AMD Radeon RX 7600 Reference Design
In a nice change of pace, AMD has decided to create its own reference design for the RX 7600. We don't know how widely available it will be, but it follows the same aesthetic and design language as the RX 7900 XTX / XT. But, of course, this is more of a budget offering, or at least a mainstream GPU, so there's no RGB lighting or other frills.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, though! We're well past the saturation point for RGB effects, and sometimes you just want a card that does what it's supposed to do without screaming, "Look at me!" If you're building a compact mini-ITX or micro-ATX PC to go in a bedroom, for example, having zero lights would be a good thing.
AMD's MBA ("Made By AMD") design is black with red highlights, basically like a miniature take on the RX 7900 XT MBA design. There are two fans with integrated rims, the same 78mm diameter as the 7900 XT fans. (The 7900 XTX has larger 84mm fans, if you're wondering.)
AMD's reference RX 7600 measures 204x109x40 mm and weighs 752g. It's a pretty dense feeling card, in other words, but it seems like it should keep the GPU cool. By way of comparison, the PowerColor RX 6650 XT measures 220x132x45mm and weighs 740g, while the XFX RX 6600 is 243x114x39 mm and weighs 615g. As we'll see later, however, while the cooler looks sufficient, it's not quite as robust as some AIB cards.
As you'd expect from AMD, there's a single 8-pin power connector — no 16-pin silliness here. It's a bit interesting that AMD has a 165W TBP (total board power) rating for the vanilla RX 7600, considering the previous generation RX 6600 had a 132W TBP. Still, either way, a single 8-pin connector should be more than sufficient.
AMD's card has the usual three DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR13.5 (54 Gbps) ports plus a single HDMI 2.1 port (48 Gbps). This is one area where AMD's latest generation hardware exceeds Nvidia's Ada design, which still uses DisplayPort 1.4a. Naturally, you'll need a DisplayPort 2.1 monitor or TV hooked up before the added functionality matters, and considering the cost, it likely won't matter to most RX 7600 buyers. Still, it's there should you ever need to power a 4K 240Hz monitor without using DSC (Display Stream Compression) — or you could potentially use a 4K 480Hz display with DSC.
Our test setup incidentally uses a Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 32-inch monitor, which supports 4K and 240Hz via DSC. It only supports DP1.4a, but it looks great and works fine on all the latest-generation GPUs, in my experience.
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