XFXSpeedster SWFT 210 Radeon RX 6600 CORE Gaming Graphics Card with 8GB GDDR6 HDMI 3xDP, AMD RDNA 2 RX-66XL8LFDQ

As the title says. This card is a beast in every which way possible. I upgraded from the EVGA [RIP :< ] NVIDIA 1080Ti, which lasted me a good five years and was still pretty competent in running modern games, but was definitely starting to show its age with a 4K monitor and today's (poorly optimized) games. I decided to go AMD this time around, as the price/dollar ratio with AMD right now seems far better... especially with the 4080 costing on average $300 more, and the 4090 being off into space at double to above double the cost. That's not really cool when this card trades blows with NVIDIA's flagships in raster performance, and the focus of RTX/Radeon is for gaming, not for AI/Compute work. Not that AMD can't do those to be clear... ROCm is a thing, but just needs more developer support for it, and AMD still has some work to do in their drivers to unlock the full potential of these chips.The card itself is quite big, as shown in my photos, but it fits snug with my system configuration, the color scheme matches my system quite nicely, and the anti-sag retention bar is a nice addition to have with the card given its size and weight. Cooling-wise, the card operates at 60C when gaming under full load, with a 75C-80C Hot Spot Temperature, with the fans operating at about 30% duty cycle. The card power draw under full load is approximately 390 Watts.Gaming performance wise, I'm satisfied. Games such as Battlefield 2042 at 4K Native, 100% Render Resolution, Ultra Settings, HDR and Ray Tracing Enabled, push 70-100FPS. BattleBit Remastered does well north of 180FPS. Counter-Strike 2 runs at 170FPS+ at 4K Native, HDR and Max settings. Halo Infinite at 4K Native, HDR, Max settings, pushes approximately 90FPS. Overwatch 2, similar settings, similar frame rates. That's pretty much it. The card performs consistently well, and has the VRAM to handle demanding gaming loads (Halo Infinite for some reason needs 18GB of VRAM?!). I could get higher frame rates with AMD FSR3 or by turning off some settings like Ray Tracing, but, hey... these frames are already a huge upgrade from the 1080Ti, and can only get better in time.Video Performance Wise: Compared to NVIDIA, AMD does have a weaker video engine. This was something which worried me at first based on my past experience with AMD GPUs (The Vega 8 in my laptop, and the previous Radeon HD 5770 I used to have which would downclock the VRAM every time video accelerated content was played). However, it has not affected my day to day. 8K60 YouTube is handled and plays back with the AV1 Codec. VP9, H.264, AVC1, and H.265 decoding are similarly capable of smooth playback, and day to day use I notice no difference between the 1080Ti's NVDEC chip and AMD's VCE in terms of performance. Encoding wise, Handbrake was able to transcode VC-1 video (This AMD GPU does NOT support VC-1 Decoding in the Video engines, so some software limitations are at play!) to H.265 10-Bit with exceptional quality at 130+FPS, and did so without impacting the rest of the card's performance. AV1 Encoding performance is similarly quick, and for live streaming, is phenomenal, with a crisp picture produced at 14Mbps to YouTube at 1440p. The video engine seems to multi-task reasonably well, and I have yet to encounter any artificial limits imposed in the driver, unlike NVIDIA which limits encode/decode streams on their consumer GPUs... a limit I have bumped heads with many times when working with VEGAS Pro, and which has been responsible for NVIDIA's driver crashing.Driver wise: AMD does tend to release more frequent updates to drivers than NVIDIA. This tends to be due to AMD's Driver QA and refinement being less robust than NVIDIA's. I have certainly noticed a few more odd glitches in games like flickering hair or invisible vehicles. Some of these could be game engine bugs. None of these bugs have resulted in games being unplayable. CS2 for example had a stutter bug which specifically affected the 7900XTX and was fixed quickly by AMD, but I really didn't notice this personally. Battlefield 2042 occasionally has a colorful hair issue on some characters, but only at the end-of-game recap. Driver crashes have