ASRock Launches Low-Profile Arc A310 Graphics Card

[GFreeman]

ASRock has rather silently introduced a low-profile Arc A310 graphics card. This entry-level Intel Arc graphics card is based on the ACM-G11 GPU with 6 Xe Cores. Interestingly, it uses the same low-profile dual-slot cooler with two small fans, just as the previously introduced low-profile Arc A380 graphics card.

Obviously aimed at entry-level small form factor configurations, as well as any other scenario when you need a low-profile graphics card, the ASRock Arc A310 comes with 4 GB of 15.5 Gbps GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit memory interface. The GPU is clocked at standard 2,000 MHz, and it does not need any power connectors as its Total Board Power (TBP) is set at 75 W. The ASRock A310 Low Profile features one DisplayPort 2.0 with DSC and one HDMI 2.0b output, as well as 0 dB Silent Cooling feature, which means that the fans won't spin up under light workloads. The ASRock A310 Low Profile 4 GB has yet to appear in retail/e-tail.



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[ExcuseMeWtf]

How does it stack up vs other cards?

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

The 6GB A380 is also a 75w card. Why overwatt an A310 like this? It's just unnecessary.

 

[Assimilator]

The 6GB A380 is also a 75w card. Why overwatt an A310 like this? It's just unnecessary.

Not sure what you mean by "overwatt".

 

[Solidstate89]

This would be a nice upgrade for my HTPC since it has AV1 decode support and intel's transcoding is some of the best out there.

 

[AnotherReader]

How does it stack up vs other cards?

If you're asking about gaming, then given that the A380 is slightly faster than the RX 6400, this *is likely to be the slowest card of the post Turing generations.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

In webpage of the product isn't mentioned how is TDP. Only recommend number watts for power supply unit. Reference clock use 30 wats when OC non reference models with 2000MHz of other companies are set to 50 wats. I think that model of ASRock has same TDP of 50 wats.

 

[Assimilator]

In webpage of the product isn't mentioned how is TDP. Only recommend number watts for power supply unit. Reference clock use 30 wats when OC non reference models with 2000MHz of other companies are set to 50 wats. I think that model of ASRock has same TDP of 50 wats.

TDP is 75W according to Intel.

 

[AusWolf]

This would be a nice upgrade for my HTPC since it has AV1 decode support and intel's transcoding is some of the best out there.

That's what I was thinking, too. But, does it need a system with ReBAR support like the A750 and A770? If so, that rules out my use case.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

TDP is 75W according to Intel.

I agree for ARC A380. Where you see 75W for A310? Link?

 

[AusWolf]

I agree for ARC A380. Where you see 75W for A310? Link?

It's in the article above.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

It's in the article above.

It is written there in an insufficiently clear way, as well as on other sites where I read about this release.

 

[AusWolf]

It is written there in an insufficiently clear way, as well as on other sites where I read about this release.

Well, a 75 W TBP doesn't mean it needs 75 W, that's true. I guess, releases like this don't deserve too much media attention. Only a handful of HTPC enthusiasts and weirdos like me are interested.

 

[Assimilator]

I agree for ARC A380. Where you see 75W for A310? Link?

Intel® Arc™ A310 Graphics - Product Specifications | Intel

Intel® Arc™ A310 Graphics quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.

ark.intel.com

Well, a 75 W TBP doesn't mean it needs 75 W, that's true. I guess, releases like this don't deserve too much media attention. Only a handful of HTPC enthusiasts and weirdos like me are interested.

I'm interested, simply because I miss the days of single-slot passively-cooled GPUs.

 

[AusWolf]

I'm interested, simply because I miss the days of single-slot passively-cooled GPUs.

Same here. But these days, I'll take anything low-profile, or single slot.

 

[notaburner]

Well, a 75 W TBP doesn't mean it needs 75 W, that's true. I guess, releases like this don't deserve too much media attention. Only a handful of HTPC enthusiasts and weirdos like me are interested.

This class of card also seems quite useful for business applications. Basically any computer where you want something a little stronger than an iGPU but but need it to fit in a smaller form factor or don't want something that needs more power than the pcie slot can provide.

I've had to build work computers for certain family members where you know they aren't going to be replaced for 5-10 years and this sort of card is great when you don't expect the iGPU to be able to keep up over that time frame (and anything more powerful is just overkill). Only downside for this card in specific is that I'm not all that confident that drivers will be updated for a long time (would love to be proved wrong) and instability/bugs are a complete deal breaker in that sort of setup when you don't expect the user to be able to troubleshoot things.

 

[sLowEnd]

This class of card also seems quite useful for business applications. Basically any computer where you want something a little stronger than an iGPU but but need it to fit in a smaller form factor or don't want something that needs more power than the pcie slot can provide.

I've had to build work computers for certain family members where you know they aren't going to be replaced for 5-10 years and this sort of card is great when you don't expect the iGPU to be able to keep up over that time frame (and anything more powerful is just overkill). Only downside for this card in specific is that I'm not all that confident that drivers will be updated for a long time (would love to be proved wrong) and instability/bugs are a complete deal breaker in that sort of setup when you don't expect the user to be able to troubleshoot things.

It's a dreadfully underserved segment. I'm glad to see Intel is filling it. GT 710/730/1030 are getting long in the tooth and are missing encoder & AV1 acceleration

 

[notaburner]

It's a dreadfully underserved segment. I'm glad to see Intel is filling it. GT 710/730/1030 are getting long in the tooth and are missing encoder & AV1 acceleration

Agreed. Those Nvidia cards would have been great solutions 5-10 years ago, but they currently don't really provide anything that can't be matched with an iGPU. They're currently in the realm of "I need a video out but I have no iGPU" performance. Even though AV1 has basically no adoption at this point, in 5+ years it will be probably be essential for just normal web video playback which would be a normal use case for this class of machine. I wouldn't feel great building a new computer without it for a sort of build and forget basic workstation that's expected to have a long life.

