.

1080p

AMD may have tuned this chipset for lower resolutions, but they certainly didn’t tune it for low frame rates. XFX has done a fine job with their card, making it the fastest 6600 XT we’ve tested, even if it was by a small margin. Frame rates are exceptional in all games at 1920 x 1080, which is great news for those running high refresh rate displays, or even those with a TV that has a 120hz mode.

Higher Resolutions

I must admit, all of the new 6600 XT cards have faired better at 2560 x 1440 than I expected, with almost all games hitting way above 60 FPS with ease, some even double that. Control only hit 51 FPS, but that’s not bad when the RTX 3060 did just 55 FPS, and it’s a very Nvidia-friendly game engine. 4K was certainly playable too, with most games over 30 FPS, and a few actually above 60 FPS, such as Dirt 5 and DOOM Eternal, so while this may be a low powered model, it’s clear that it’s got some real guts to it for those who want to max out their favourite games, or play at higher resolutions.

Power

All of the 6600 XT cards used broadly the same amount of power, give or take a few watts. What did surprise me, however, is that despite the massive triple fan cooler with a 2.5 slot design, this card did run noticably hotter than its rivals. It’s around 10c hotter than the MSI, and 6c hotter than the Sapphire card. This was reflecting with slightly faster performance though. However, despite the higher temperature, it was a very quiet GPU, at just 40.1 dBa, and we saw no evidence of throttling at all. I suppose you could comfortably increase the fan curve if you wanted to cool it more.

Should I Buy One?

While not the fastest graphics cards in the world, for the new entry-level card from XFX and AMD to compete with Nvidia’s low-end RTX cards, it’s a serious contender. Lower power consumption than Nvidia, and yet broadly similar performance to the RTX 3060 in a wide range of games. The larger cooler and heatsink may be a little too large for some systems, but I can’t fault the overall quality and design. It’s a little faster than its rivals, which is nice, but really, it’ll come down to stock and prices at the end of the day.