Radeon RX 6600 XT vs. GeForce RTX 3060

Today nosotros're comparing the new Radeon RX 6600 XT head-to-head against the GeForce RTX 3060 in 30 games. This will give us a skillful thought of how these 2 GPUs compare, and also give united states of america a 2d chance to sort of re-review the 6600 XT using existent retail pricing, which is kind of overnice because the day-ane review was based on assumptions made a week before the 6600 XT hit shelves, and then pricing and availability were largely unknown.

Speaking with retailers, it did audio as though supply was going to be better. Based on the markup we were seeing for 6700 XT at eBay, we expected that the 6600 XT would cost around $570, and 3 weeks later on the actual effigy is close to that at $605. At the fourth dimension, the average sale price for the RTX 3060 was $720 which remains unchanged. And so the Radeon RX 6600 XT is a piddling worse than we estimated before launch, merely it's nonetheless better value than the RTX 3060, at to the lowest degree based on the 12 game sample used for the day-one review.

Today nosotros'll be taking existent-world pricing data and comparing it across a much larger 30 game sample to run across which GPU offers gamers the nigh value. We'll also have a expect at ray tracing performance in the new F1 2022, along with Metro Exodus Enhanced which is a follow-on from the Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal, Resident Evil Village, and Watch Dogs Legion results which were featured in the original review.

For all this testing we used our Ryzen 9 5950X test system with 32GB of DDR4-3200 CL14 dual-rank, dual-channel retentivity. Both GPUs were tested at 1080p, 1440p and 4K. Of the 30 games tested, nosotros're going to discuss a few of the near relevant results and and so we'll take a expect at how these two GPUs compare head-to-head across all games in a single graph towards the conclusion.

Benchmarks

Starting with Borderlands 3, we have a rare example of an Unreal Engine iv game that runs exceptionally well with Radeon GPUs. Here the 6600 XT was a massive 28% faster at 1080p, delivering 92 fps on average using the ultra quality settings which is actually the second-highest quality preset in the game. The 6600 XT was also proficient for 65 fps on average at 1440p and that meant it was yet 27% faster than the RTX 3060, and so an piece of cake win here for AMD.

Next upwards nosotros have Total War Warhammer 2 and here the 6600 XT is really slightly slower than the RTX 3060. Actually, quite a bit slower at 1440p where the GeForce enjoyed a 15% performance advantage. For those of you gaming at 1080p, the RTX 3060 was just 6% faster, but still not a practiced title for the 6600 XT.

The 6600 XT jumps back out in front when testing with Death Stranding, though it has to exist said both GPUs delivered first-class performance using the highest in-game quality preset. Although the Radeon was 20% faster at 1080p, the RTX 3060 was still good for 132 fps on boilerplate. The margin was slightly reduced at 1440p to 18% in favor of the 6600XT, but still, the GeForce GPU was good for virtually 100 fps on average.

The 6600 XT blasts alee in Forza Horizon 4, delivering 17% better functioning at 1080p with an incredible 180 fps. The margin was ever so slightly reduced at 1440p.

Days Gone, like Warhammer, is another example where the 6600 XT ends upwards trailing the RTX 3060, and although the margin isn't huge, we saw very few examples of this in the 24-hour interval-ane review. Here nosotros're looking at 5% less performance for the Radeon GPU at 1080p, and 8% less at 1440p.

F1 2022 is the latest championship to exist added to the huge listing of games we benchmark with, and this 1 enables ray tracing by default on supported hardware when using the ultra loftier quality preset. That being the example nosotros left it enabled. The 6600 XT does surprisingly well relative to the RTX 3060 equally both GPUs delivered comparable performance at all iii tested resolutions.

Metro Exodus Enhanced requires hardware-accelerated ray tracing back up and without it you'll have to play the original version of the game, which frankly isn't a big deal, but since both of these GPUs support ray tracing it makes sense to benchmark with the 'Enhanced' version. Again, performance is fairly similar at all three tested resolutions, the RTX 3060 was just 4% faster at 1080p which we saw identical performance at 1440p.

Next upwards nosotros have Reddish Expressionless Redemption 2. Nosotros're using "high" quality settings which have to exist set manually as this game doesn't accept fixed presets which is super abrasive. Anyway, at 1080p the 6600 XT was 9% faster than the RTX 3060, so a decent piddling win there, merely at 1440p performance is much the aforementioned, and so exactly the same at 4K.

