Monday, August 21st 2023
Intel Overclocks Arc A380 with a Driver Update
Intel Graphics figured out a unique way to step up performance of its entry-level Arc A380 graphics cards. While other companies prevent BIOS updates and generally discourage overclocking; Intel has given the A380 a free vendor overclock. With the latest Arc GPU Graphics drivers 101.4644 WHQL, Intel has increased the base frequency of the GPU. The driver installer includes a firmware update besides the driver. The A380 has a reference base clock of 2000 MHz, which boosts up to 2050 MHz. With the latest 101.4644 drivers (the new firmware), the base frequency has been increased to 2150 MHz. It's not much, but hey, who doesn't want a free 7.5% overclock to go with their recent 19% performance increase in DirectX 11 games, and over 40% increase in DirectX 9 ones?
Source:
Neowin.net
32 Comments on Intel Overclocks Arc A380 with a Driver Update
And heck, Intel is currently in the very fragile spot so they need anything to stay competitive. A couple percent free speed will definitely improve their reputation.
"Our GPU is a single digit % faster than competition" doesn't sound as convincing as "our GPU is a double digit % faster than competition" after all.
But yeah given the target market, this will be a change that will be appreciated even if consumers are ignorant of it.
It's still just a pig, just a tad prettier, hehehe :)
6 GB is a problem when we're talking GPUs above the lowest possible tiers. The core can provide with playable performance but is handicapped by anemic VRAM amount (e.g. 3070 Ti which is capable of outperforming RX 6800... only if the game doesn't need more than 8 GB of VRAM). A380 is not the case. It has more VRAM it can reasonably use. This GPU needs higher clocks and better drivers. Not more VRAM.
VRAM bandwidth is as important as the amount - it's just that the every time RAM modules double in density, you need double the VRAM for the same capacity and that's hard to justify on cheaper cards.
6GB GDDR6, 96 bit on the A380
To go 128 bit they'd need 8GB of VRAM and then it's the same issue, the bandwidth is low for the RAM amount still.
To go 192 bit 6GB they'd have to use twice as many RAM chips, increasing the cost of the PCB design as well as the higher cost of the VRAM, changing its price point drastically - even the little things like extra power consumption stack up
Look at the stutter show in actual gameplay:
From ArsTechnica - "In a recent driver update, we changed the reported graphics clock of the A380," an Intel spokesperson told Ars. "Actual performance and frequency were not affected and we are working on an update to revert the change in a future driver update."
The changes to vulkan were the biggest, things like this just add more on top. These are an entry level gaming card, designed to add more monitor outputs, encoding/decoding capabilities and such... but the buffs to performance are definitely worth knowing about as day one reviews wont have those in their results.
pity the clock speed was an error, maybe they can OC higher now?
Hell, let's just benchmark a GTX1050ti with CyberPunk2077 while we're at it...
Context is important. You're missing it, or maybe you're deliberately shitposting, who knows at all...