AMD Radeon RX 6600M vs. RTX 3060 Laptop GPU Review - tawneytobt1981

Today we'Ra finally acquiring close to to review some other of AMD's up-to-the-minute generation mobile GPUs, the Radeon RX 6600M. Months ago we checked outgoing the RX 6800M, AMD's top discrete graphics option for laptop gaming, only it's been a bit harder to find out the RX 6600M for USA to test yet, so improve late than never.

The Radeon RX 6600M is part of AMD's RX 6000 rangy serial, which comprises only trio GPUs: the 6800M and 6700M – which use AMD's Navi 22 die that we've also seen in the desktop RX 6700XT – and the 6600M, which uses Navi 23. Information technology's not abundant to find these GPUs on the market, especially the Navi 22 designs. As far every bit we're aware the 6800M is only put-upon in the Asus ROG Strix line, and the 6700M is ground in the MSI Delta, and that's around it. For the RX 6600M that we're looking at at nowadays, we've found at least few choices from dissimilar vendors.

AMD is using the same die configuration for the 6600M as the RX 6600 on the desktop, in that we'Ra getting 28 compute units for a total of 1792 rain bucket processors. The full version of Navi 23 is used exclusively for the RX 6600 XT desktop GPU, so the 6600M is a skip downhearted translation. It is, however, clocked relatively high for a floating part, with a "game clock" of 2177 MHz – that's the frequency AMD expects the GPU to running play at in games at the highest power spirit level and a microscopic higher than the RX 6600 desktop card.

As for the memory subsystem, AMD is including 8 GB of GDDR6 continual at 14 Gbps finished a 128-bit bus, delivering aweigh to 224 GB/s of memory bandwidth. There's also 32MB of Infinity Cache on the GPU itself. In the case of power requirements, AMD lists this GPU at in the lead to 100W, although every laptop victimization it so far is a SmartShift design where the unconditional ability capabilities of the system are shared between the Mainframe and GPU. So far in practice we've seen power sit down between 75 and 100W in most games, though commonly in the high part of that run.

AMD is clearly targeting Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop computer GPU with the 6600M, with both GPUs occupying the same class of systems and on affair you can find the exact same laptop design with either AMD or Nvidia GPUs. The 6600M has a larger VRAM buffer (8GB vs 6GB), but also lacks some of the features of the RTX 3060, like DLSS and more mature electron beam trace support.

The test organisation we are victimisation nowadays for this rangy GPU review is the Lenovo Horde 5. Our unit is configured with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor and the RX 6600M running with SmartShift, plus 16GB of dual-channelize DDR4-3200 memory. Lenovo ships this laptop with the slower variant of 8GB DIMMs you can get, indeed I swapped those out for the 'standard' speed DDR4 computer memory we've been using across every laptop we test, allowing us to make a more apples-to-apples comparison.

Throughout this review we'll be comparing the 6600M to new laptop GPUs in a general sense, so the information should apply to many different laptops that use the same GPU configuration – although make a point to check the power limits before buying.

Testing conditions: we're testing at 1080p using the internal laptop display, conterminous through the iGPU – this represents a stock conformation squirting without a mux replacement. We're also testing at 1440p victimisation an external display coupled right away to the GPU, which shows United States the most GPU limited environment. The benchmarks bequeath break down 8 games in detail and then we'll look back at a full 16 game equipment failure at the end. On to the testing.

Benchmarks

In Metro Exodus at 1080p using ultra settings, the 6600M delivers public presentation between the two RTX 3060 variants we have in our charts. The 6600M at adequate to 100W is 13 percent faster than the RTX 3060 running at 80-95W, but 10 percent slower than the same Nvidia GPU at 115-130W, then this is roughly where you'd expect based on the power limits. AMD's power target is 'tween these deuce configurations, and then is performance. Still the 6600M is clearly non a lower-tier up or mainstream GPU, comfortably outperforming the RTX 2060, and delivering significantly more performance than the RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU.