been extremely minimal - I've experienced one crash which was due to a bug AMD has since fixed with CS2, but that's not to say things have been exceptionally smooth for me.There are definitely some resource scheduling issues to work out in the drivers. When the GPU is under heavy (100%) load, you may find that stuttering occurs in other programs like web browsers and in the mouse when Alt-Tabbing at times. This hasn't resulted in the system being unusable. It's just annoying and is intermittent. I did not encounter mouse stuttering with NVIDIA, so they seem to do a better job with scheduling in that regard, but other programs (hardware accelerated Chromium apps) definitely took their time doing any sort of action with the NVIDIA card under full load. Things with this AMD card remain snappy even with the occasional stutters.The AMD Software suite is overall pretty good. Unlike NVIDIA, AMD includes automatic driver updates, game optimizations, game performance statistics, game streaming (AMD Link), live streaming, game clipping and background recording, performance monitoring as well as overclocking features directly in AMD Software, WITHOUT AN ACCOUNT BEING REQUIRED! That is on top of the usual GPU settings for Display color/resolution, software profiles, and global 3D settings. You just install the software and everything is right there in one control panel. Some settings like monitor arrangement and color calibration, AMD Software will defer to the Windows Control panel, and this seems to be only where Windows will do a better job. I have noticed my system no longer has this strange 3-4 second freeze on boot-up when the driver package loads like I did with NVIDIA when GeForce Experience was loading in, so that's a plus.Now for the fun bits. When I initially installed the GPU, everything was pretty smooth. Run DDU, shut down the system, pull out the old GPU, install the new GPU. Everything worked on the first go. Install the AMD Drivers, Reboot, and all is fine and dandy! Within a few hours however, I started noticing some odd behavior while running games. If I had a game running on my main monitor (a 4K 144Hz HDR display), everything would be fine... until I Alt+Tabbed to use an application on my secondary monitors (two 1080p 144Hz SDR displays), or touched any application based on Chromium (Steam, Discord, Google Chrome...) while a game was running. The driver would hang for a few seconds and then recover, but not hang in the sense that my game or any applications would crash out. My primary web browser, Firefox, didn't cause any sort of problem with the driver. Thinking this was the infamous "Chromium Hardware Acceleration" bugs that seem to plague AMD, I considered disabling hardware acceleration in Chrome, until I considered the fact that Windows itself is not exactly behaving right.My next troubleshooting steps involved disabling Resizable BAR (AMD Smart Access Memory), which was enabled on my Motherboard (ASUS PRIME X370 Pro) as this has been known to cause issues with NVIDIA RTX 3000 series cards, as well as the AMD RX 6000 series GPUs. Also, since I am using a Ryzen 7 5800X3D on an X370 board, it's very possible there's a strange board problem going on causing the driver to hang. So great! I turn off Resizable BAR, and the problems disappear... for about 12 hours. The problems then return with a vengeance! Simple actions like running VLC in Full Screen, full screening YouTube videos, trying to run games, basically anything an average person might do, would cause the driver to hang... and sometimes crash hard. Even more silly - mousing over the display in AMD Software was enough to hang it. To make matters worse, the system got so unstable to the point where simply loading color calibration profiles for my monitor would cause the entire video driver to hang hard just by logging into the PC!As part of troubleshooting with Windows becoming unusable, I continued to mess around in the BIOS by disabling IOMMU, SR-IOV, Resizable BAR at a Chipset level (rather than in AMD Software), and toggled between the two BIOSs available on this GPU using the BIOS toggle switch found towards the PCI Bracket. Nothing! But by chance, I happened across the solution. While troubleshooting, I discovered that the center DisplayPort port