Not long ago, AMD has launched the least expensive member from the RX 6000 series, to cover the mainstream crowd which generally games at 1080P. In the past, we have seen that the high-end segment composed of the RX 6900 XT, the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 did pack no less than 16GB of memory and was designed to handle gaming at 4K resolution, the 1440P segment was covered by the RX 6700 XT and its 12GB of memory, while the RX 6600 XT does only pack 8GB of memory. In our experience, 8GB should be enough for most games at medium to high details while running at 1440P and with Ray Tracing disabled.
As the main product features, the RX 6600 XT shares a lot with the more expensive SKUs such as the RDNA2 architecture, DirectX 12 Ultimate support, Smart Access Memory but also FidelityFX Super Resolution. The stock technical specifications offered by AMD at launch mentioned that the card features 32 Compute Units, a maximum Game Clock of 2359MHz, 32MB of Infinity Cache and a power target of 160W; the PowerColor Hellhound RX 6600 XT optimizes this even further by offering a 2593MHz Game Clock (Boost of 2593MHz) and also meets a power target of just 135W in order to get a good balance between noise and performance.
In the press deck, AMD did pit the RX 6600 XT against Nvidia’s GTX 1060, the price/performance champion back in the day for mainstream users, but also the newer RX 5600XT and RX 5700 cards, guaranteeing high FPS even at the best quality settings, in order to be a smart choice when used along high-refresh rate displays.
The RX 6600 XT is based on the smallest GPU so far, named Navi 23 (7nm process), with a total of 2048 Stream Processors; despite the fact that the GPU is accompanied by 8GB of GDDR6 as the 5700/5700XT, it communicates on a small 128-bit bus for a total bandwidth of 256Gbps. The card does not use the full PCIe interface, but only x8 Gen4, which is about the same bandwidth as the x16 Gen3.
The card is shipped inside a rather small cardboard box, highlighting the Hellhound theme but also the recommended resolution, installed memory and utilized bus:
On the side we will note the product internal code name but also it’s serial number:
The back side does show an exploded view of the cooling system, the main features but also the minimum system requirements:
After lifting the top cover, we will note the card in anti-static packaging, but also a small card:
The card will basically point us to the online resource in case we need assistance, without offering extra useless papers:
For the Hellhound mode, PowerColor has went with two large 100mm fans, optimized for static pressure:
The blades of the fans are semi-transparent, in order to allow the integrated LED light to shine through; one of the fans comes in the middle with the Hellhound logo:
