It's happening. It's finally happening. Graphics card deals are a thing once again. It's been so long since I've been able to actually recommend a genuine saving on an actual graphics card that I barely know where to start. Suffice to say, this really is the real deal. A card that is not only available for less than its launch price but one that is worth picking up, putting in a machine, and actually playing some games on.
At launch, we were impressed with AMD's RDNA 2 architecture, which finally meant there was some real competition in the graphics card space. The 6800 XT in particular could trade blows with Nvidia's finest, the RTX 3080, at least it could when there was no ray tracing involved.
The Radeon RX 6600 XT is an impressive card too, able to consistently slap down Nvidia's RTX 3060, with the same caveat when it comes to ray tracing. AMD's GPUs can at least bounce light around accurately, albeit not at the speed that Nvidia's can. With FSR 2.0 gaining traction, at least it means that you can hit playable frame rates thanks to the magic of upscaling technology.
The only problem with the 6600 XT at launch was that the RTX 3060 Ti didn't cost much more, and that was the better card in every game you could throw at the pair. The good news for AMD is that Nvidia's more mainstream offerings are not tumbling in price, meaning there's no real competition for this card at this price point. And when it comes to 1080p gaming, this is a seriously strong GPU.
You're not limited to just 1080p gaming either. 1440p is well within this card's remit, and while you may have to get handy with the graphics settings to hit the silkiest of frame rates in the more exacting games, that's not an unreasonable ask. 4K is a bit beyond its capabilities, although even there some esports and competitive shooters will hit high frame rates.
Throw in the AMD Radeon Raise the Game Bundle, which will see you grab the likes of Saints Row, Forspoken, and Sniper Elite 5, and you're looking at a very tempting deal. Even the specter of new GPUs from Nvidia and AMD won't affect things too much, as the more-affordable cards won't appear for a long, long time.
