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Intel Arc Discussion

maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Broadwell
Original poster
May 3, 2009
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The review/benchmark embargo has been lifted and the rumors are correct, the Intel A770 is no faster then a RTX 3060. I think more competition is better for us consumers and I'll not be lying given the price point., I may take the plunge. (Changed my mind, I'm steering clear of the A770)

Looking deeper at the benchmarks, the A770 does REALLY poorly at 1080p, it performs a lot better at 1440P.

 
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Another review, and Steve here goes on with a recommendation of not to buy it. After seeing these reviews, I'll have to agree. Watching these reviews, the AMD 6600XT appears to be a better option.
 
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That Linus video title ha. Linus = MKBHD of the computer world. Lots of privilege but effectively reduced to a couple safe “jabs” at the company in order to not seem like a shill then the rest of the review is something you could get off the manufacturer’s website.

Gamers Nexus are the only real ones these days.
 
Anyone purchasing these are purchasing a beta product.

That being said, Intel is entering an extremely competitive, difficult market to get into. For a first attempt, the cards are impressive enough to have grabbed everyone's attention to see what comes from the second or third generations.
 
TSE said:
Anyone purchasing these are purchasing a beta product.
Click to expand...
But they shouldn't. This product has been delayed for so long that they missed a window of opportunity, i.e., provide some cards when the miners were grabbing all of the other cards. I forget where I saw it, its one of the many YT reviews I watched tore apart their card and saw the date stamp - it was manufactured last February. So they've been sitting in a warehouse for 8 months

TSE said:
For a first attempt, the cards are impressive enough
Click to expand...
I'm underwhelmed. I really wanted to like the cards, and I was planning on taking the plunge but that was before seeing/reading/watching the reviews.

The reviews all seem to follow a similar formula, Teething issues, prevent the cards from fully spreading their wings, older games have problems. You need to have Rebar enabled, and YTers basically begging for people to buy it, so that Intel becomes a viable third option.

What is odd is Intel's decision to drop DX9 support and instead uses DirectX 12 to emulate DX9. This results in older games, like CS:Go to perform horribly. The thing is, if this card is being positioned as a value buy it needs to be handle older games which it doesn't.
 
TSE said:
Anyone purchasing these are purchasing a beta product.

That being said, Intel is entering an extremely competitive, difficult market to get into. For a first attempt, the cards are impressive enough to have grabbed everyone's attention to see what comes from the second or third generations.
Click to expand...
I think that the advantage they have going for them is that they can only really go up from here. The lion's share of the work is behind them and within a couple of generations, I do think they will be making cards that are fairly competitive for the midrange market. The first generation of a product is very rarely the version that sells the world on its potential.

Even in their current state, they are more than good enough for someone like me who occasionally plays games but doesn't really need to maximize every ounce of performance. I'm not in the market to build a desktop, but if I were, I would very likely buy one of the new Intel cards for it. They seem like a good value to me.
 
maflynn said:
But they shouldn't. This product has been delayed for so long that they missed a window of opportunity, i.e., provide some cards when the miners were grabbing all of the other cards. I forget where I saw it, its one of the many YT reviews I watched tore apart their card and saw the date stamp - it was manufactured last February. So they've been sitting in a warehouse for 8 months


I'm underwhelmed. I really wanted to like the cards, and I was planning on taking the plunge but that was before seeing/reading/watching the reviews.

The reviews all seem to follow a similar formula, Teething issues, prevent the cards from fully spreading their wings, older games have problems. You need to have Rebar enabled, and YTers basically begging for people to buy it, so that Intel becomes a viable third option.

What is odd is Intel's decision to drop DX9 support and instead uses DirectX 12 to emulate DX9. This results in older games, like CS:Go to perform horribly. The thing is, if this card is being positioned as a value buy it needs to be handle older games which it doesn't.
Click to expand...

It has problems because it's a beta. And I agree. The vast majority of people should not buy it. But as a first release for such a technical product, they did one major thing correct - they hit a price per dollar ratio that is extremely impressive. Everything surrounding it, sure they didn't succeed. But let's give it a couple generations. I don't see anything bad coming from another competitor in the space, because AMD and NVDA need a kick in the keester right about now.
 
TSE said:
It has problems because it's a beta.
Click to expand...
My contention is that it really shouldn't be. There's no excuse for a company such as Intel to not only have delayed this for so long but seemingly made few if any improvements since the delay..

Intel Arc A730M High-End Mobility GPU Still Slower Than RTX 3060M Despite Latest Drivers, Reviews Show Lackluster Gaming Performance

That linked story is from June, I'm not sure how high-end it can be considered when the 3060 is beating it. Conversely GTX class cards are beating it in cs:go

TSE said:
But let's give it a couple generations
Click to expand...
That's the begging I'm hearing from influencers but as a consumer its hard to consider this card when its slower, problem filled and from a company that hasn't had a great track record. I'm not so sure they have the intestinal fortitude to produce a second or third generation if few people buys this card.

Don't get me wrong, I want them to succeed, i was considering them, as the news was being released this past year or so, but as the reviews came out, and given that this was supposed to come out at the beginning of the year, its hard to back them now and in the future.
 