At 1440p information technology's more of a shinny for the 6600M. Under these conditions, the GPU is solitary able-bodied to match the operation of the lower-world power RTX 3060 configuration, and alfileria in 16 pct slower than the high-power 115-130W variable. There's nonetheless a large buffer to the RTX 3050 configurations and you still stupefy 60 FPS on average, but 1440p ISN't the strong suit of this GPU in that game.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the 6600M struggles a little compared to the RTX 3060. In this deed at 1080p, the 6600M is solitary able to couple the lower-ability RTX 3060 laptop constellation, and ends astir 12 per centum behind the maximum the RTX 3060 has to proffer. This game really benefits from higher GPU power limits and the performance that can bring.

Even so at 1440p, the 6600M is able to improve its standing somewhat, now easily beating the lower-power RTX 3060 conformation, and sitting betwixt the two variants overall. Unlike in Metro Exodus, the 6600M doesn't fall further behind the 115W fashion mode at the high declaration, it's still 13% slower in this title.

We've just seen two games where the 6600M fails to measure the best RTX 3060 laptop computer configuration, but that's not always the case. In Assassin's Creed Valhalla at 1080p, the RX 6600M is just about at the level of the RTX 3070, beating the 115W RTX 3060 by 11%, and beating the 80W variant by 18 percent. This title generally performs precise well on AMD GPUs and that's no different here, peculiarly at 1080p.

At 1440p the gap does close to some extent, with all of the RTX 3060 and RX 6600M configurations delivering around the same level of performance. At that place's not much to say here other than at that place's no difference, though once again we do regard the 6600M slip further down the defer at a higher resolution which does advise 1080p is more than of a sweet spot for this GPU.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a punishing lame on laptop computer GPUs when running using radical settings, even at 1080p. However the 6600M does pretty well here, delivering performance 5 percent slower than the 115W RTX 3060, and 10 percentage faster than the turn down force variant so this is very much a middle-table, mid-crop GPU that's playacting American Samoa expected.

Comparable in other titles, 1440p isn't as strong of a solvent for AMD, dropping from 5 percentage slower to about 10 percent slower congenator to the RTX 3060 chock-full power variant. Neither of these GPUs is sufficient for gaming victimisation ultra settings at 1080p, for the best experience you should either shed the quality settings or in the case of the RTX 3060, use DLSS, which isn't available on the RX 6600M.

Follow Dogs Legion is a strong title for this AMD GPU configuration, delivering public presentation 7 percentage faster than the RTX 3060 at 115W, and a decent 10 percent quicker than the lower baron form. The 6600M is not at the layer of the RTX 3070 yet, simply it's sitting between the RTX 3060 and RTX 3070 which is a jolly decent upshot for what is ultimately a more mid-kitchen range GPU found in inexpensive play laptops.

And at 1440p we see one of the rare examples where the 6600M can extend its lead in average performance over the RTX 3060 115W model, however 1% low public presentation does persist roughly the same, so the actual experience is exclusive slightly faster on the AMD GPU.

At 1080p in View Cardinal Dawn, the RX 6600M ends up impartial 3 percent slower than the RTX 3060 full business leader variant, which is a pretty good result. So at 1440p, performance isn't as good: the 6600M is able to get beautiful just about the RTX 3060 variants in terms of 1% lows, however the Nvidia GPUs get ahead in damage of average ensnare rates.

In Death Stranding at 1080p, the 6600M is one of the stronger playing GPUs, beating both RTX 3060 models in the chart by around 5 percent. There's still a gap to the higher acting RTX 3070 models, however the 6600M is once again showing its strength for 1080p gaming in the middle-reach.

At 1440p, the RX 6600M is, like we've seen a numerate of multiplication directly, less impressive. At this resolution, it falls behind some RTX 3060 configurations, although the impingement is mostly in damage of average frame rates, as the 1% low-lying is motionless reasonably solid in this title. Therewith said, in that respect is a massive gap between the 6600M and the much slower RTX 3050 Ti in this game.

The final game we're looking at today in detail is Filth 5. Here the 6600M is 8 percent quicker than the full might RTX 3060 conformation at 1080p, and a substantial 24 percent faster than the bring dow power 80-95W model. The 6600M is much more in the approximate range of the RTX 3070 here, sitting 'tween the two power configurations I've tested in that chart.

At 1440p though, erst again the RX 6600M isn't American Samoa discriminating, falling between the RTX 3060 configurations in the graph. However this is a better result than another benchmarks, where the 6600M is slower than even the 80W model of the RTX 3060; that's non the case here, as the 6600M is 6% faster than that model.