was misbehaving. It could detect AND sync my 4K display at HDR, RGB 4:4:4, 144Hz without an issue... as if nothing was wrong. But when I connected my 1080p displays to this same port, the monitors would detect but wouldn't sync (output video). Neither one of my external monitors would sync on this port. ONLY the 4K display. The other thing I noticed is, when I didn't use the center DisplayPort port... the GPU wouldn't hang! Windows would log in! Everything worked! My setup now avoids the use of the center DisplayPort port, with one 1080p monitor connected to the HDMI port, and the remaining two monitors connected to the left-most and right-most DisplayPort port. All of the monitors are being fully driven, and my GPU is now 100% stable... even with Resizable BAR (AMD Smart Access Memory) enabled, IO-SRV, IOMMU, you name it enabled. I don't know at this point if the problem is going to require me to RMA the GPU with XFX, but given the number of complaints I've seen online regarding "a particular port" (like the USB-C port) on other 7900XTX GPUs from other brands, it's sounding more like an AMD Driver bug. Some people were able to temporarily resolve their hanging/freezing problems with "a particular port" by using DDU only to have it crop up a day later. That sounds pretty similar, doesn't it?Since figuring out the initial stability headache, the GPU has been enjoyable to use, and I do not regret the move from NVIDIA (I have been a long time NVIDIA customer FWIW - RIVA 128ZX, GeForce 4400MX, GeForce 8800GT, GeForce GTX770, GeForce 1080Ti) to AMD. The only time the driver has crashed was when I was playing CS2 on launch day, while streaming the game via Discord. I chalked that up to Discord being the problem, as I also experienced similar driver crashes on NVIDIA when game streaming in Discord. Turns out that was an AMD bug which they fixed a week later...Overall, if you're switching from NVIDIA, or are unsure about this purchase, I recommend this card. If you encounter the instability issues I first encountered... definitely think outside of the box. It's rewarding at the end.

UPDATE 01.10.2023. If you have an UPS between the wall plug and you PC make sure that can deliver enough Watt. My UPS beeps if the power draws more than 350 Watt. So I had to undervolt and tweak heavily the RX 6750 XT in order the UPS does not beep becauso of overload constantly while gaming. Since this GPU is super power efficient on idle, it draws only 5 Watt on idle, that is on normal tasks obviously not an problem. I play only Enlisted as game. So on Enlisted I had to adjust Adrenalin to follows so the entire system stays around 330 Watt as of the power drawing from the wall (UPS). Power % is on -6%, Max Frequency of the GPU is limited to 2425 Mhz and Voltage is reduced to 1170 mV. Undervolting the GPU on Adrenaline automatically gives me an value of 1175 mV so my manual undervolting is close to that. At 1160 mV undervolted the drivers tend to crash sometimes while gaming so 1170 mV is a stable value for this RX 6750 XT card. With these setting the Watt stays around 330 Watt as drawn from the UPS and on Medium settings on Enlisted I get around 330 fps, on High settings I get around 270 fps and on Ultra I get around 190 fps. At High settings and 270 fps the Hotspot temp of the RX 6750 XT shows 83 degrees Celsius and the GPU temp shows 73 degrees Celsius while the card is loaded to 97%. Mostly I sync the fps to my monitors Herz and that is 60 Hz in Enlisted and then the Hotspot temp is around 63 degrees Celsius (card load is around 20%).So make sure your UPS is capable enough for this card if not you can adjust on Adrenaline by limiting the GPU.MAIN ReviewI will update this review if in the future happens an issue.This works like advertised. The box came pretty much banged up but the inner box did not show any damages or tampering.The card had all plastic covers still on so this is an new product despite the banged up outer box.I recommend this RX 6750 XT.It showed at first installing and booting up the picture without any drivers installed. It gave me at booting up an picture. Then I installed Adrenalin and all is fine and adjusted.I installed this card in an XPG Invader case and it fits. It is an medium (midi) ATX tower case. It works