RX6650XT or RX7600?

sovietspybob · 16 Jul 2023 at 15:46

I could really do with a new card as i'm still rocking a GTX1060 6GB and it's chugging a bit in games nowadays since i got given a newer 1440p monitor a few months back. I don't tend to play new AAA games but i do really want to play starfield, it's the first new game ive been interested in for ages and now with that being bundled with new ATI cards it seems a no brainer to get one of them. I've had several ATI cards in the past and i know the drivers were always a bit of a pain but i've never had too much bother with them so hopefully it'll be the same or better nowadays?

I really don't want to spend more than the low 200's on a card so it seems a flip up between the 6650 for £230 or 7600 for £250, they seem pretty much the same performance from what i can see but with the 7600 being newer i figure there might be more scope for driver performance improvements compared to previous gen but not sure if it's worth the £20 extra over the 6650, plus the 7600 seems to use more power for some reason.

I know both will be slightly limited on my board as i've only got PCI 3.0 but i doubt it'll really be an issue at this end of the performance spectrum?

I've got a 32" 1440p monitor which is 165hz so i know i won't be troubling that refresh rate with either of these cards but there's no way i can justify spending 300+ on the 6700 series.

Games i normally play are
Beam drive NG, red dead 2, train sim world 3, battlefield V, long dark and then hopefully starfield soon

Current specs are:
Ryzen 2600x
16gb 3200mhz
B450 mobo
1060 6GB
32" 1440p 165hz monitor
500w PSU

Ross Thomson · 16 Jul 2023 at 17:05

wouldn't buy either save and get the 6700.

Tetras · 16 Jul 2023 at 17:47

The 7600 is supposed to have better optimised ray tracing (haven't really seen it in benchmarks), hardware AI acceleration and it can encode AV1 (RDNA 2 is only decode). It also updated DP to 2.1 (from 1.4a), but in the spec sheets it looks like most AIB's didn't bother with this.

sovietspybob said:
with the 7600 being newer i figure there might be more scope for driver performance improvements compared to previous gen

Seems reasonable, though I expect AMD to support RDNA 2 in drivers for some time.

sovietspybob said:
I know both will be slightly limited on my board as i've only got PCI 3.0 but i doubt it'll really be an issue at this end of the performance spectrum?

For the most part, the answer is no:

AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT PCI-Express Scaling

When the Radeon RX 6600 XT launched with an interface limited to PCI-Express 4.0 x8, lots of discussion emerged about how AMD crippled the bandwidth, and how much it affects the gaming experience. In this article, we're taking a close look at exactly that, comparing 22 titles running at PCIe...

www.techpowerup.com

With the 6500 XT, which admittedly has a very limited bus and only 4 lanes, the biggest problems came from exceeding the VRAM. With that in mind, buying a 128-bit card with 8GB of VRAM to play at 1440p (when even AMD themselves market this card for 1080p) seems like a stopgap move.

If you can't afford the 6700 XT, consider the Arc A770 16GB which is still dropping in price (though you'd need rebar support). Unlike AMD's 66x0, it actually gains ground at higher resolutions and has a feature set comparable to RDNA 3.

gjbf1 · 16 Jul 2023 at 17:50

They have comparible performance but the 7600 will benefit from updates more I'd have thought and is a smidge ahead on performance.

Brackish · 16 Jul 2023 at 19:37

I would say get the 7600. It will also have a better resale value if you later decide to upgrade again.

Gray2233 · 16 Jul 2023 at 19:43

sovietspybob said:
I could really do with a new card as i'm still rocking a GTX1060 6GB and it's chugging a bit in games nowadays since i got given a newer 1440p monitor a few months back. I don't tend to play new AAA games but i do really want to play starfield, it's the first new game ive been interested in for ages and now with that being bundled with new ATI cards it seems a no brainer to get one of them. I've had several ATI cards in the past and i know the drivers were always a bit of a pain but i've never had too much bother with them so hopefully it'll be the same or better nowadays?

I really don't want to spend more than the low 200's on a card so it seems a flip up between the 6650 for £230 or 7600 for £250, they seem pretty much the same performance from what i can see but with the 7600 being newer i figure there might be more scope for driver performance improvements compared to previous gen but not sure if it's worth the £20 extra over the 6650, plus the 7600 seems to use more power for some reason.

I know both will be slightly limited on my board as i've only got PCI 3.0 but i doubt it'll really be an issue at this end of the performance spectrum?

