Sparkle Arc A380 Genie

[W1zzard]

With a compact low-profile design and slot-powered operation, the Sparkle Arc A380 Genie prioritizes efficiency and affordability. Priced at just $125, it offers a budget-friendly option compared to big-brand competitors, but gaming performance won't match higher-priced alternatives either.

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[Chrispy_]

If this is only suitable for old games, isn't one of the major caveats with the Arc lineup that they don't have DX9 or DX11 support and end up emulating it with varying degrees of success resulting in anywhere from acceptable (but lower) performance, all the way down to the game failing to launch no matter what you try?

 

[Denver]

For that price I'll buy some and then figure out what I can do with them. @W1zzard

 

[geniekid]

Could be interesting to see how this compares to some of the iGPU stuff out there, particularly the AMD 8700G.

 

[3valatzy]

It's known.

The GA107 graphics processor is an average sized chip with a die area of 200 mm² and 8,700 million transistors.

Could be interesting to see how this compares to some of the iGPU stuff out there, particularly the AMD 8700G.

On par?

AMD Ryzen 7 8700G Review

AMD's Ryzen 7 8700G is an excellent single-chip gaming solution, especially for small PCs that can't house a graphics card, but it just can't beat a conventional CPU and GPU combination on price/performance.

www.pcmag.com

 

[GodisanAtheist]

This is the kind of review that really makes me wish for a TPU retro review.

I have an MSI Armor 980Ti in my steam box (6800XT in my main), and I sort of loiter on the used market to see if there is something good around $100 that would really be a big upgrade in terms performance, but its aggravating trying to pin down my 980ti's relative performance vs other used cards and current gen new cards.

TPU should do a retro review with the current test suite with the top end from both brands for the last few generations (980ti/Fury X, 1080ti/Vega64, 2080ti/5700XT) to show where they fall in relative performance vs the new stuff. If we know how the top end card performs we can kinda guesstimate where cards lower in the stack with the same arch fall as well. Also keeps the number of tested cards to a minimum.

As cards get pricier and people keep their cards for longer or shop the used market more, retro reviews will become a lot more relevant to a lot more people and get TPU some additional hits.

If I recall correctly my 980Ti is roughly 1070/1660S/3050 8GB speeds, but those were with older games on older suites and I don't know if it has fallen further behind in newer games using more advanced rendering techniques.

 

[kapone32]

It's known.

View attachment 335867





On par?

View attachment 335868

AMD Ryzen 7 8700G Review

AMD's Ryzen 7 8700G is an excellent single-chip gaming solution, especially for small PCs that can't house a graphics card, but it just can't beat a conventional CPU and GPU combination on price/performance.

www.pcmag.com

Ouch

 

[ghazi]

This was refreshing until I saw the performance. $125 isn't a great price. Besides for a display driver, who is buying RX 470 performance at an RX 470 sale price 8 years later. Insane.

 

[Selaya]

can we have the a2000 listed as comparison in these low profile card reviews

 

[AusWolf]

I nearly fell in love with this thing, considering that it's basically a cheaper RX 6400 with much better RT performance, but then...

What the heck? They seriously released this card with a faulty BIOS?

 

[W1zzard]

Could be interesting to see how this compares to some of the iGPU stuff out there, particularly the AMD 8700G.

I roughly matches 8700G in gaming performance

It's known.

Yeah I know we're listing it on our DB, but I haven't seen any official numbers and t4cfantasy couldnt tell me where he got the number from

can we have the a2000 listed as comparison in these low profile card reviews

I don't have the card anymore, so I can't run it on the current bench

 

[mtosev]

Interesting non gaming office card.

 

[neatfeatguy]

This is the kind of review that really makes me wish for a TPU retro review.

I have an MSI Armor 980Ti in my steam box (6800XT in my main), and I sort of loiter on the used market to see if there is something good around $100 that would really be a big upgrade in terms performance, but its aggravating trying to pin down my 980ti's relative performance vs other used cards and current gen new cards.

