If AMD's RX 6600 is coming in October it needs to be $329 or less to impress

XFX Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card — (Image credit: Future)

We'd usually expect a couple of non-XT models to accompany AMD's RX 6000-series, but so far we've only one has arrived: the Radeon RX 6800. That doesn't do much for the budget-minded among us, but thankfully there's growing rumours that an RX 6600 is on the way, and soon.

The RX 6600 would launch as the lowest-spec desktop graphics card in the RX 6000-series, sitting a touch below the Radeon RX 6600 XT according to documents procured by Videocardz.

These suggest we'll see a Navi 23 GPU with just 28 Compute Units (CUs), four fewer than the RX 6600 XT, and up to 8GB of GDDR6. With that sort of spec sheet you can expect this card to fall a little shy of the "ultimate 1080p gaming experience" the RX 6600 XT is purported to offer, although probably still plenty capable at that resolution.

We've no price information whatsoever yet, though. That's the key to this whole price/performance puzzle, and AMD will have to price such a card competitively to beat out Nvidia's $329 RTX 3060 12GB.

We're sure to see a price tag below the RX 6600 XT, of course, which comes in at $379 MSRP. Those last four letters are important, as we're yet to see a single card stick at MSRP for particularly long.

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It looks like it won't be long before we find out what's in store, anyways. According to the leaked information, the RX 6600 will launch on October 13—the same day you'll be able to read a review for the card, apparently. We've not heard anything about the card ourselves, so it's still in the realms of rumour right now.

That same document also alludes to an AIB-only launch, which would mean no reference card design from AMD. The RX 6600 XT was the same, so that comes as no real surprise. Yet that will mean you'll be on the lookout for a card from the usual names and faces come launch, and be prepared to spend a little more for a fancier OC version.

Will it be worth the extra spend? Who can say, although with such tight pricing around that area of the market, which I'm remiss to call 'entry-level', there's not a whole lot of wiggle room for third-party cards to work in. My guess is that an MSRP card will serve you best at that budget, but only time will tell.

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.