Intel Arc A770

[efikkan]

I think targeting DX12 and RT is normal - that's where we need more performance. DX11 and older games already run well enough on basically anything (except for a couple titles on Arc).

I want Intel to succeed myself, and I really want to buy an A770 to play with it, but a couple of things hold me back:
1. Drivers.

Well, it's not necessarily wrong to think like performance only matters for the latest titles, and the rest are fine as long as they reach a decent performance level (e.g. 120 FPS, good consistency). But thinking that ignoring anything but DirectX 12 titles is going to paint a different picture, then you're mistaken. Let's go down the rabbit hole…

At 1440p, if you only account for DirectX 12 titles, RTX 3060 Ti is still 13% faster than A770 (compared to 17% with all games), similarly RTX 3060 goes from being 10% slower to 14% slower with only DirectX 12 titles. So barely a significant difference, not enough to bump it up a performance tier or two. If you look closely, there are very few games where A770 can beat RTX 3060 Ti, if anything the few times it does seems more like statistical outliers than anything. What's even more concerning if you study the numbers is that the performance characteristics in DirectX 12 games vary a lot more than DirectX 11 games, which makes sense as the quality of the game code affects the performance the more control the game has. If you remember the article about Intel's official performance figures for A770, their DirectX 12 results showcased a much "better" results vs. RTX 3060 Ti, but as I pointed out in that thread, they used a lot of obscure Unreal titles which made up a large portion of the "favorable" games, so in no doubt they had cherry-picked games to make A770 look like it's better for DirectX 12 games and "future" games.

There is an interesting historical parallel; The Radeon 200/300 series was supposed to be better than Nvidia based on a few cherry-picked games, e.g. AotS. Even back then I pointed out these to be statistical outliers, but people claimed these counted more, as they somehow represented future games. This myth lived on with 400/500 series and Vega, along with the magical driver optimizations which never arrived.

So in conclusion, there is no technical or statistical basis to claim that ARC Alchemist is going to be viewed more favorable as DirectX 12 games become more dominant, and it's extremely unlikely that future games is going to bump it up a performance tier or two. Remember that based on the specs of this chip we should expect it to perform in the RTX 3080 range, but it doesn't come close to this, not from lacking drivers or faulty games, but from terribly performing hardware. No amount of driver tinkering and new games is going to paint a very different picture. And lastly don't forget that A770 only managed to hit >120 FPS in one of the DirectX 12 games, and assuming future games will be more demanding, A770 is not even going to be regarded as a 1440p card any more.

 

[big_glasses]

What's considered running "well enough"? (I hate that form of referring to perf, given everybody has different acceptable levels. which again might be different depending on games)

I'll assume for this card that's 1080p@60fps?

If it's 60fps, then it's a couple that is just about or under, GoW(dx11) being 60fps on the point (which probably means dips up and down), BL3(Dx11) is weird, but very low. and TW:WH3 is also below, but is strategy so more acceptable and presumably can reduce settings to boost fps (which I guess is applicable for all...)
BF V(dx11) with a very acceptable 112fps have almost a 40fps drop in the avg to 99th percentile fps

edti: I'd love if a dx9 game or two was added to the test bench (and a unity-engine game)

 

[AusWolf]

Well, it's not necessarily wrong to think like performance only matters for the latest titles, and the rest are fine as long as they reach a decent performance level (e.g. 120 FPS, good consistency).

This is exactly what I mean. Older titles require fewer resources, so they tend to run well enough even without driver optimizations. In HuB's review, the A770 was deemed a failure because it only delivered 120 FPS in CS:GO while everything else in the price range did well above 300. I can't speak for others, but 120 FPS is way more than I'll ever need in any game. The "you paid for more performance than that" argument is understandable, except that I literally can't tell the difference between 120 and 300 FPS, especially not on my 60 Hz monitor.

