Hasta La Gadget!

The decision by at least five defendants to defend themselves is bound to create a host of challenges.

One of the most common factors that prevents people with diabetes from routinely monitoring their blood sugar levels is that most modern machines require needles and small amounts of blood. However, researchers at Pennsylvania State University have developed a new glucose monitoring system that needs no needles to obtain accurate readings. The new wearable device promises a less intrusive glucose … Continue reading

When AMD announced the Radeon RX 6600 XT a few months ago, it was positioned as the ideal 1080p gaming card, with the potential to offer decent 1,440p performance in certain games. Now there’s the lower-tier RX 6600 and the story is pretty much the same — except, you know, worse. I suppose the existence of an “XT” card implies a more mainstream version eventually. But after testing out the RX 6600 for the past week, I’m still wondering who this card is for.

Of course, that’s a tough question to answer when the GPU market is so volatile and card prices vary wildly. AMD says the RX 6600’s suggested retail price is $329, compared to $379 for the 6600XT. But given the global chip shortage and resellers hungry for more GPUs, those prices are purely conceptual. In the real world, the 6600XT now sells for upwards of $600 (and in some cases close to $800!). The 6600 is also competing against the RTX 3060, which also has an MSRP of $329, but is now selling between $800 and $1,020. So much for budget GPUs.

AMD, a company with a reputation for creating budget-friendly cards that packed a decent punch, probably wanted to stay true to its roots. But unless it can guarantee a price close to MSRP, the RX 6600 just seems out of place in today’s gaming landscape. As you’ll see in our testing, it’s a capable 1080p gaming card. But its ray tracing performance is terrible, and it can’t take advantage of NVIDIA’s DLSS technology, which uses AI to boost performance.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really expect much from the RX 6600 from the start. Under the hood, its RDNA 2 architecture is powered by 28 compute units and 1,792 stream processors, a noticeable step down from the 6600XT’s 32 CUs and 2,048 stream processors. There’s also a serious speed difference: the cheaper card has 2,044 MHz game clock and 2,491 MHz boost, compared to 2,359 MHz while gaming on the 6600 XT and a 2,589 MHz boost. Both cards have 8GB of GDDR6 RAM, but the 6600’s memory bandwidth is 34 GB/s slower at 224 GB/s.

Given those specs, I predicted the RX 6600 would be a decent 1080p card and not much else. And for the most part, that’s what my testing proved: It reached a solid 120FPS in Destiny 2 while playing in 1080p with maxed out graphics. Once I pushed the game to 1,440p, though, it fell to 80fps. That pattern held true for pretty much everything I tested. Hitman 3’s benchmark reached a respectable 138fps in 1080p with graphics settings cranked to the maximum, but only 94fps in 1,440p.

If you’ve got an AMD Ryzen 5000 CPU (or some 3000 models), the RX 6600 will be a slight upgrade thanks to Smart Access Memory. That’s a feature that basically lets your CPU directly address all of your video card’s RAM, and it’s something you can’t use at all if you’ve got an Intel CPU. I had SAM enabled on my testing rig, which was powered by a Ryzen 7 5800X and 32GB of RAM, in case you were wondering.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Both the Radeon RX 6600 and 6600 XT had a hard time competing against their NVIDIA counterparts in our benchmarks. The RTX 3060 Ti reached 11,308 in 3DMark Time Spy, whereas the 6600 XT hit 9,872 and the 6600 trailed behind with a score of 8,521. I didn’t have an RTX 3060 on-hand to test, but 3DMark’s verified benchmarks with similar systems show scores of around 10,000.

Ray tracing was also a lost cause with the 6,600 — just flipping on ray traced reflections in Control slowed the game to a meager 35fps. Without ray tracing, it was at least playable in 1080p, hitting between 60 and 70fps. Now Control is a notoriously tough game on GPUs, but at least NVIDIA cards let me get decent framerates with ray tracing thanks to DLSS, which uses AI processing to upscale the game from a lower resolution. AMD’s alternative technology, FidelityFX Super Resolution, isn’t supported in Control yet. That solution is also cross-compatible with NVIDIA cards, so you won’t need a Radeon GPU to take advantage of it — which again makes me wonder, why would you get the RX 6600 instead of the 3060?

I could see it being a worthwhile card for a very specific gamer: Someone who has a small case and doesn’t want to upgrade beyond a 450 watt power supply. The RX 6600 has a total board power demand of 132 watts, compared to 170 watts on the RTX 3060. That’s a major reason why it runs so cool, reaching only around 70 celsius under load (the 3060 typically runs between 70 and 75 celsius when stressed). Still, I can’t imagine that someone who wants to shell out $329 for a GPU (and realistically much more), would limit themselves based on a weak power supply.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

A good PC upgrade is one that’ll last you for years, and, unfortunately, I can’t imagine that’ll be true of the RX 6600. Solid 1080p performance is a nice feature to have today, but 1,440p monitors are getting cheaper and games are becoming more demanding. Who knows if the 6600 will be able to handle a flagship title in a few years even at 1080p. And if you end up upgrading to a 1,440p, ultrawide, or 4K screen over the next few years, you’ll have to upgrade immediately.

The Radeon RX 6600 could be a decent contender if the GPU market stabilizes and AMD pushes the price below $300. But for now, it’s a misfire that only makes sense if you can’t get your hands on an RTX 3060.

As November inches closer, we’re starting to see even more early Black Friday deals on gadgets crop up across the web. Roku products are the latest to be discounted: the Roku Streambar is down to $100 at both Amazon and Best Buy, and both retailers also have the Roku Ultra for only $69. Those are all-time low prices that are worth jumping on if you have streaming devices on your gift list this year.

Buy Roku Streambar at Amazon – $100Buy Roku Streambar at Best Buy – $100Buy Roku Ultra at Amazon – $69Buy Roku Ultra at Best Buy – $69

The Roku Streambar would make a great gift for anyone who wants to up their living-room sound game. The compact soundbar will blow most built-in TV speakers out of the water, and it supports Dolby Audio, too. It also doubles as a Bluetooth speaker, so you could use it to pump out tunes during your next gathering.

While you could just use the Streambar for its sound chops, it also includes the same streaming tech as the Roku Ultra. That means it plays 4K HDR content, gives you access to all major streaming services like Netflix, HBO Max, Prime Video and others, and it comes with Roku’s voice remote. Whether you’re eyeing the Streambar for someone on your list or for yourself, it’s a solid, affordable way to upgrade your home theater system.

For those that already have a capable soundbar, the Roku Ultra focuses on the streaming aspect of things by playing 4K HDR10+ content along with Dolby Vision content. It has the best WiFi capabilities of any Roku streaming device and it has an Ethernet port so you can hardwire it into your setup if you wish. Its voice remote also supports private listening if you connect a pair of headphones as well. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Beware of health halos and remember that Halloween only comes around once a year.