AMD looks ready to drop its secret weapon against the RTX 3060

Big Navi graphics card
(Image credit: AMD)

The first images of AMD's Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card have appeared online after claims started circulating that Team Red would be releasing more affordable entry-level GPUs to its lineup.

It's been anticipated for some time that AMD would release Radeon RX 6600 and RX 6600 XT graphics cards, so it's unsurprising that we're starting to see a trickle of evidence, with this latest image leak provided by VideoCardz adding additional weight to the rumors.

Big Navi, Little Navi

As this is a leaked image we can't speak for its legitimacy, but it does look staggeringly similar to a card that was displayed in the background of the AMD CES 2021 keynote, something that already suggested a single-fan Big Navi card would be released at some point. 

VideoCardz also claims that the image is a press photo supplied by one of its readers, which if true could mean that Team Red will be making an announcement for its unveiling in the coming weeks.

If this is legit then it points to the Radeon RX 6600 XT being equipped with a single 8-pin power connector and noticeably smaller than the more powerful cards in the RDNA family, making this a great option for fans of smaller mini-ITX PC builds.

AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card

(Image credit: AMD / VideoCardz)

This is following the reveal of gaming laptops with Radeon RX 6600M GPUs, which were announced earlier this month and are the first to be powered by Navi 23. It's expected the desktop flavored RX 6600 XT will have 2,048 stream processors and we should expect it to offer a boost clock of up to 2,684MHz and a memory clock of 16 Gbps, with an estimated power consumption of 130W, though we'll only know for sure when AMD makes an official announcement – don't take anything as gospel until then.

It's been suggested that AMD doesn't have a great entry-level option for its latest generation until this point, something that has helped boost its rival Nvidia's popularity in recent months, despite scalped prices and insanely high demand.

If Team Red can pull this off at an affordable price point (and ensure its DLSS rival FidelityFX meets expectations) then we may see AMD fight back at Nvidia with some extra power in its corner.

Jess Weatherbed

Jess is a former TechRadar Computing writer, where she covered all aspects of Mac and PC hardware, including PC gaming and peripherals. She has been interviewed as an industry expert for the BBC, and while her educational background was in prosthetics and model-making, her true love is in tech and she has built numerous desktop computers over the last 10 years for gaming and content creation. Jess is now a journalist at The Verge.