I've got a 32" 1440p monitor which is 165hz so i know i won't be troubling that refresh rate with either of these cards but there's no way i can justify spending 300+ on the 6700 series.

Games i normally play are
Beam drive NG, red dead 2, train sim world 3, battlefield V, long dark and then hopefully starfield soon

Current specs are:
Ryzen 2600x
16gb 3200mhz
B450 mobo
1060 6GB
32" 1440p 165hz monitor
500w PSU

You should have Members Market access, keep an eye out for a cheap 6700 or similar.

You could also put in a request in the Wanted section.

A 7600/6650XT is a poor choice with that monitor.

gjbf1 · 16 Jul 2023 at 21:09

Gray2233 said:
You should have Members Market access, keep an eye out for a cheap 6700 or similar.

You could also put in a request in the Wanted section.

A 7600/6650XT is a poor choice with that monitor.

True but that could be his budget...

Gray2233 · 16 Jul 2023 at 21:13

gjbf1 said:
True but that could be his budget...

Getting a 6700XT on the members market for under £300, if not close to the price of a 7600 is perfectly possible.

Sure it's second hand, but just about anyone on there will help with warranty and many cards still have a couple of years worth left.

1440P in Starfield on a 7600/6650XT isn't going to be a fantastic experience imo, especially if he starts wanting to load up on mods as many do with Bethesda titles.

sovietspybob · 17 Jul 2023 at 08:03

Thanks for the replies guys, i know my monitor is out of kilter with the rest of my system but i got given it for free so i know i'll need to sacrifice something to keep using it as there's no way i'm going back to 1080p!

Ross Thomson said:
wouldn't buy either save and get the 6700.

I thought this might well be a common answer

i can DM you my paypal if you want to help

Tetras said:
The 7600 is supposed to have better optimised ray tracing (haven't really seen it in benchmarks), hardware AI acceleration and it can encode AV1 (RDNA 2 is only decode). It also updated DP to 2.1 (from 1.4a), but in the spec sheets it looks like most AIB's didn't bother with this.

Seems reasonable, though I expect AMD to support RDNA 2 in drivers for some time.

For the most part, the answer is no:

AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT PCI-Express Scaling

When the Radeon RX 6600 XT launched with an interface limited to PCI-Express 4.0 x8, lots of discussion emerged about how AMD crippled the bandwidth, and how much it affects the gaming experience. In this article, we're taking a close look at exactly that, comparing 22 titles running at PCIe...

www.techpowerup.com

With the 6500 XT, which admittedly has a very limited bus and only 4 lanes, the biggest problems came from exceeding the VRAM. With that in mind, buying a 128-bit card with 8GB of VRAM to play at 1440p (when even AMD themselves market this card for 1080p) seems like a stopgap move.

If you can't afford the 6700 XT, consider the Arc A770 16GB which is still dropping in price (though you'd need rebar support). Unlike AMD's 66x0, it actually gains ground at higher resolutions and has a feature set comparable to RDNA 3.

Thanks for that, yeah it does feel a bit of a stopgap as it feels like i'm downgrading from my 1060 in generational terms as you seem to need a 70 series card to get similar relative performance the 60 series 3 generations ago.

gjbf1 said:
True but that could be his budget...

Yeah i'm not exactly flush with cash, young family etc so i can't really justify spending a lot of money on myself when there's more important things in life. I know an extra £100 is nothing to a lot of people who frequent these forums but it's a lot of money to me right now.

Gray2233 said:
Getting a 6700XT on the members market for under £300, if not close to the price of a 7600 is perfectly possible.

Sure it's second hand, but just about anyone on there will help with warranty and many cards still have a couple of years worth left.

1440P in Starfield on a 7600/6650XT isn't going to be a fantastic experience imo, especially if he starts wanting to load up on mods as many do with Bethesda titles.

I had thought about going 2nd hand but a big part of the attraction of upgrading now is that starfield is included so it essentially makes it £60 off which brings brand new cards into parity with 2nd hand so i may as well buy new i think.

I've never done any modding in games like that before but you never know.

I think i need to look for some more stuff to sell to up my budget without dipping into the household budget, i've just been selling off my retro collection of Pentium 3 Tualatin CPU's and old Athlon motherboards etc which is why i've got a bit set aside for an upgrade now so i'll have to dig around to see if there's anything else in the garage.

