Intel HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge) vs AMD Radeon RX 6600

Intel HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge)

The Intel HD Graphics (Family) is a processor graphics card which is integrated in the cheap Celeron and Pentium model of the Sandy Bridge generation. It is similar to the Intel HD Graphics 2000 and not with the processor graphics of the older Arrandale dual-core processors (which bears the same name). 

Depending on the processor, the HD graphics offers a different base and Turbo Boost clock speed. Currently there are three different models:

• Power Saving e.g. Celeron 847: base 350MHz, Turbo 800MHz
• Celeron e.g. Celeron B810: base 650MHz, Turbo 950MHz
• Pentium e.g. Pentium B950: base 650MHz, Turbo 1100MHz

Furthermore, the slow CPU performance of some models may influence the games a lot. For example, although the GPU in the Celeron B710 differs not much from the Pentium B950, the gaming performance was clearly worse and many games were unplayable.

As the Intel HD Graphics 3000 and 2000, the processor graphics card is able to use part of the last level cache of the processor (2MB usually for the entry level CPUs). This could be seen as a small amount of very fast dedicated memory.

Altought 2x Antialiasing (AA) is supported, the chip is as fast as when rendering 4x AA. In the Unigine Valley benchmark a similar HD 3000 i7-2637M for example reached the same score with 2x AA and 4x AA.

The feature set compared to the HD Graphics 3000 is also reduced in these entry level CPUs. E.g. Intel Quick Sync (for de- and encoding of HD videos), In Tru 3D, Clear Video HD are usually deactivated.

AMD Radeon RX 6600

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is a mid-range desktop graphics card that is based on the RDNA 2 architecture and uses the Navi 23 chip. It offers 1,792 shaders and 8 GB GDDR6 VRAM with a 128 bit memory interface (14 Gbps, 224 GB/s max).

The RDNA2 architecture offers new features like SAM (Smart Access Memory) and Infinity Cache. PCIe 4.0, RIS (Radeon Image Sharpener) and Raytracing support are also included in the RX6600.

The gaming performance of the RX 6600 is comparable to a GeForce RTX 2060 Super (Desktop). The previous generation Radeon RX 5600 can be easily bested. Therefore, the RX 6600 is best suited for demanding games in 1080p and high details.

The power consumption is rated at 132 Watt (TGP) by AMD and therefore offers a rather low power consumption compared to the previous generations with similar performance.