Comparison: Radeon RX 6600M vs. GeForce RTX 3060

From those 8 games we get a pretty good look at how operation stacks up, but let's take a look crosswise the full 16 plot exam sample. When comparison best configuration to best configuration at their full power limits, the RX 6600M is pretty similar to the RTX 3060 115W at 1080p. There's not often separating the average result, with few strong titles for AMD, a couple on for Nvidia, and many with just a single finger margin. Conferred the 6600M is running at a take down GPU power level, that's a seemly solution for AMD.

The breach widens at 1080p when comparing the 6600M to the 80W variant of the RTX 3060, which rump be found in some laptops. The 6600M is 12 percent faster on average, and indeed takes the lead-in in all single game tested. However it's also achieving this hin with a slenderly higher power level.

At 1440p victimization an external showing directly hooked functioning to the GPU, the weaknesses starting signal to show with the 6600M. This GPU can't maintain with the higher power RTX 3060 variant except in few outlier cases, much as Watch Dogs Legion. The average result puts the 6600M six percent slower than the RTX 3060 115W.

Compared to the lower-power 80W different, it's a heterogeneous pocket. The 6600M is just a couple of percent faster along average, so these two GPUs are in effect delivering the same performance across a chain of games, and that's with the 6600M consuming slightly more power. So like we saw in a number of individual titles, the 6600M International Relations and Security Network't actually designed for 1440p gaming and is more suited to the native 1080p firmness of many another laptop displays.

What We Learned

Overall, the AMD Radeon RX 6600M isn't particularly surprising, as AMD is placement it against the RTX 3060 Laptop computer GPU and it performs right around that fall guy, depending on the contour and resolution we're look. There's nothing bad to report about it either, which is a smashing positive compared to the last few generations of AMD laptop GPUs, but that won't make IT a clear winner over Nvidia's offerings either on performance nor features.

The RX 6600M is a relatively good performer, especially at 1080p, where it goes toe to toe with the full superpowe RTX 3060 Laptop configuration and delivers tantamount functioning. The 6600M is configured to eat to 100W of power, versus 115-130W for the RTX 3060 we proved, suggesting that at 1080p AMD has the more efficient GPU design. That is a significant aspect to study in laptops that are power and thermally constrained.

However at 1440p, the 6600M falls away, so if you'ray looking at a laptop with a higher solution reveal or plan on using an external display, the full power RTX 3060 Laptop computer GPU is a faster and advisable choice. At this settlement, the 6600M is more in the ballpark of an 80-95W RTX 3060 configuration, thus the 6600M besides loses its edge in efficiency.

There's also the feature vantage that Nvidia has this generation, including DLSS. While we didn't cover ray trace in any great depth in that review, just have intercourse the RTX 3060 is faster. The DLSS vs FSR battle is evolving quickly, but as things stand right now, DLSS is the superior technology and IT's supported in more games. So even though the 6600M whitethorn be similar to the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU in raw performance at times, AMD still has much work to do on the features forepart.

The 6600M does suffer more VRAM at 8GB vs 6GB happening the GeForce side, so we'd expect the 6600M to age better with newer games that have higher memory requirements. Watch Dogs Legion is one title where the 6600M pulled away from the RTX 3060 at 1440p, in a repeal of the trend with most other games, and that's probably age-related to the unneeded VRAM.

In terms of pricing, there's only a couple of laptops to proceed satisfactory now. Along the Lenovo incline, opting for a 6600M shape of the Legion 5 testament save you around $150 for an otherwise identical loadout, or a 9% price reduction, outside of sale prices. The past option is from HP, they don't have a directly comparable Nvidia auto, just by and large across their Omen 15 lineup, the 6600M models are within reason cheaper than the RTX 3060 models. It's not much to advance, but the 6600M does appear much affordable, though not "level-below" cheap – you're still profitable more than such slower RTX 3050 Ti laptops, which makes sense.

Pricing seems fair for what you're getting, but that doesn't stimulate it easy to recommend single GPU ended some other. Given Nvidia's ascendence of the laptop computer grocery, we think AMD could be a bit more aggressive with pricing, or performance, though its positioning is evenhandedly and the GPU oblation is a solid one.