 

[AusWolf]

It's a dreadfully underserved segment. I'm glad to see Intel is filling it. GT 710/730/1030 are getting long in the tooth and are missing encoder & AV1 acceleration

For now, I'm happy with the 1030 and the 1050 Ti that I have in my two HTPCs, as there is no AV1 basically anywhere. When it gets mass adoption, I have a few spare GPUs to replace the 1050 Ti, but the machine with the 1030 needs something low profile. While it doesn't support ReBAR which is necessary for normal performance on Intel Arc, you don't need ReBAR to watch videos. The only other option right now is the RX 6400 (I don't care about the missing encoder), but it needs to come down in price. £145 for a card that you only use for video is a bit steep. Same for the GTX 1630.

 

[phoenix007]

It's a dreadfully underserved segment. I'm glad to see Intel is filling it. GT 710/730/1030 are getting long in the tooth and are missing encoder & AV1 acceleration

I agree ☝
Wish AMD would make a serious attempt to fill this space

 

[notaburner]

For now, I'm happy with the 1030 and the 1050 Ti that I have in my two HTPCs, as there is no AV1 basically anywhere. When it gets mass adoption, I have a few spare GPUs to replace the 1050 Ti, but the machine with the 1030 needs something low profile. While it doesn't support ReBAR which is necessary for normal performance on Intel Arc, you don't need ReBAR to watch videos. The only other option right now is the RX 6400 (I don't care about the missing encoder), but it needs to come down in price. £145 for a card that you only use for video is a bit steep. Same for the GTX 1630.

Out of curiosity, what is you primary use case for your HTPCs? I've been using a shield/apple tv just connected up to my NAS for blu ray playback. Primarily use the apple tv (mainly due to the lack of ads and clean interface) but switch over to the shield if I need to play something with TrueHd + Atmos (which the apple tv for some reason still doesn't support). I've just been using a synology NAS and have considered making a hybrid NAS/HTPC (have a spare 3900x from an old build laying around) to replace it but was wondering what benefits you see from that approach.

 

[AusWolf]

Out of curiosity, what is you primary use case for your HTPCs?

Mainly watching offline videos (H.264 and H.265 mostly) and Youtube. Extremely rarely, I might fire up an old, or less demanding game on them when the missus hasn't got the TV all for herself.

I've also started using them for BOINC lately, as they use very low power, so I don't increase my bill by much by supporting some noble research.

I've just been using a synology NAS and have considered making a hybrid NAS/HTPC (have a spare 3900x from an old build laying around) to replace it but was wondering what benefits you see from that approach.

That's up to you, I guess. For my use case, a NAS would be a waste of money, as I just quickly drag over whatever I need on a USB stick. With modern CPUs, and GPU video decoding, making a NAS out of your main HTPC is definitely an option. The CPU can deal with the network transfer, and the GPU can decode whatever you're watching with low-to-no CPU usage. Let us know how it goes if you decide to make the move. I'm definitely interested in curiosities like this.

 

[notaburner]

Mainly watching offline videos (H.264 and H.265 mostly) and Youtube. Extremely rarely, I might fire up an old, or less demanding game on them when the missus hasn't got the TV all for herself.

I've also started using them for BOINC lately, as they use very low power, so I don't increase my bill by much by supporting some noble research.


That's up to you, I guess. For my use case, a NAS would be a waste of money, as I just quickly drag over whatever I need on a USB stick. With modern CPUs, and GPU video decoding, making a NAS out of your main HTPC is definitely an option. The CPU can deal with the network transfer, and the GPU can decode whatever you're watching with low-to-no CPU usage. Let us know how it goes if you decide to make the move. I'm definitely interested in curiosities like this.

The biggest QoL improvement I'm hoping for is basically to improve scrubbing performance. I keep full quality blu ray rips (which can push 75gb for the 4k ones) instead of transcoding and the performance off of hdds isn't that great. Being able to add a 4x nvme card to the NASTPC(tm) seems like it would make things flawless. Could also probably get away with a significant power limit reduction to keep things relatively efficient. I've been on the lookout for a cheap small board to pair with the 3900x as I have an apartment so space is at a bit of a premium.

Will probably pull the trigger on the project once I start running out of space on my NAS (filled with 14tb drives at the moment without any more room to add drives). Will definitely make a post about it whenever that time comes.

 

[AusWolf]

The biggest QoL improvement I'm hoping for is basically to improve scrubbing performance. I keep full quality blu ray rips (which can push 75gb for the 4k ones) instead of transcoding and the performance off of hdds isn't that great. Being able to add a 4x nvme card to the NASTPC(tm) seems like it would make things flawless. Could also probably get away with a significant power limit reduction to keep things relatively efficient. I've been on the lookout for a cheap small board to pair with the 3900x as I have an apartment so space is at a bit of a premium.

Will probably pull the trigger on the project once I start running out of space on my NAS (filled with 14tb drives at the moment without any more room to add drives). Will definitely make a post about it whenever that time comes.

If you want to keep it cheap, even a SATA SSD improves things by a lot! I keep some blu-ray rips myself (although not that large). My living room HTPC has got NVME in it, but the bedroom one is a bit older, so it only supports SATA without sacrificing its main PCI-e slot that is currently occupied by the 1030. Neither of them have any trouble playing anything I throw at them.

Let me know of that post when you make it.