AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, Windows 11 on Steam Deck and the Android GPD XP console - Assemble Your Hands # 311

AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT

In the Assembly that Passes you this week we talk about the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, the newborn entry level of the RDNA 2 series, and the Steam Deck support for Microsoft operating systems, including Windows 11. Instead, aim for another console on Android portable, called GPD XP, which was born as a function of MOBA and FPS.

AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT

The mysterious Vastarmor card, produced by a Shanghai company and perhaps built, in as an OEM, from XFX This is the week of the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, a high refresh 1080p card, but capable of satisfying even in 1440p with a higher power than that of an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT. Actually available from 11 August, the newborn AMD arrived in the field with exorbitant prices, but some models in the following hours have slipped towards less crazy, albeit inflated, figures. We are talking about 500 euros for the best offers in circulation and minimum prices around 600 euros in the case of large retailers. A lot therefore considering that the recommended price, for the basic models, is 389.99 euros.

If nothing else, the new AMD cards are available, even on Amazon (for example, the Sapphire Radeon RX 6600 XT Pulse for € 593), and they are not the only ones to be back on sale, which brings us to hope for further price cuts in addition to those already seen in recent weeks. On the other hand, the figures in Europe, and to a greater extent in Italy, are still too high. However, even in the event of a normalization of the market, the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT will not be able to approach the recommended prices: it seems that the card could become a must for cryptocurrency miners. In fact, it has no limits and offers a hash rate of 32MH / s with an effective consumption between 60 W and 75 W and consequently very low temperatures. Perfect therefore for massive setups, at least according to the reports published on the net, obviously to be verified in a real scenario.

AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT datasheet

Architecture: RDNA 2 Navi 23 Processing Core: 2048 stream processor Number of transistors / die size: 11.1 billion / 237 mm2 Compute unit / ray accelerator: 32 Frequencies: Game Frequency 2359 MHZ, Boost Frequency 2589 MHz Memory: 8 GB GDDR6 16 Gbps, 128-bit bus, 256 GB / s bandwidth Typical board power / PSU recommended: 160 W, 500 W Power supply: 1x 8-pin auxiliary connector Maximum resolution: 7680 x 4320 Performance: Single Precision 10.6 TFLOP, Half Precision 21.21 TFLOP Connectivity: 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC Introductory price: 389.99 euros

Steam Deck and Windows 11

Steam Deck promises to combine the best of consoles with a fully open system The official Steam Deck operating system is an evolution of SteamOS with a console interface built on the Steam infrastructure. And it is compatible with most Windows games thanks to the Proton compatibility layer, a fundamental piece of the Valve strategy. But the company still decided to make Steam Deck an open machine, despite being based on a less powerful AMD custom APU but with a philosophy similar to those of the latest generation consoles. For this, when it arrives, we will be able to do what we want with it, including installing Windows 10 directly, hoping for good support for the controls of the Valve portable console. The problem is that the current version of the Microsoft operating system is already on the way to retirement and for the moment Windows 11, presented on June 24, 2021, cannot run on Steam Deck.

The culprit technology, officially mentioned by one of the Valve designers, is called Trusted Platform Module (TPM), again he, and has already cut a lot of pretty powerful CPUs from the list of processors supported by the new Windows, for how dated. But there is good news: the AMD Van Gogh APU with RDNA 2 graphics can handle the TPM. The trouble is that it needs work from AMD and Valve and it has not yet been addressed but at least Greg Coomer, the Steam Deck designer, has heartened us and has definitively made clear Valve's desire to fully support the operating systems. Microsoft, including Windows 11.

GPD XP: the Android portable console

The GPD XP console with its controllers and the comparison with Apple iPhone The interest in Steam Deck has awakened the 'interest in the Android ecosystem of GPD, a Chinese company specializing in portable systems, from consoles to ultra-compact ones. Over the past three years, the Shenzhen-based company has moved to other operating systems by bringing out the GPD Pocket, a pocket laptop with support for Ubuntu, and several very small Windows-based notebooks. This in addition to a massive portable console with 11th generation Intel Core-i5 processor, integrated Intel Xe GPU, 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD that guarantees great performance with a 5.5-inch screen, but suffers from the bulky thickness and yes presents with a price of around 1200 euros.

The new GPD XP console instead marks the company's return to an Android device after 3 years. The successor of GPD XD Plus can be considered a machine released in 2018 with a wallet design in the style of Nintendo DS, while the new console marries the philosophy launched by Nintendo Switch, both in form and in modularity, albeit partial. The right section of the controllers can in fact be detached and replaced with other types of controllers as evident from the image that, paradoxically, uses an Apple iPhone as a comparison for the dimensions.

Strange choice given that we are talking about an Android machine and specifically a system based on MediaTek Helio G96 SoC with 6 GB of RAM. It could therefore include 4G connectivity and reach a refresh of up to 120 Hz, although GPD does not necessarily go that far. On the other hand, as confirmed by the 128 GB of storage, it is a device designed to offer good performance, thanks to a completely new chipset inside which there are two Arm Cortex-A75 processors with a frequency up to 2 GHz.

