XFX Radeon RX 6600 XT Speedster Merc 308 Review

W1zzard

on Aug 11th, 2021,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: XFX

(11 Comments) »

Introduction

The XFX Radeon RX 6600 XT Speedster Merc 308 is the company's most premium custom-design implementation of the newest kid on the gaming graphics card block. The RX 6600 XT is designed to be just about everything the plethora of PC gamers still on Full HD (1080p) monitors need, as it brings with it the ability to play AAA games at the highest settings with Full HD. It's also capable of raytracing, which should set you up for premium AAA or e-sports gameplay when combined with FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). XFX combines the RX 6600 XT with its most premium cooling solution and highest factory-overclocked speeds.

The Radeon RX 6600 XT debuts AMD's smallest GPU from this generation to the consumer space, the 7 nm "Navi 23." This chip is armed with up to 2,048 stream processors spread across 32 RDNA 2 compute units and 32 Ray Accelerators, which are maxed out on the RX 6600 XT. 8 GB is the standard memory size for this SKU; however, it is across a narrow 128-bit wide memory interface. Even with a memory speed of 16 Gbps, this only works out to 256 GB/s of memory bandwidth. To make up for this, AMD deployed 32 MB of its Infinity Cache on-die memory, which accelerates the memory subsystem. Thanks to these specifications, particularly the narrow memory bus, the RX 6600 XT has a typical board power draw as low as 160 W, so the card can make do with a single 8-pin PCIe power input.

The XFX Speedster Merc 308 is a slick, racy looking card that's triple-slot and triple-fan, which has it look a segment above when installed in your case. The card uses a long aluminium fin-stack heatsink, which is longer than the PCB underneath, so much of the airflow from the third fan flows through the card and out vents on the backplate. AMD is pricing the RX 6600 XT at a steep starting price of $379, and the Merc 308 goes for $410. These are tough prices given the RX 5600 XT debuted at just $279 and the RX 560 at a stunning $99. In this review, we square the RX 6600 XT off against a vast selection of graphics cards, including the RTX 3060 and other RX 6600 XT cards.

Radeon RX 6600 XT Market Segment Analysis
	Price	Cores	ROPs	Core Clock	Boost Clock	Memory Clock	GPU	Transistors	Memory
RX 5600 XT	$500	2304	64	1375 MHz	1560 MHz	1500 MHz	Navi 10	10300M	6 GB, GDDR6, 192-bit
RTX 2060	$500	1920	48	1365 MHz	1680 MHz	1750 MHz	TU106	10800M	6 GB, GDDR6, 192-bit
RX 5700	$750	2304	64	1465 MHz	1625 MHz	1750 MHz	Navi 10	10300M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 2060 Super	$650	2176	64	1470 MHz	1650 MHz	1750 MHz	TU106	10800M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RX Vega 64	$600	4096	64	1247 MHz	1546 MHz	953 MHz	Vega 10	12500M	8 GB, HBM2, 2048-bit
RX 5700 XT	$800	2560	64	1605 MHz	1755 MHz	1750 MHz	Navi 10	10300M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 2070	$650	2304	64	1410 MHz	1620 MHz	1750 MHz	TU106	10800M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 3060	$550	3584	48	1320 MHz	1777 MHz	1875 MHz	GA106	13250M	12 GB, GDDR6, 192-bit
RTX 2070 Super	$700	2560	64	1605 MHz	1770 MHz	1750 MHz	TU104	13600M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
Radeon VII	$800	3840	64	1400 MHz	1800 MHz	1000 MHz	Vega 20	13230M	16 GB, HBM2, 4096-bit
RX 6600 XT	$650 MSRP: $380	2048	64	2359 MHz	2589 MHz	2000 MHz	Navi 23	11060M	8 GB, GDDR6, 128-bit
XFX RX 6600 XT Merc 308	$680 MSRP: $410	2048	64	2428 MHz	2607 MHz	2000 MHz	Navi 23	11060M	8 GB, GDDR6, 128-bit
RTX 2080	$750	2944	64	1515 MHz	1710 MHz	1750 MHz	TU104	13600M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 2080 Super	$800	3072	64	1650 MHz	1815 MHz	1940 MHz	TU104	13600M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 3060 Ti	$700	4864	80	1410 MHz	1665 MHz	1750 MHz	GA104	17400M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RX 6700 XT	$770	2560	64	2424 MHz	2581 MHz	2000 MHz	Navi 22	17200M	12 GB, GDDR6, 192-bit
RTX 2080 Ti	$1100	4352	88	1350 MHz	1545 MHz	1750 MHz	TU102	18600M	11 GB, GDDR6, 352-bit
RTX 3070	$1000	5888	96	1500 MHz	1725 MHz	1750 MHz	GA104	17400M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 3070 Ti	$1100	6144	96	1575 MHz	1770 MHz	1188 MHz	GA104	17400M	8 GB, GDDR6X, 256-bit
RX 6800	$1300	3840	96	1815 MHz	2105 MHz	2000 MHz	Navi 21	26800M	16 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit

Packaging

The Card

The XFX RX 6600 XT Merc 308 looks amazing. Even though the main cooler shroud is made out of plastic, it looks and feels very close to metal. The main color is black, but it uses a matte paint that's really nice to touch and looks outstanding. The little dimples on the shroud are not just painted on, but actual surface structure, which further enhances the look and feel of the product. On the back, you'll find a high-quality metal backplate with a cutout to let airflow through.

Dimensions of the card are 27.0 x 11.5 cm, and it weighs 896 g.

Installation requires three slots in your system.

Display connectivity includes three standard DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.1. Display and media capabilities are identical to the rest of the RDNA 2 family.

The card has one 8-pin power input. This configuration is rated for up to 225 W of power draw.

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 series doesn't support multi-GPU.

Near the power input, XFX has placed a dual BIOS switch. At this time, both BIOSes are identical; without any functional differences, one only serves as backup for the other.

Teardown

XFX's thermal assembly uses four heatpipes to transport heat quickly from the GPU to the heatsink. The cooler also provides cooling for the memory chips and VRM circuitry. The thermal pads for the memory are 0.8 mm thick, and those for the VRM are 1.5 mm thick.

The backplate is made out of metal and protects the card against damage during installation and handling. Note how it wraps around the card a little bit to make it look more like an industrial design.

High-resolution PCB Pictures

These pictures are for the convenience of volt modders and people who would like to see all the finer details on the PCB. Feel free to link back to us and use these in your articles, videos or forum posts.