TPU should do a retro review with the current test suite with the top end from both brands for the last few generations (980ti/Fury X, 1080ti/Vega64, 2080ti/5700XT) to show where they fall in relative performance vs the new stuff. If we know how the top end card performs we can kinda guesstimate where cards lower in the stack with the same arch fall as well. Also keeps the number of tested cards to a minimum.

As cards get pricier and people keep their cards for longer or shop the used market more, retro reviews will become a lot more relevant to a lot more people and get TPU some additional hits.

If I recall correctly my 980Ti is roughly 1070/1660S/3050 8GB speeds, but those were with older games on older suites and I don't know if it has fallen further behind in newer games using more advanced rendering techniques.

980Ti ~ 1070 ~ 1660/1660Ti ~ RTX 3050 6GB

Which means for AMD side the 980Ti falls between the RX 6500XT and the RX 6600.

If you want a GPU comparison review, Techspot did some a few years back, comparing the 980Ti to more current cards of the time:

A Blast from the Past: GeForce GTX 980 Ti vs. GTX 1660 Ti vs. RTX 2060

Today we're revisiting the GeForce GTX 980 Ti to see how it stacks up to the newly released RTX 2060 and GTX 1660 Ti, particularly in more...

www.techspot.com

GeForce GTX 980 Ti Revisited: How does it fare against the GTX 1070 and RTX 2060?

Today we're revisiting an old friend, the GeForce GTX 980 Ti and we're doing so with a 36 game benchmark covering the 1080p and 1440p resolutions. We're...

www.techspot.com

 

[Nostras]

This is the kind of review that really makes me wish for a TPU retro review.

I have an MSI Armor 980Ti in my steam box (6800XT in my main), and I sort of loiter on the used market to see if there is something good around $100 that would really be a big upgrade in terms performance, but its aggravating trying to pin down my 980ti's relative performance vs other used cards and current gen new cards.

TPU should do a retro review with the current test suite with the top end from both brands for the last few generations (980ti/Fury X, 1080ti/Vega64, 2080ti/5700XT) to show where they fall in relative performance vs the new stuff. If we know how the top end card performs we can kinda guesstimate where cards lower in the stack with the same arch fall as well. Also keeps the number of tested cards to a minimum.

As cards get pricier and people keep their cards for longer or shop the used market more, retro reviews will become a lot more relevant to a lot more people and get TPU some additional hits.

If I recall correctly my 980Ti is roughly 1070/1660S/3050 8GB speeds, but those were with older games on older suites and I don't know if it has fallen further behind in newer games using more advanced rendering techniques.

No need to recall correctly, you can check the card specs @ TPU itself here.

Intel Arc A380 Specs

Intel DG2-128, 2050 MHz, 1024 Cores, 64 TMUs, 32 ROPs, 6144 MB GDDR6, 1937 MHz, 96 bit

www.techpowerup.com

And you can see that the 980Ti is indeed comparable to the 3050, 1660S and 1070 albeit slower than all of them.

But I do agree on a retro, I'm curious if these numbers are still correct in practice nowadays.
I think it's safe to assume that the A380 will be a significant downgrade to the 980Ti however.

3050 6GB is a bit shit compared to the 3050 8GB and is noticeably worse than the 980Ti according to TPU's numbers.
But not A380 bad.

Unless you get lucky I'm going to say that you're not going to find anything useful for 100$. Going to be a sidegrade in performance at best.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

No need to recall correctly, you can check the card specs @ TPU itself here.

Intel Arc A380 Specs

Intel DG2-128, 2050 MHz, 1024 Cores, 64 TMUs, 32 ROPs, 6144 MB GDDR6, 1937 MHz, 96 bit

www.techpowerup.com

And you can see that the 980Ti is indeed comparable to the 3050, 1660S and 1070 albeit slower than all of them.