GPD also presents a single smartphone battery, although larger than average with 7000 mAh which should guarantee several hours of longevity with MOBA and FPS that are not too demanding from a technical point of view. In fact, these are the genres that fall into the main target of the machine, but to be taken into consideration in the perspective of cloud gaming, a growing reality ready to transform any device into a high-profile gaming machine.

Assembla che ti Passa is a weekly column that collects the main news related to gaming PC hardware and offers three configurations, divided by price ranges, designed for those who want to assemble or update their machine. As usual, suggestions are welcome and corrections welcome, as long as the tones are adequate. Another tip is to read the paragraphs presenting the configurations before you do battle in the comments.

Budget configuration

The budget configuration is oriented to saving but it is not certain that there is no room for the upgrade where interesting prospects arise. The proposals in this range include solutions designed for low-tech gaming and 1080p-oriented builds.

Our lifeline, the AMD Ryzen 3400G has been overpriced for two months now, at least by the big boys retailer. This is why we continue to prefer the Intel Core i5-10400F, devoid of overclocking capabilities but characterized by good gaming performance, at least for its range, and above all economical.

Among other things, this week too we have the opportunity to combine it with a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, a card that is no longer recent but still capable of giving some satisfaction in 1080p and finally available for just over 200 euros, in this case in the Palit StormX single fan model.


BUDGET Component Price PROCESSOR Intel Core i5-10400F 2.9-4.0GHz 155,00 € MSI B460M-A PRO MOTHERBOARD 80,00 € VIDEO CARD Palit GeForce GTX 1050 Ti StormX 4 GB 220,00 € RAM Crucial Ballistix 2x8GB 2666 MHz CL16 80,00 € POWER SUPPLY EVGA 450 BR 80+ Bronze 40,00 € HARD DISK Kingston A400 480GB SATA III 50,00 € CASE BitFenix ​​Nova Mesh SE Mid Tower 60,00 € TOTAL 685,00 €

Gaming configuration

In the gaming range usually there are those components that allow oy to take on PC gaming without fear and hold on for some time. The frame rate showdown is just around the corner but, with a good base, it's always possible to sell the old GPU before it devalues ​​too much so you can buy a new one just in time to take on the next hardware-smashing blockbuster.

The situation does not change even in the mid-range. With the AMD Ryzen 5600X on the rise, at least in large retailers, we hold on to the Intel Core i5-11600K which, when needed and having some extra cash in your pocket, can be replaced with the Intel Core i7-11700K. On the other hand we are talking about the two most interesting processors of the eleventh Intel desktop processor family.

For the mid-range this week we honor the arrival of the Radeon RX 6600 XT, choosing it despite the inflated prices they bring us to advise against a hasty purchase. Specifically we are talking about the MSI Radeon RX 6600 XT Mech 2X, a dual fan solution with factory overclocking.



GAMING Component Price PROCESSOR Intel Core i5-11600K 3.9-4.9GHz 245,00 € ASUS PRIME B560M-K MOTHERBOARD 110,00 € MSI Radeon RX 6600 XT Mech 2X 8 VIDEO CARD GB 500.00 € RAM Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 2x8GB 3200MHz CL16 110.00 € POWER SUPPLY Cooler Master MWE 650 White-V2 80+ 60.00 € HARD DISK Crucial MX500 1 TB SATA III 90.00 € CASE DEEP COOL MATREXX 55 V3 Mid Tower 75.00 € TOTAL 1190.00 €

Extra Configuration

The pushed configuration makes sense only for those who aim for high resolutions, aware that luxury often does not go hand in hand with rationality. On the other hand, let's face it, who doesn't like having a nice engine under the hood even if you have to respect the speed limit?

At the high end this week we are changing processors, but we are not changing brands. In fact, we go down to the 8 cores of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, still excellent for a powerful gaming setup and more suitable for those who do not need the computing power of the 12 or even 16 core Ryzen 5000.

Lowered the shot with the processor, we also do it with the GPU, in this case an EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 XC3, a spartan but valid card that can also be found on the European market for around 750 euros. It is difficult for the card to be available for a long time, but supplies should arrive while we wait for the prices to become more attractive to us too.



EXTRA Component Price PROCESSOR AMD Ryzen 9 5800X 3.8-4.7 GHz € 400.00 Noctua NH-D15 chromax-black heatsink 100.00 € MOTHERBOARD Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE 175.00 € EVGA VIDEO CARD GeForce RTX 3070 XC3 8 GB 745.00 € RAM G.Skill Trident Z RGB 2x16GB DDR4 3600MHz CL16 240,00 € ANTEC POWER SUPPLY HCG-850 80+ Gold 140,00 € HARD DISK Samsung 980 PRO SSD 1TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 195,00 € CASE MSI MPG Gungnir 110R Mid Tower 125,00 € TOTAL 2120.00 €

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