CS:GO really is a CPU benchmark at this point, with whatever half-decent GPU resulting in heavily CPU-jump testing, only information technology's always hotly requested, then we experience compelled to include it, and don't mind doing and then when at that place are so many other games to balance out the results. As expected, we're looking at similar performance between these two GPUs at the three tested resolutions.

Functioning in Apex Legends is very competitive, but this championship isn't CPU limited, at least not with these GPUs using the maximum in-game quality settings. Both GPUs allowed for solid 144 Hz gaming at 1080p and even at 1440p you're still looking at a high refresh rate experience.

In Outriders nosotros're looking at very like performance using either GPU again. The RX 6600 XT was a smidge faster at 1080p, while nosotros're looking at identical operation at 1440p.

Using our updated Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark pass we find shut results in this highly demanding title. Delight note ray tracing has not been enabled and we're as well not using the highest quality preset, instead, settling for the second-highest option.

Performance Summary

In our mean solar day-one review of the Radeon RX 6600 XT the new AMD GPU was ~x% faster than the RTX 3060 at 1080p and just 5% faster at 1440p. Then it volition be interesting to see how those margins compare to what nosotros find when testing with thirty games, and so let's notice out...

At 1080p we encounter that the margin has decreased from x% in favor of the Radeon GPU to but 6%, not a massive change but it's certainly less favorable for AMD. The pass up is largely due to the inclusion of titles such as PUBG, Days Gone, Flight Simulator 2022, Warhammer II, Biomutant, and F1 2022.

And then at 1440p the margin is even slimmer, coming from 5% in the original 6600 XT review to just three% beyond the 30 game sample, which is basically a tie. The 6600 XT saw its nearly favorable results in Valorant, Borderlands iii, Globe War Z, Death Stranding and Assassin'southward Creed Valhalla.

What We Learned

Overall the Radeon RX 6600 XT is the faster GPU, which we already knew from previous testing, just the margin is slimmer than first idea. The delta betwixt the 2 GPUs will ever depend on the games used for testing -- or in your case, the games you really care virtually. Ray tracing operation seems fairly even in the few titles we tested, though we'd say the RTX 3060 has better back up right at present overall.

The GeForce RTX 3060 too benefits from DLSS back up, which is far more widespread than FSR, and in our stance works much ameliorate at lower resolutions such every bit 1080p.

The Nvidia encoder, often referred to every bit Nvenc, is also commonly pushed every bit a big plus for GeForce graphics cards, but we've plant piffling difference betwixt ShadowPlay and ReLive for capturing gameplay lately. AMD's solution appears to work very well at present, so possibly Nvenc is no longer a differentiating reward anymore.

Every bit for pricing and availability, that's where the Radeon RX 6600 XT appears to offering the biggest advantage of all. To all-time illustrate that, here's a few cost per frame graphs.

Pricing will fluctuate considerably depending on where you live. In Australia the situation is kind of farthermost, the 6600 XT can be had for $730 Aussie when looking at in-stock and readily bachelor models, while the RTX 3060 costs $1100, which is a massive 51% premium for the GeForce GPU. In terms of cost per frame, the RTX 3060 is 61% more expensive than the 6600 XT in this market at 1080p and 54% more than per frame at 1440p.

In the US, the situation is far less radical. Looking at eBay listings, the RTX 3060 is 19% more than expensive. That still means that the RTX 3060 is 27% more costly per frame than the Radeon at 1080p and 22% at 1440p. Even over at Newegg the RTX 3060 volition set you back 28% more than per frame and with the 6600 XT you're getting a MSI B550 Tomahawk motherboard included, so information technology makes much more sense for US shoppers to snap up that deal, rather than shop at eBay.

Bottom line, the Radeon RX 6600 XT currently offers gamers significantly more value than the GeForce RTX 3060, and therefore should be the become-to option for those looking this level of performance. Unless yous play specific games that are favored by DLSS/RT enhancements, that's our articulate recommendation.

This situation is unlikely to change for Nvidia GPUs anytime soon subsequently the company stated they expect supply issues for the RTX 3060 series to continue into September, so it's unclear if supply will amend before the end of 2022. Mining has kept driving GPU prices college, though of course, we'll continue to monitor pricing and availability with monthly updates.