But I do agree on a retro, I'm curious if these numbers are still correct in practice nowadays.
I think it's safe to assume that the A380 will be a significant downgrade to the 980Ti however.

3050 6GB is a bit shit compared to the 3050 8GB and is noticeably worse than the 980Ti according to TPU's numbers.
But not A380 bad.

Unless you get lucky I'm going to say that you're not going to find anything useful for 100$. Going to be a sidegrade in performance at best.

Thanks, I'm aware of the numbers in TPU's database but there is no way those numbers are true to life anymore, they must be extrapolations based on past data since I can't imagine someone is running every single card ever made on an updated test suite. We already know stuff like Alan Wake 2 just takes a dump on some older hardware thanks to heavy use of Mesh Shaders, I'm sure there is more stuff like that out there.

There are some youtube channels that do a retro review Sunday (like zWormz) and they're great, but they also show a 980Ti starting to lag significantly behind the 1660s in more modern games like The Last of Us and Cyberpunk, which sort of makes sense between driver updates and architectural differences. I'd like to see those cards put against Wizzard's rigorous suite.

Would also make for some good catnip from a business perspective for TPU as GPU releases get less interesting and more staggered out.

 

[Onasi]

I struggle to see a point in this card. For office PCs? Not in the age of most CPUs having IGPs. HTPC? Not with that noise profile. Low-end gaming rig? Better used alternatives are aplenty and, again, APUs exist. I guess I could see it being sorta useful to breathe a new life into an old-ish (but not too old) PC with a CPU that lacks IGP. And you don’t want to go used. And you don’t want to play older games, since Intel still has issues with older APIs. And you don’t want new games either cause… well, performance is not great. So an extremely specific use case. It’s not even a good deal. It’s somehow worse performance for money than the 3050 6GB, and that card already is a meme.
The GPU market is f**ked beyond any sense, is what I am saying.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Better would have been 4x mini DP with HDMI dongle available to buy.

 

[3valatzy]

I struggle to see a point in this card.

Low-end gaming rig?

AMD's Radeon RX 6400 4GB and RX 6500 XT 4GB are even worse.

The GPU market is f**ked beyond any sense, is what I am saying.

This is, unfortunately, the truth.
TSMC ask 16,000$ for a 5 nm wafer. The bill of materials (cost of the components on the graphics card printed circuit board) for something high-end is higher than the SEP of this card.
RX 7900 XTX probably costs 200-250$ only to be made.

 

[Ruru]

This just makes me wonder that why the hell so many A380 cards have an 8-pin power connector? This works without any external power (though this is heavily underclocked version) just fine.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Oh wow. This card is no worth more than 50$ with taxes included. Are they delulu saleing this zombie slug with that price??

 

[Lew Zealand]

AMD's Radeon RX 6400 4GB and RX 6500 XT 4GB are even worse.

Not according to the very review you're commenting on:

That puts the 6400 and 1650 about the same as this card. Well at least the "3060" 6GB is better. At 50% higher cost, lol.

There are some youtube channels that do a retro review Sunday (like zWormz) and they're great, but they also show a 980Ti starting to lag significantly behind the 1660s in more modern games like The Last of Us and Cyberpunk, which sort of makes sense between driver updates and architectural differences. I'd like to see those cards put against Wizzard's rigorous suite.

I've been snooping these differences in TPU reviews and comparing cards from different gens that I own and the general trend is:

Pascal (and likely Maxwell) cards with similar DX11 performance as Turing and later will have have notably lower DX12 performance than Turing+. About 10-20%. There will be differences and individual game outliers, of course.

RDNA1 and 3 cards with similar DX12 performance to RDNA 2 will have lower DX11 performance than RDNA 2. 10-15% or so.

AMD vs NV is more complex because of all of the above. However Pascal vs RDNA1 is clear that if matched for DX11, RDNA1 is notably faster for DX12. Again, there are game exceptions.