At 1440p, if you only account for DirectX 12 titles, RTX 3060 Ti is still 13% faster than A770 (compared to 17% with all games), similarly RTX 3060 goes from being 10% slower to 14% slower with only DirectX 12 titles. So barely a significant difference, not enough to bump it up a performance tier or two. If you look closely, there are very few games where A770 can beat RTX 3060 Ti, if anything the few times it does seems more like statistical outliers than anything. What's even more concerning if you study the numbers is that the performance characteristics in DirectX 12 games vary a lot more than DirectX 11 games, which makes sense as the quality of the game code affects the performance the more control the game has. If you remember the article about Intel's official performance figures for A770, their DirectX 12 results showcased a much "better" results vs. RTX 3060 Ti, but as I pointed out in that thread, they used a lot of obscure Unreal titles which made up a large portion of the "favorable" games, so in no doubt they had cherry-picked games to make A770 look like it's better for DirectX 12 games and "future" games.

It's the same lesson that we're being taught at every launch: never believe internal marketing numbers.

So in conclusion, there is no technical or statistical basis to claim that ARC Alchemist is going to be viewed more favorable as DirectX 12 games become more dominant, and it's extremely unlikely that future games is going to bump it up a performance tier or two. Remember that based on the specs of this chip we should expect it to perform in the RTX 3080 range, but it doesn't come close to this, not from lacking drivers or faulty games, but from terribly performing hardware. No amount of driver tinkering and new games is going to paint a very different picture. And lastly don't forget that A770 only managed to hit >120 FPS in one of the DirectX 12 games, and assuming future games will be more demanding, A770 is not even going to be regarded as a 1440p card any more.

Maybe not in DX12 in general, but in RT perhaps - their hardware seems to be quite capable, keeping pace with the 2080 in Control and Cyberpunk, and even passing it in Metro: Exodus while Radeon cards just completely lose their sh*t when RT is on.

 

[trsttte]

Probably. The question is, is that due to the beta driver, or is it by design?

On the Intel Discord someone mentioned that's caused by lack of PCIe Active-state power management (ASPM) but I believe that should be a pretty common feature so maybe it's some driver/firmware weirdness in arc cards. Definetely not ideal, those idle and basic use power draws are pretty brutal.

 

[AusWolf]

On the Intel Discord someone mentioned that's caused by lack of PCIe Active-state power management (ASPM) but I believe that should be a pretty common feature so maybe it's some driver/firmware weirdness in arc cards. Definetely not ideal, those idle and basic use power draws are pretty brutal.

Yeah. That's what's keeping me from buying one right now (apart from availability). Part of me is giving that reference 6750 XT more and more thought.

 

[RandallFlagg]

Yeah. That's what's keeping me from buying one right now (apart from availability). Part of me is giving that reference 6750 XT more and more thought.

AMD has everyone beat in the price/perf category for GPUs right now. Although, I noticed some price inflation on the 6700 XT in the last 2 weeks. For a little bit there, you could get one for $379. They seem to be back up to $420 now.

Intel has another ace up the sleeve though. Bundled software. I don't usually assign 'free' software any real value, because typically you're looking at either one game which I will never play, or a few months of a subscription service which I won't renew.

In this case though, it's pretty massive. You get all of the games listed (though one is in-game content), and can select 3 of the image/video editing packages. A couple of these media editing packages are subscriptions, but 3 of them are full packages, and after looking them up they are not gimmicky cheap packages.

This is apparently available to not only discrete, but mobile ARC. Anyone looking to get into content creation but doesn't want to get stuck with subscriptions to Adobe, or maybe just wants to get off of such a subscription, this is a pretty compelling option.

This is Gigapixel AI upscaling from a review on youtube.

 

[AusWolf]

AMD has everyone beat in the price/perf category for GPUs right now. Although, I noticed some price inflation on the 6700 XT in the last 2 weeks. For a little bit there, you could get one for $379. They seem to be back up to $420 now.

Intel has another ace up the sleeve though. Bundled software. I don't usually assign 'free' software any real value, because typically you're looking at either one game which I will never play, or a few months of a subscription service which I won't renew.

In this case though, it's pretty massive. You get all of the games listed (though one is in-game content), and can select 3 of the image/video editing packages. A couple of these media editing packages are subscriptions, but 3 of them are full packages, and after looking them up they are not gimmicky cheap packages.

