Radeon RX 6600 vs Radeon RX 6650 XT Gaming Performance

Conclusion

With the launch of the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT replacing the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, we wanted to look at the gaming performance between the Radeon RX 6600 and Radeon RX 6650 XT. The AMD product lineup has changed, and it is important to know the difference between the Radeon RX 6600 and Radeon RX 6650 XT if you are making a GPU decision.

The lineup now goes Radeon RX 6600 > Radeon RX 6650 XT. The Radeon RX 6600 has an MSRP of $329, while the Radeon RX 6650 XT has an MSRP of $379. You may be questioning which one is really best for you and if you should spend the extra $70 or so and spring for the “XT” version on the RX 6650 XT refresh GPU.

The two GPUs are based on NAVI 23 but do have some pretty noticeable differences. The Radeon RX 6650 XT has more Stream Processors, more TMUs, more Compute Units and Ray Accelerators, and a higher GPU clock speed. While both video cards have 8GB of GDDR6, the Radeon RX 6650 XT has a higher memory frequency and higher memory bandwidth. They both have the same Infinity Cache though. With these differences, the TDP is also 48W higher on the Radeon RX 6650 XT.

According to the GPU Chip power results from GPU-Z the MSI Radeon RX 6650 XT GAMING X video card is using 57W more, or 57% more GPU Chip power. We also noticed a Voltage difference, the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 6600 operates at a GPU Voltage of 1.150V, while the MSI Radeon RX 6650 XT GAMING was at 1.200V.

Performance

There was no question of course that the Radeon RX 6650 XT would end up being faster than the Radeon RX 6600 in our tests, the question is by how much, and does it allow a playable gameplay experience? What we can see for the most part is that the Radeon RX 6650 XT was 25-26% faster than the Radeon RX 6600 in most games without Ray Tracing.

That’s a good bump in performance that allowed playable settings at 1440p in games where the Radeon RX 6600 did not. With the Radeon RX 6600, you would have had to lower game settings a few notches down or play at 1080p if you wanted high-ultra game settings. On the Radeon RX 6650 XT however, many games at 1440p are playable at high-ultra, and at 1080p maximum game, settings would be playable.

Therefore, the Radeon RX 6650 XT offers higher quality settings at 1440p that making 1440p a viable and playable resolution for the Radeon RX 6650 XT. With the Radeon RX 6600, you’ll be mostly relegated down to playing at 1080p. In the games that are playable at 1440p, the Radeon RX 6650 XT will allow higher and smoother performance and higher settings.

When it comes to Ray Tracing both video cards are challenged, but you’ll have a better time with the Radeon RX 6650 XT. We saw in Far Cry 6 that with Ray Tracing the advantage with the Radeon RX 6650 XT over the Radeon RX 6600 can be even larger, above 30%. Therefore if you really want to play with Ray Tracing in some games like Far Cry 6, Godfall, Dirt 5, and others that are capable on these video cards, the Radeon RX 6650 XT is the way to go there.

Though we utilized a factory overclocked MSI Radeon RX 6650 XT GAMING X video card in comparison to the reference clocked SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 6600 GAMING video card, the factory-overclocked performance of the MSI Radeon RX 6650 XT versus reference clock RX 6650 XT is very minor. In our full MSI Radeon RX 6650 XT GAMING X video card review we found 1-2% differences compared to the MSI Radeon RX 6600 XT GAMING X video card, and that’s a bigger difference in clock speed than the factory overclock compared to the reference clock for the Radeon RX 6650 XT.

Therefore the performance shown here is representative of the difference between the Radeon RX 6600 and Radeon RX 6650 XT. In addition, with both video cards being custom video cards with custom coolers the GPU clock speed is able to dynamically adjust upwards beyond the Game and Boost clocks, to begin with, dynamically higher thanks to the improved cooling.

Final Points

The new AMD Radeon RX 6000 lineup now goes from Radeon RX 6600 to Radeon RX 6650 XT, $329 to $399. In this comparison article, we put the Radeon RX 6600 versus Radeon RX 6650 XT head-to-head to find out what the difference is in performance and what the Radeon RX 6650 XT offers over the Radeon RX 6600 in performance and gameplay experience. Our findings are that it offers about a 25% performance advantage. This can translate into higher playable settings at 1440p, or even making 1440p a viable playable resolution for the Radeon RX 6650 XT. Whereas the Radeon RX 6600 is best suited for 1080p gameplay.

One can achieve 1440p, while the other is going to be a 1080p video card strictly. Therefore that extra $70 MSRP between them can put you in a totally different category for monitor size if you chose to. The Radeon RX 6650 XT can allow you to have a 1440p gameplay experience, but with the Radeon RX 6600, you are going to want to stick with a 1080p display. Neither is going to offer a great Ray Tracing experience, but the Radeon RX 6650 will be, better, slightly. That about sums up the differences in performance. The Radeon RX 6650 XT refresh GPU is here to stay and constitutes a great gaming option for $400.

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