AMD's RX 6600 graphics card is now far cheaper than RTX 3060 - just £188 shipped
A great option for 1080p gaming in the wake of disappointing next-gen releases.
It's no secret that last-gen graphics cards are getting huge discounts at the moment, as pent-up demand has been sated and next-generation models are starting to be released from both Nvidia and AMD's lineups. We've covered more mid-range models before, but today we have something a bit different: a truly mainstream graphics card that delivers excellent 1080p performance at less than £200, plus nice extras like ray-tracing hardware, FSR 2 image upscaling and a modern media encoder for streaming and recording gameplay.
I'm talking about the AMD Radeon RX 6600, which is available in the popular Sapphire Pulse configuration for £180 plus £8 shipping over at Overclockers UK - with a free copy of the Resident Evil 4 remake. This is a great price for a card that makes a brilliant upgrade from something like a GTX 1060, RX 570 or RX 580, providing significantly better rasterised performance (up to 2x as fast) while also providing those features that weren't available a few generations ago. Nice!
The RX 6600 initially launched at a £299 price point that put it on a collision course with the RTX 3060, a comparison that wasn't favourable to the AMD card with generally worse performance, significantly worse RT performance and an image upscaler (FSR 2) that was used by far fewer games than Nvidia's alternative (DLSS).
However, at a good £100 less, the RX 6600 looks like a much better value - especially as the cheapest RTX 3060 is still £260! AMD's drivers have improved too, unlocking additional performance, while FSR 2 has seen both increased adoption by developers and the creation of clever mods by users to add it to games that don't officially support it. RT remains a weakness, but beyond that, the RX 6600 is actually a surprisingly good option at its price point - even if underwhelming new generation cards mean that the overall value proposition hasn't evolved as much as we were hoping over the past two or three years.
In any case, I think this is a go-er, but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. I welcome the feedback, and I hope you have a lovely evening!