Credit: Brad Chacos/IDG
Power draw, thermals, and noise
We test power draw by looping the F1 2020 benchmark at 4K for about 20 minutes after we’ve benchmarked everything else. We note the highest reading on our Watts Up Pro meter, which measures the power consumption of our entire test system. The initial part of the race, where all competing cars are onscreen simultaneously, tends to be the most demanding portion.
This isn’t a worst-case test; this is a GPU-bound game running at a GPU-bound resolution to gauge performance when the graphics card is sweating hard. If you’re playing a game that also hammers the CPU, you could see higher overall system power draws. Consider yourself warned.
Brad Chacos/IDGThe Radeon RX 6600 XT draws less much power than the GeForce RTX 3060 (and RX 5600 XT) despite being tangibly faster, even in this hot-rod ROG Strix incarnation. And while the RTX 3060 Ti is noticeably faster still, it draws over 100 watts more from the wall than AMD’s new GPU. Enough said.
We test thermals by leaving GPU-Z open during the F1 2020 power draw test, noting the highest maximum temperature at the end.
Brad Chacos/IDGThis high-end ROG Strix boasts a fantastically frigid cooling design that runs quietly, too. The RX 6600 XT version of the Strix may be pared down significantly from the higher-end models, but it still burns rubber.
Next page: Should you buy the Radeon RX 6600 XT?