I think the bigger issue here is not who is in the game, but rather, who is changing the game? These graphics cards have become larger and larger and require more and more power... eventually California is going to announce no new AMD or nVIDIA GPUs will be sold in the state after 2023 (just kiddin').

There is a point in which their current architecture direction is going to hit the ceiling. And I think that day is closer than many think it is.
 
TSE said:
For a first attempt, the cards are impressive enough
Click to expand...
What do you mean "first attempt"? This is the third time Intel is trying to enter the discrete GPU market, and by now they have decades of experience with integrated GPUs.
 
This is their previous attempt at a dGPU. Still have one somewhere in the closet.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/i740.c1288
1288-front.small.jpg
 
What's kind of surprising is the relative ray tracing performance compared to their performance in everything else.

If Intel sticks with it, I think they'll end up with a very competitive product. But certainly, not the greatest start.
 
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GoldfishRT said:
relative ray tracing performance
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What's odd to me is the whole notion of ray tracing, I've seen it in some games, and yes it does add a level of realism, but its not a hugely important feature. I don't know too many gamers who put ray tracing is the must have feature in games.

While the Arc GPUs have very impressive ray tracing metrics, I think most of us would rather see better FPS. I like older games, so these GPUs are a not for me just because of that.
 
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maflynn said:
While the Arc GPUs have very impressive ray tracing metrics, I think most of us would rather see better FPS.
Click to expand...

No disagreement from me. I don’t particularly care about ray tracing right now either. The only game I usually end up playing on my PC is TF2. Arc would be a horrendous choice for me based on the performance of DX9 games.

I will say the fully rt Metro is an extremely impressive example of what rt can be however. And in a world where the two major players are offering broadly similar performance and price, rt is one of few differentiating features.
 
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maflynn said:
What's odd to me is the whole notion of ray tracing, I've seen it in some games, and yes it does add a level of realism, but its not a hugely important feature. I don't know too many gamers who put ray tracing is the must have feature in games.

While the Arc GPUs have very impressive ray tracing metrics, I think most of us would rather see better FPS. I like older games, so these GPUs are a not for me just because of that.
Click to expand...

Ray tracing also really helps things like 3D Rendering, I believe. I got out of industrial design right when the nVidia 2000 series came out and Ray Tracing became a big deal, so I might be wrong, but I do remember designers all talking about how Ray Tracing really improved both the realism of product renderings and the speed in which they were completed. I'm not sure nvidia will be beat anytime soon though as they have those CUDA cores and the software support that always put them at an advantage even at the times when AMD Graphics Cards had relative performance advantages.
 
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I think this is an OEM/PC manufacturer play. Intel will discount CPU/GPU combos to try to take share away from NVIDIA and AMD. This launch is just to get the public aware that these new cards are on-par with the 3060. Even if they're not on par with the 3060, the vast majority of consumers won't look into it further.

Regardless, it's great there's at least more competition.
 
maflynn said:
What's odd to me is the whole notion of ray tracing, I've seen it in some games, and yes it does add a level of realism, but its not a hugely important feature. I don't know too many gamers who put ray tracing is the must have feature in games.

While the Arc GPUs have very impressive ray tracing metrics, I think most of us would rather see better FPS. I like older games, so these GPUs are a not for me just because of that.
Click to expand...
How many FPS though?
 
ondioline said:
this is what gets me. how are the drivers this crappy when they've had an iGPU on every processor since 2011? defies explanation
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Because iGPU's are different from dGPU's? Also most of the driver updates for dGPU's are to fix issues in games (and other bugs found). Intel has never done that for iGPU's.
 
diamond.g said:
Because iGPU's are different from dGPU's? Also most of the driver updates for dGPU's are to fix issues in games (and other bugs found). Intel has never done that for iGPU's.
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Uhh yeah, they do lol. Quite often in fact:
www.intel.com

Download Intel Drivers and Software

Download new and previously released drivers including support software, bios, utilities, firmware and patches for Intel products.
www.intel.com www.intel.com
Intel® Game On Driver support on 11th Generation Intel Core™ Processors with Xe Graphics and newer for:
  • Overwatch 2* (DX12)
Click to expand...
 
ondioline said:
Uhh yeah, they do lol. Quite often in fact:
www.intel.com

Download Intel Drivers and Software

Download new and previously released drivers including support software, bios, utilities, firmware and patches for Intel products.
www.intel.com www.intel.com
Click to expand...
Huh, interesting. Swear they didn't do that for iGPU's before the Xe line.

Either way Intel has admitted that the iGPU drivers don't work for the dGPU's they sell. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-blames-poor-software-for-arc-delays-shipments-miss
 
Anyone excited about this new GPU?

Full disclosure, I will not be buying one. As of this post, the ARC is mainly aimed at the RTX/GTX x060 segment. Hence, not that much too be excited on the higher end of the line. Also, software support to push the GPU (overclock) is limited at best.
 
I'm interested. I like the idea of a new competitor. I've heard the drivers leave something to be desired, but that's not surprising. They will get better with new updates. I'm thinking of building a new PC soon and I may choose an Intel ARC for my system (I'm not a gamer or a high-end graphics user).
 
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