Brackish · 17 Jul 2023 at 08:21

If you have not modded a Bethesda game before then you need a 6700 and mod it via nexus mods. Try it on Skyrim or fallout 4 to get a feel. Even some simple mods like weather or detailed maps make it better but you will need the extra vram over the 7600. If you have to get a 7600 then sticking to 1080p on your new to you display will be the way forward.

eeii · 17 Jul 2023 at 10:35

I'd get the newer card and using FSR 2 quality mode you will get some decent results. You may have to drop some settings but lets be honest the difference in some games between ultra and high you can barely tell the difference.

Timber · 17 Jul 2023 at 11:07

Funnily enough I went through the same decision process last week although I ended up choosing the 6650XT. For me the price difference was £220 vs £270 for the same OEM/Cooler. So I figured that the £50 saving was better particularly as both cards are going to have the same main 8GB limitation. And I used that saving to essentially go from 16GB to 32GB RAM as well.

Although if the price difference had been less then I may have chosen the 7600.

Ross Thomson · 17 Jul 2023 at 14:18

sovietspybob said:
Thanks for the replies guys, i know my monitor is out of kilter with the rest of my system but i got given it for free so i know i'll need to sacrifice something to keep using it as there's no way i'm going back to 1080p!

I thought this might well be a common answer i can DM you my paypal if you want to help

Just need to save more. You've got the money for a £250 card it isn't going to take long to save the rest. I'd give you money but I've not worked in 10 weeks.

Noughtboy · 19 Jul 2023 at 09:57

sovietspybob said:
plus the 7600 seems to use more power for some reason.

Just in case anyone was wondering, I think that the RX7xxx series now measures board power not chip power which accounts for the seeming increase vs RX6xxx

Tetras · 19 Jul 2023 at 14:33

Noughtboy said:
Just in case anyone was wondering, I think that the RX7xxx series now measures board power not chip power which accounts for the seeming increase vs RX6xxx

I shouldn't think that has any influence on major reviews, TPU say this, for example, in their review:

"All power consumption numbers reported on this page are "card only" values measured via the PCI Express power connector(s) and PCI Express bus slot. Everything is measured on the DC side, it's not the power consumption of the whole system. We conduct a physical measurement using professional lab equipment, the values are not software sensor readings, which are much less accurate."

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 19 Jul 2023 at 17:13

I would get a CPU upgrade and an RX6700XT. This is what Fallout 4 CPU scaling looks like:

Fallout 4 CPU benchmark thread(need some Zen3 and Zen4 results!)

Thanks for update Small comment, 7950x3d runs were done @ 6600MT/s, not 6400MT/s ;) My Zen3 run were also done with a 5950x (3800MT/s 1900FCLK CL13-14-12-28), not a 5850. Excellent work as always Dom!

forums.overclockers.co.uk

With an RTX3060TI,with heavier mods,8GB can start to be a limitation.

Trickle · 19 Jul 2023 at 21:00

The 7600 is less than 10% more expensive, and has AV1 encoding. And its driver support will last just that bit longer. And you never know if FSR 3 will require these new AMD AI cores.

I'd spend the extra £20 on the 7600 (if we are talking OCUK prices here) rather than the 6650xt.

Ross Thomson · 19 Jul 2023 at 22:57

Trickle said:
The 7600 is less than 10% more expensive, and has AV1 encoding. And its driver support will last just that bit longer. And you never know if FSR 3 will require these new AMD AI cores.

I'd spend the extra £20 on the 7600 (if we are talking OCUK prices here) rather than the 6650xt.

what do you need AV1 encoding for?

Gray2233 · 19 Jul 2023 at 23:10

Ross Thomson said:
what do you need AV1 encoding for?

It's good for streaming while being open source, pretty much irrelevant to someone that just wants to play games.

Gray2233 · 19 Jul 2023 at 23:14

sovietspybob said:
I had thought about going 2nd hand but a big part of the attraction of upgrading now is that starfield is included so it essentially makes it £60 off which brings brand new cards into parity with 2nd hand so i may as well buy new i think.

AMD is giving codes away for just about every damn piece of hardware they currently sell.

There are codes selling on the MM section of this forum already for around the £25-35 mark. What do you think is going to happen over the next month or two? Even if those keys maintain their price point you're still cutting half the cost of the game out of the equation if you buy one.

The minimum you should be considering for this game at your resolution is a 6700XT.