Could AMD's affordable RDNA 2 graphics cards finally be on their way?
We haven't seen the full lineup of AMD's RDNA 2 GPU stack yet, with the Radeon RX 6600 XT and RX 6600 still down as up-and-coming models. The specs are fairly well-known, but these two GPUs haven't been officially announced yet, despite being expected in the first half of this year. They have been briefly sighted on PowerColors's website though. The pages in question have since been pulled, but only after VideoCardz managed to snap a few shots first.
PowerColor's site only listed the GPU families, so RX 6600 XT Series and RX 6600 Series, and there were no details to go alongside these holding pages. There weren't even any demonic names to go with them, which PowerColor seems particularly fond of at the moment—If you want a graphics card called a Hellhound, Liquid Devil, or Red Devil, you know where to go.
Despite this lack of information, the fact that these GPUs were listed at all would suggest that the official launch is imminent. And we could certainly do with some more affordable graphics cards entering the market right now. That there were no hard specs present isn't too much of a problem either, because both chips are pretty well-known entities at this point.
| Radeon RX 6600 XT | Radeon RX 6600 | |
|---|---|---|
| GPU | Navi 23 XT | Navi 23 XL |
| Stream processors | 2048 | 1792 |
| CUs | 32 | 28 |
| Ray Accelerators | 32 | 28 |
| Memory | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Interface | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Infinity Cache | 32 MB | 32 MB |
| Total Board Power | 130 W | 130 W |
The reason we're so confident about these specifications, even though we've had nothing official from AMD, is because it has released mobile versions of the Radeon RX 6600M and a Radeon Pro W6600. And AMD has had the specs for those GPUs on its site since they were announced.
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It feels like the only reason we haven't seen the desktop spins of Navi 23 yet is because of the silicon shortage. It's still having an impact on graphics cards, although, with a clampdown on crypto mining in China, things aren't looking quite as bleak as they were.
So while we know the key specs, what we don't know is the pricing. We've had the RX 6800 and 6700 XT at $569 and $479 respectively, and given these are both cut-down versions of those GPUs, they should be much cheaper.
How much cheaper is anyone's guess, although given AMD thought it was fine to charge $479 for the Radeon RX 6700 XT would indicate that it's going to try and squeeze as much money as possible out of the RX 6600 XT and RX 6600.
Ideally, we'd be in sub-$300 territory for these, but we'll have to wait and see on that one.