together with the Ryzen 5900X, 64 GB DDR4 3200 MT/s Teamwork T-Expert RAM, 4 x 120 mm Arctic case fans, 600 Watt PSU, 120 GB Adata SSD, 256 GB Teamwork SSD and the MSi B450-A Max Pro motherboard. My first own build and allmost all components come from Amazon. This my own built was an "proof of concept" build.Be aware that your UPS must be big enough to deliver enough Watt for this GPU since my APC 500 beeps if the whole system draws over 350 Watt. Same UPS did not do that when in another similar sistem with the Ryzen 5700G and RX 6600 installed. Even undervolted this RX 6750 XT makes the whole sistem draw over 350 Watts from the socket and the UPS starts to beep so I have to limit the fps on the Enlisted game I play with this to 60 fps since my monitor is 60 Hz. I can go as high as 120 fps on the RX 6750 XT in that game without any problems but soon as I set the fps to 144 then the UPS beeps continuously. At 60 fps on high or ultra settings this RX 6750 XT draws around 70 Watts and on 120 fps it draws around 113 Watts.I tried to undervolt the GPU on Adrenalin already to 95% and -6% power but the UPS still starts to beep att 144 fps. At undervolting to 92% drivers crash. So one can undervol this RX 6750 XT only safe to about 95% while maintaining -6% power. Since it did not do a noticeable difference I just hit the undervolt automatically button instead of custom and it undervolts to 1175 mV. This GPU is indeed a bit to big of an power draw for my UPS but by careeful managing it will work.At idle this RX 6750 XT is very power saving drawing only 5 Watts (5 to 8 Watts). My RX 6600 draws on idle 4 Watts so this one is allmost as efficient.The fans of this XFX Qick stop below 60 degrees Celsius and turn only while gaming (Enlisted) on when the temps go over 60 degrees Celsius. At gaming the card is at hotspot mosttly at 64 degrees Celsius and the fans turn at 660 rpm. So this card stays cool due to it's massive cooler. Since my UPS does not allow for testing the maximum on fps I get with this card, I can not tell you in the Enlisted game how hot this XFX RX 6750 XT would get on full performance and without any fps restrictions.The end point of the GPU is somewhat flexible so you better use an GPU bracket holder to stabilize GPU drag.The quicker VRAM speed of this versus the RX 6600 makes that it uses less VRAM on the Enlisted game.Other than that this card has the potential to be one of the coolest cards due to it's superb cooling system.The backplate is metal (Aluminum) and acts as an heat sink which has heat transfer pads on both sides.Normally I go for the Asus or MSi brand and this XFX brand is new to me but it outperforms coolingwise already now my other Asus RX 6600. I chose the XFX brand since it is an american brand.I just read in the manual of the XFX that drivers and Adrenalin is not supposed to be installed before the GPU is istalled since the GPU will give the monitor automatically an signal or picture as it seems. After that you can install the Adrenalin software. Exactly as that it worked as well in my case. No problems whatsoever to get a signal, that is a picture on the screen.Only 359$ is a bit a steep of a price for this as this should be the price of the RX 6800 and the RX 6750 XTt should price around 300$ only. The price is a bit high at 360$, basically 60$ to expensive about.Specially no one knows the quality of the components used by XFX while one can be sure Asus will use most likely quality components which have an long durability. I have no clue what components and quality is XFX using in their GPU's. XFX cooling system is however superb and better than others as it seems.The cooling system of the XFX cards is held simple: massive grid cooler with slaped on fans and use of heat transfer pads. On the backside the aluminum backplate acts as an heat sink since it is connected with heat transfer pads for processor, VRAM and the like. Then 4 bigger heat pipes. An simple but effective cooling system.This XFX Qick RX 6750 XT has "zero frost". "zero dB" fans which are off below 60 degrees Celsius and the card is super quiet. No noise at all. No coil wind noise at all on mine.If the components hold up and are durable, then I recomment this brand. This card AMD RX 6750 XT is a good mid level card even in 2023.