This is apparently available to not only discrete, but mobile ARC. Anyone looking to get into content creation but doesn't want to get stuck with subscriptions to Adobe, or maybe just wants to get off of such a subscription, this is a pretty compelling option.

View attachment 264862


This is Gigapixel AI upscaling from a review on youtube.

View attachment 264864

Nice. Although I'm on your side - bundled software doesn't interest me 99% of the time. The games that I want to play, I already have (mostly). My Steam wishlist consists mainly of slightly overpriced indie games, waiting for a discount. Those will never be bundled with anything.

 

[RandallFlagg]

Nice. Although I'm on your side - bundled software doesn't interest me 99% of the time. The games that I want to play, I already have (mostly). My Steam wishlist consists mainly of slightly overpriced indie games, waiting for a discount. Those will never be bundled with anything.

Yup, the games are of near zero value to me.

However, the media software is different. I think I could, for me, ascribe about $100 of value to that pretty easily.

 

[efikkan]

Maybe not in DX12 in general, but in RT perhaps - their hardware seems to be quite capable, keeping pace with the 2080 in Control and Cyberpunk, and even passing it in Metro: Exodus while Radeon cards just completely lose their sh*t when RT is on.

The trend in RT is very comparable to how A750/A770 performs in gaming in general vs. their respective Nvidia counterparts. (AMD is a different story)
So if you consider A770 a "RTX 3060 Ti" class card (at best), then you'll see it also performs comparably to RTX 3060 Ti in RT too. There are only a few cases where it barely outperforms RTX 3060 Ti in RT. And matching RTX 2080 isn't impressive, as it's weaker than RTX 3060 Ti. So they may beat AMD in this area, but still doesn't make them a good option.

One thing which may make the competition even more difficult is Nvidia's impending RTX 3060/3060 Ti refreshes with faster memory, and then next year RTX 4060 will probably make A770 a hard sell.

 

[QUANTUMPHYSICS]

If Intel was building its own gaming PC with its own parts, this would be awesome in a $1000 machine.

Choosy moms choose 4090 tho...

 

[AusWolf]

I'll just drop this here.

This is how Intel ARC graphics save electricity while idle - iGamesNews

One of the most important points of a graphics card is power management. Since we're not interested in clock ramp-up periods that last longer than necessary.

igamesnews.com

 

[OneMoar]

I'll just drop this here.

This is how Intel ARC graphics save electricity while idle - iGamesNews

One of the most important points of a graphics card is power management. Since we're not interested in clock ramp-up periods that last longer than necessary.

igamesnews.com

brauh thats from MAY
and ASPM is a PCI-E spec literally every device supports it
and something most people turn off because it can lead to screwy behavior

I would expect nothing less from a site calling its self "igamesnews"
thats some quality tech journalism

 

[Solid State Brain]

I've read that "Native" ASPM needs to be enabled in BIOS settings for ARC gpus to have a good idle power consumption but I am skeptical that it will have any effect under the tested conditions in the TPU review.

On my PC it is necessary to enable it so that on Windows the discrete GPU can completely turn off when not used, in a hybrid graphics configuration (iGPU+dGPU), but I am not aware if with modern hardware that setting enables power savings even with an active display output with just one discrete GPU used in the system.

 

[trsttte]

I'll just drop this here.

This is how Intel ARC graphics save electricity while idle - iGamesNews

One of the most important points of a graphics card is power management. Since we're not interested in clock ramp-up periods that last longer than necessary.

igamesnews.com

From the article:

This is not an Intel-only feature, as many NVIDIA and AMD cards support this mode as it is a function of the PCI Express interface. However, it is usually not advertised. Of course, this has become one of the reasons why GPUs have become more efficient in recent years and have therefore been able to increase their performance per watt. Its support in Intel ARC should therefore not surprise us.

And only intel cards seem to have this problem, I don't know what to make of it. On my system hwinfo mentions ASPM with support for L1 as disabled and I have no bios option for that.

Might have to contact MSI to see what's up but in either case, this seems like an Intel problem (even if they are the only ones following spec, maybe first follow the established players who don't have this problem?)

