Sapphire Intros Radeon RX 6600 XT NITRO+ and Pulse Graphics Cards

[btarunr]

Sapphire introduced a nifty lineup of new AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics cards, with the value-ended RX 6600 XT Pulse, and the premium RX 6600 XT NITRO+. Both are strictly two slots-thick designs that are compact, and use dual-fan cooling solutions. The NITRO+ features a higher factory OC, a heavier heatsink, and premium bits that include wave-edged aluminium fins in the cooler, fans with webbed impellers, dual-BIOS, a silvery metal backplate, an addressable-RGB LED illuminated Sapphire logo, and a 3-pin ARGB header so you can sync your lighting to the card's.

The RX 6600 XT Pulse, on the other hand, features a simpler design without the shiny dual-tone finish of the NITRO+. There are no illuminated logos, additional RGB headers, or dual-BIOS to be had. You still get a similar combination of wave-edge fin-stack, and webbed impellers, as well as a metal back-plate. The card has a lower state of factory OC than the NITRO+, and is expected to be priced closer to the baseline price. The company didn't reveal engine game/boost frequencies of either cards, but both feature 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory, and take in power from single 8-pin PCIe power connectors.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Sabotaged_Enigma]

Sapphire official webpage says it's 2.2-slot thick, so be careful if you have more than one PCIe device.
I'm interested in the Pulse model and Asus Dual 6600 XT O8G model, wondering which is better. Both cards are beautiful, so it's the price and performance that decide which to buy. And Pulse seems to have two heat pipes and O8G seems to have 3? And O8G has more capacitors on the back of chip than Pulse? I'm not sure since there are so details yet...

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

I might be interested for my father's PC, if the price ever goes below $300 for the 6600xt, otherwise I'll likely skip another generation.

 

[Chrispy_]

It has and always will be pointless to buy the premium variants of these mid-range cards - You need to spend only enough to get decent build-quality and cooling.

At a guess the Pulse will meet that requirement, likely for $389 or $399. Spending an extra $50-60 premium on the Nitro+ for a card that will likely be only 1% faster is just madness. Don't forget, the Pulse is already a factory OC so we're probably talking about the Pulse being just 25-50MHz slower than the Nitro+

 

[mechtech]

It has and always will be pointless to buy the premium variants of these mid-range cards - You need to spend only enough to get decent build-quality and cooling.

At a guess the Pulse will meet that requirement, likely for $389 or $399. Spending an extra $50-60 premium on the Nitro+ for a card that will likely be only 1% faster is just madness. Don't forget, the Pulse is already a factory OC so we're probably talking about the Pulse being just 25-50MHz slower than the Nitro+

Indeed.

That said I would be more interested in a 2 fan variant, not a huge 3 fan one. Also I would probably lean towards a heat pipe cooler vs. a solid AL fin cooler.

 

[eidairaman1]

It has and always will be pointless to buy the premium variants of these mid-range cards - You need to spend only enough to get decent build-quality and cooling.

At a guess the Pulse will meet that requirement, likely for $389 or $399. Spending an extra $50-60 premium on the Nitro+ for a card that will likely be only 1% faster is just madness. Don't forget, the Pulse is already a factory OC so we're probably talking about the Pulse being just 25-50MHz slower than the Nitro+

Pulse is more like a OEM card now, where as the Nitro is a tweakers card.

Nothing wrong with Sapphire having Both Pulse and Nitro across their entire product Stack.

I mean you can get Zotac Amp Edition cards in the 3060 etc.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

*looks at the Nitro+*

 

[Chrispy_]

Pulse is more like a OEM card now, where as the Nitro is a tweakers card.

Nothing wrong with Sapphire having Both Pulse and Nitro across their entire product Stack.

I mean you can get Zotac Amp Edition cards in the 3060 etc.

Nah, Pulse is way better than OEM; It has a backplate, plenty of heatpipes, a huge soldered finstack, and a factory overclock.

OEM cards are often what @mechtech mentioned - solid alu cooler with no heatpipes.
Most OEM cards are a step below the bottom rung on most branded cards, and those entry-level retail models at MSRP often already lack things like backplates, full VRAM/VRM cooling etc.
OEM cards are shifting towards open coolers now but even up to just before COVID we were still seeing ultra-cheap blowers on unbranded cards from both Turing and 5000-series.
For a 160W part like this I wouldn't be surprised to see vendors like Dell/HP ditching heatpipes in favour of a copper-slugged alu extrusion :\

 

[HD64G]

Removal of the Dual-BIOS feature from Pulse isn't good Sapphire. Especially for those prices. You used to have this feature even for RX480 sold for $250...

 

[PLAfiller]

Aahh yes NITRO! They are smexy and all, but looking how much the housing is sticking past the PCB just to accommodate the second fan...I wish they've found a solution where the card would be ITX variant, than having to make it unnecessarily long.

 

[olymind1]

They're pretty much have the same cooler:
Pulse:

Nitro:

Nitro+ offers LEDs and dual BIOSes. The Pulse with its default clocks will probably be Nitro+ silent bios option and I will be perfectly content with that especially if it will be cheaper. But i will not buy it until it costs 250 €, i'm not paying for this way overpriced gear.

 

[Chrispy_]

They're pretty much have the same cooler:
Pulse:

Nitro:

Nitro+ offers LEDs and dual BIOSes. The Pulse with its default clocks will probably be Nitro+ silent bios option and I will be perfectly content with that especially if it will be cheaper. But i will not buy it until it costs 250 €, i'm not paying for this way overpriced gear.

It'll never cost $250. The $250 price point of a few generations ago is now $330 because of US-China trade tariffs that didn't exist back then, coupled with increased component costs due to supply/demand constraints on not just silicon but pretty much any SMC used for a PCB these days. Add in some inflation to that mix and it's doubtful that anything "mid range" at this xx60 or x600 level will be much below $350 for a while, if ever.

 

[PLAfiller]

It'll never cost $250.

+1 . Pretty much my first thought on that post. Prices will never be the same.

 

[GamerGuy]

Dunno about the rest of you guys, but seeing a Nitro+ branding on a GPU with just two fans is kinda....off-putting to me as I'm so used to the Nitro+ cards having 3 fans.....like the RX 5700 XT from previous gen. The Nitro+ branding/moniker should be reserved for the higher end cards as it's my belief that gamers looking at lower end cards are more budget conscious. No use having all the extras like better coolers, custom PCB's when such customers are mostly concerned with price/performance.

And before anyone says so, I'm aware that previous gens of Nitro+ cards have 2 fan versions as well, it's just that I'm now used to Nitro+ having triple fans.

 

[Operandi]

Dunno about the rest of you guys, but seeing a Nitro+ branding on a GPU with just two fans is kinda....off-putting to me as I'm so used to the Nitro+ cards having 3 fans.....like the RX 5700 XT from previous gen. The Nitro+ branding/moniker should be reserved for the higher end cards as it's my belief that gamers looking at lower end cards are more budget conscious. No use having all the extras like better coolers, custom PCB's when such customers are mostly concerned with price/performance.

And before anyone says so, I'm aware that previous gens of Nitro+ cards have 2 fan versions as well, it's just that I'm now used to Nitro+ having triple fans.

Dual fan cards always look better in my opinion (not that really matters since you are looking at the backplate most of the time anyway), and there is absolutely no way 3 fans would do anything on a card like this, hell the 6700 should have been a dual fan design.

These Sapphire cards look great and as usual I'm sure they'll be some of the best 6600 XT variants out there.

 

[HD64G]

$300 would be a nice price but might not lower so much at all. Maybe close to that at the end of the year on discounts.