Why it matters: Nvidia has yet to announce a desktop RTX 3050 Ti, but it looks like AMD could be the first to announce a new entry-level graphics card. Thanks to some people with eagle eyes and excellent screenshotting abilities, we can now expect Team Red and its AIB partners to unveil the RX 6600 non-XT, hopefully with a more attractive price tag and better availability than the RX 6600 XT.
Last month, AMD launched the much-awaited Radeon RX 6600 XT, which it called a "1080p beast." Our own Steven Walton put that claim to the test and found the new card to be roughly equivalent to an RX 5700 XT in terms of rasterization performance, with some sprinkles of ray tracing and support for DirectX 12 Ultimate. It currently offers more value than Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3060 in terms of cost per frame, even though both cards can only be found at gargantuan prices.
Something that could be a godsend to many gamers is a slightly lower-end version of the RX 6600 XT with a lower price and similar or improved availability. According to a listing spotted by Videocardz on a Portuguese retailer's website, it looks like such a card may be on the way.
The model in question appears to be the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 6600 (11310-01-20G), which looks like a dual-fan design that's more compact than the Pulse Radeon 6600 XT. It comes equipped with eight gigabytes of GDDR6 memory, and is based around the Navi 23 XL GPU with 28 CUs (1792 Stream Processors). There's no info on clock speeds and power consumption, but it's safe to assume they'll be around those of the RX 6600 XT, which is able to boost up to 2,589 MHz and has a total board power rating of 160 watts.
Interestingly, the existence and imminent launch of the RX 6600 are confirmed by two other retailers in Netherlands and Romania. The list prices vary between €496.21 ($580.49) and €816.14 ($954.73), although they could be placeholders for the real prices. In terms of MSRP, the RX 6600 is expected to hover around $349, but AMD could choose to surprise with a lower recommended price. Ideally, it should be lower than Nvidia's $329 MSRP for the RTX 3060.
Granted, MSRP is a term that has lost its meaning at this point, with signs that street prices are headed back to the stratosphere. But with a supposed release date slated for October 13, we won't have to wait much longer to see what this RX 6600 is all about – particularly if it's made of unobtanium.