Just because you’re a PC gamer doesn’t mean you can afford to buy a desktop made out of pure platinum, water-cooled with the tears of extremely wealthy angels. And if you’re trying to build a budget machine, you’ve had a really hard time of it lately. That’s why you should pounce on this killer Black Friday deal that carried over to Cyber Monday: an AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics card for more than a hundred bucks off the MSRP.
The card is the MSI Mech Radeon RX 6600, packing 8GB of GDDR6 RAM and a compact, dual-fan cooler design. The vendor is Newegg, which discounted the standard price of $280 down to $210. You can get an extra $20 off with a rebate card, bringing the final price down to $189.99 — that’s $140 off the $330 retail price of the RX 6600 that AMD set at its launch a little over a year ago.
But wait, there’s more! On top of the discounted card, AMD is throwing in its latest “Raise the Game” bundle, which includes online codes for zombie shooter Dead Island 2 and sci-fi horror title The Callisto Protocol. That’s a $120 value, though it’s admittedly a much more subjective one (y’all couldn’t throw a non-horror game in that bundle?).
The Radeon RX 6600 isn’t going to win any polygon-pushing contests with the biggest and most expensive cards on the market, but it’s a fantastic affordable option for anyone who’s targeting 1080p visuals. PCWorld executive editor Brad Chacos called it “fast and power efficient,” but lamented its relatively high price. Thankfully, that problem has been solved, and it’s evolved into the best 1080p graphics card option in today’s complex market.
If you’re looking for something even more powerful (or less expensive), be sure to check out the PCWorld Cyber Monday graphics card roundup.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.