 

[kapone32]

Nice. Although I'm on your side - bundled software doesn't interest me 99% of the time. The games that I want to play, I already have (mostly). My Steam wishlist consists mainly of slightly overpriced indie games, waiting for a discount. Those will never be bundled with anything.

Gotham iKnghts looks pretty good though

AMD has everyone beat in the price/perf category for GPUs right now. Although, I noticed some price inflation on the 6700 XT in the last 2 weeks. For a little bit there, you could get one for $379. They seem to be back up to $420 now.

Intel has another ace up the sleeve though. Bundled software. I don't usually assign 'free' software any real value, because typically you're looking at either one game which I will never play, or a few months of a subscription service which I won't renew.

In this case though, it's pretty massive. You get all of the games listed (though one is in-game content), and can select 3 of the image/video editing packages. A couple of these media editing packages are subscriptions, but 3 of them are full packages, and after looking them up they are not gimmicky cheap packages.

This is apparently available to not only discrete, but mobile ARC. Anyone looking to get into content creation but doesn't want to get stuck with subscriptions to Adobe, or maybe just wants to get off of such a subscription, this is a pretty compelling option.

View attachment 264862


This is Gigapixel AI upscaling from a review on youtube.

View attachment 264864

I might buy one of these for the curiosity but Gotham Knights has added an incentive. I don't play COD but I am sure that will be sweet too. I just hope it's not a scenario where you have to have the card installed to gain access to the Key. Gigapixel AI also looks very interesting too.

 

[Solid State Brain]

From the article:



And only intel cards seem to have this problem, I don't know what to make of it. On my system hwinfo mentions ASPM with support for L1 as disabled and I have no bios option for that.

Might have to contact MSI to see what's up but in either case, this seems like an Intel problem (even if they are the only ones following spec, maybe first follow the established players who don't have this problem?)

My 2016 Radeon RX480 supports ASPM L1 mode, that's presumably what allows it to turn completely off with the hybrid graphics configuration on my system. Perhaps L0 is the one which could allow idle power savings on Intel ARC GPUs? But I'm not going to purchase one just to find out.

Active State Power Management - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Currently, two low power modes are specified by the PCI Express 2.0 specification; L0s and L1 mode. L0s concerns setting low power mode for one direction of the serial link only, usually downstream of the PHY controller. L1 shuts off PCI Express link completely, including the reference clock signal, until a dedicated signal (CLKREQ#) is asserted, and results in greater power reductions though with the penalty of greater exit latency.

# lspci -vv

[...]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590] (rev c7) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: PC Partner Limited / Sapphire Technology Radeon RX 470/480
[...]
        Capabilities: [58] Express (v2) Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00
[...]
                LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 8GT/s, Width x16, ASPM L1, Exit Latency L1 <1us
                        ClockPM+ Surprise- LLActRep- BwNot- ASPMOptComp+
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
                        ExtSynch- ClockPM+ AutWidDis- BWInt- AutBWInt-

[...]
        Capabilities: [370 v1] L1 PM Substates
                L1SubCap: PCI-PM_L1.2+ PCI-PM_L1.1+ ASPM_L1.2+ ASPM_L1.1+ L1_PM_Substates+
                          PortCommonModeRestoreTime=0us PortTPowerOnTime=170us
                L1SubCtl1: PCI-PM_L1.2- PCI-PM_L1.1- ASPM_L1.2- ASPM_L1.1-
                           T_CommonMode=0us LTR1.2_Threshold=184320ns
                L1SubCtl2: T_PwrOn=170us
[...]

 

[kapone32]

AMD has everyone beat in the price/perf category for GPUs right now. Although, I noticed some price inflation on the 6700 XT in the last 2 weeks. For a little bit there, you could get one for $379. They seem to be back up to $420 now.

Intel has another ace up the sleeve though. Bundled software. I don't usually assign 'free' software any real value, because typically you're looking at either one game which I will never play, or a few months of a subscription service which I won't renew.

In this case though, it's pretty massive. You get all of the games listed (though one is in-game content), and can select 3 of the image/video editing packages. A couple of these media editing packages are subscriptions, but 3 of them are full packages, and after looking them up they are not gimmicky cheap packages.

