AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT Wants To Upgrade 1080p Gaming

A lot of modern gaming PC hardware these days tends to focus on high-resolution, high-fidelity graphics. Whether it's 2K, 4K, or even 8K, PC makers, monitor manufacturers, and graphics silicon developers put almost all the emphasis on raw power or artificial intelligence to push millions of pixels around. AMD's newest GPU, in contrast, goes the opposite direction and aims to instead utilize its latest Radeon technologies to optimize gaming at 1080p resolutions.

Despite the market buzz around 2K or 4K graphics, many gamers still flock towards 1080p as the sweet spot for gaming. It strikes the best balance between a resolution that offers decent graphics quality without taxing hardware too much. It's no coincidence either that 1080p is where mass-market, entry-level GPUs and monitors tend to gravitate towards.

As the sort of "minimum requirement" for gaming, many manufacturers tend to take this particular segment of PC hardware for granted. AMD, however, is trying to break from that mold with the new Radeon RX 6600 XT, its newest entry-level graphics card aimed squarely at 1080p gaming. The 32 compute units, 8GB of GDDR6 RAM, and 2359 MHz base clock speed might sound a bit disappointing, but, in addition to its price tag, AMD compensates by giving the GPU some of its newest technologies out of the box.

At the top of that list is FidelityFX Super Resolution, AMD's answer to NVIDIA's DLSS. This means that, using some smart algorithms, the Radeon RX 6600 XT can push even 1080p graphics to achieve higher frame rates. The graphics card also supports AMD Smart Access Memory that lets supported Ryzen 5000 or 3000 Desktop processors access the high-speed graphics memory.

With a price tag of $379, the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is being positioned to take on older entry-level NVIDIA RTX graphics cards. The graphics card is expected to hit the market on August 11, but the global chip shortage could mean that even this 1080p GPU could be in short supply.