I'd love to see the following put thru W1zz's suite:

960, 980
1060, 1080
1660 Super, 2080 Super
3060, 3080 Ti
4060, 4080 Super

470, 580
5600 XT, 5700 XT
6600 XT, 6800 XT
7700 XT, 7900 XT

The most recent 3 gens are in there already. But different data presentation: 2 graphs, DX11 and DX12 with the average fps of all games of each type. Graphed with a different color for each arch, line between the 2 cards. Maybe a 3rd graph containing the relative difference, which would show which lines are relatively stronger in DX11 vs DX12. As mentioned above I have my suspicions.

If I was looking for a old cheapie card for slightly older 1080p gaming, I'd go low end Turing or RDNA2, maybe RDNA1 if a good deal. But no older. Money where mouth is: I've bought a 5600 XT and 2060 Super recently so yeah I'm following this.

 

[Wasteland]

As far as I know, the A380 is the cheapest drop-in upgrade that can give you AV1 encode. That is worth something, to someone, somewhere, lol. I'm also pleased to see that the idle power on this card is much improved; last I heard, it was hanging out in the 40-watt range, along with all the rest of the Arc offerings. W1zzard now has it at about 13 W. Maybe this slot-powered variant is better than previous A380s? Or maybe I'm misremembering. Either way, if you want power efficient hardware video acceleration, you're still best off with an Intel IGP of recent-ish vintage, unless you absolutely require AV1 encode, which doesn't seem very likely.

I think this card has a bigger audience than the RTX 3050 6GB, which is much stronger at gaming, but not stronger enough to be a good buy at $180--but that is faint praise. The fan curve issue highlighted by AusWolf doesn't help matters. I'm rooting for Intel's GPU division; they've made great strides, but first-gen Arc has too many rough edges to earn a solid rec at any price point, and for almost any use case. You have to be the sort of person who wants to tinker. Oddly, that criticism is probably most relevant for this lowest-of-low-end card, which is so very close to an ideal general-purpose display-out product. I can put up with fan noise on a $500 GPU running demanding games. On this card, and especially at idle, it's unforgiveable.

 

[3valatzy]

Not according to the very review you're commenting on

How conveniently to use only the graphs that fit your claim?

This card has 6 GB of VRAM, which is still better than the 4 GB found in both RX 6400 and 6500 XT.
Also, when showing that 1K result, you should clarify that's the current AMD driver helping.
But if you take a look at the more serious graphics loads where the card is pushed to its limits, you will see that you are wrong:

4K:

This is without even mentioning that the poor RX 6400 and RX 6500 XT lack features such as AV1, H.262 MPEG-2, JPEG, video codec accelerators.

 

[Nostras]

How conveniently to use only the graphs that fit your claim?

This card has 6 GB of VRAM, which is still better than the 4 GB found in both RX 6400 and 6500 XT.
Also, when showing that 1K result, you should clarify that's the current AMD driver helping.
But if you take a look at the more serious graphics loads where the card is pushed to its limits, you will see that you are wrong:

4K:
View attachment 335989

This is without even mentioning that the poor RX 6400 and RX 6500 XT lack features such as AV1, H.262 MPEG-2, JPEG, video codec accelerators.

Are you unironically trying to prove your point by referring to 4k results when talking about an A380 and 6500XT?
Much more likely the memory itself is the problem here, but no sane person should consider either of those for gaming on 4k.
Anything more than 1080p is just asking for trouble

 

[3valatzy]

Are you unironically trying to prove your point by referring to 4k results when talking about an A380 and 6500XT?
Much more likely the memory itself is the problem here, but no sane person should consider either of those for gaming on 4k.
Anything more than 1080p is just asking for trouble

These cards are fine for 4K. Just lower your expectations - run StarCraft 2, CS GO or CS 2 at 4K, it will be just fine.

I tried 4K gaming with an ancient Radeon RX 560, and this thing here is much faster.