This is apparently available to not only discrete, but mobile ARC. Anyone looking to get into content creation but doesn't want to get stuck with subscriptions to Adobe, or maybe just wants to get off of such a subscription, this is a pretty compelling option.

View attachment 264862


This is Gigapixel AI upscaling from a review on youtube.

View attachment 264864

I just copied this from the Magix website.
"Thanks to our partnership with Intel, we can now offer optimized Intel® Hyper Encode technology alongside Video Pro X. This means both graphics cards are simultaneously enabled on Intel desktop and laptop systems equipped with an onboard GPU and an additional Intel GPU, such as the brand-new Intel® Arc™. Hyper Encode accelerates rendering, so you can export your movie twice as fast* as with just one GPU."

Read more: https://www.magix.com/ca/video-editor/video-pro-x/new-features/
Follow us: Facebook

This could actually sell these cards if it is compelling enough. There could be a world where you have an Intel system with a AMD/Nvidia in the top x8 slot and a and ARC card in the 2nd slot (some MBs) and use that card for video processing and the first card for Gaming.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

I just copied this from the Magix website.
"Thanks to our partnership with Intel, we can now offer optimized Intel® Hyper Encode technology alongside Video Pro X. This means both graphics cards are simultaneously enabled on Intel desktop and laptop systems equipped with an onboard GPU and an additional Intel GPU, such as the brand-new Intel® Arc™. Hyper Encode accelerates rendering, so you can export your movie twice as fast* as with just one GPU."

Read more: https://www.magix.com/ca/video-editor/video-pro-x/new-features/
Follow us: Facebook

This could actually sell these cards if it is compelling enough. There could be a world where you have an Intel system with a AMD/Nvidia in the top x8 slot and a and ARC card in the 2nd slot (some MBs) and use that card for video processing and the first card for Gaming.

Most have a x4 slot too, I doubt it would need more than that. 30(40?)90 in the top slot at full x16, bottom slot A380 at x4 should do it.

I wonder if AMD can do that with their APU's or 7000 series iGPU's.

 

[AusWolf]

brauh thats from MAY
and ASPM is a PCI-E spec literally every device supports it
and something most people turn off because it can lead to screwy behavior

I would expect nothing less from a site calling its self "igamesnews"
thats some quality tech journalism

Is this it? I've always had it enabled without any issue.

 

[Solid State Brain]

On my MSI PRO Z690-A motherboard, if I don't enable "Native ASPM" the dGPU won't turn off on Windows (11) when not used (again, I have a hybrid graphics configuration and the video outputs are normally on the iGPU). However, on Linux that setting appears to be ignored; the dGPU will turn off anyway regardless of its state.

In other BIOS settings I can also enable L1 or L0s states for each PCIe device.

 

[solarmystic]

Thanks for the updated positioning boss! @W1zzard

 

[W1zzard]

Thanks for the updated positioning boss! @W1zzard

View attachment 265060

Yeah, I added A750, A770, RTX 4090. The Arcs have been on my list all this week, but I couldn't find any time with the FE review. Made good progress with the 7 custom design reviews today, all benchmarks and photos done, just text to write tomorrow

 

[AusWolf]

The bloody thing finally showed up at one of the UK stores for £389 and the A750 for £329. I'm still in dilemma whether I should get one of these or the 6750 XT for £469.

 

[RandallFlagg]

The bloody thing finally showed up at one of the UK stores for £389 and the A750 for £329. I'm still in dilemma whether I should get one of these or the 6750 XT for £469.

Honestly unless you want some of the software that comes with the Intel A770, or unless everything you want to play is DX12 or Vulkan, I'd say the 6750 XT.

I'd like to get the software, I have some use for the image and video editors.

I think that is only for the Intel branded models though. I haven't seen any of the AIB models except a couple of the ASRock ones, and it was both hard to find and sold out.

This is a very strange launch. I get the impression it is being done like a big pre-launch beta test. Like Intel doesn't want too many out there because they don't want to deal with a big volume of support calls.

 

[kapone32]

Looks like the software is only available in the US as I see nothing about a free software here in Canada.