How fast are Intel’s graphics cards? In the form of leaks and rumors, this question has been roughly answered again and again in recent months. The performance of the flagship from the Arc Alchemist series should therefore be roughly on par with Nvidia’s Geforce RTX 3070 Ti.
A brand new entry in the benchmark database Sandra on the Sisoftware website confirms the quite high performance of the presumably A780
mentioned accelerator. It seems that Intel has actually hit the bull’s eye with the first shot with the high-end graphics cards, even if it is the absolute top in the form of the RTX 3090 or RX 6900 XT is not quite enough. However, further questions arise.
As part of the keynote for CES 2022, Intel unfortunately revealed little that was new about the graphics cards. There will be a new fastest processor for this:
Intel at CES
5.5 GHz processor introduced
What does the benchmark for Intel’s flagship graphics card show?
Intel’s Arc A780 scores around 9,018 Mpix/s (megapixels per second) in the Sandra benchmark, putting it quite a bit ahead of the RTX 3070 Ti, which achieves around 8,370 Mpix/s. In concrete terms, this is a lead of almost eight percent. However, it is not enough for the Radeon RX 6800 in this benchmark scenario. At 10,607 Mpix/s, AMD’s currently third-strongest accelerator is almost 18 percent ahead of Intel’s upcoming flagship. Incidentally, in the GameStar test, the RX 6800 is around six percent ahead of the RTX 3070 Ti on average from all resolution levels
However, it should also be said that the score in the Sandra benchmark is a combined result. Broken down by individual measurements, different values result:
- Half-float (FP16): 35.093 Mpix/s vs. 36.510 Mpix/s (A780 vs 3070 Ti)
- Single-float (FP32): 20.888 Mpix/s vs. 27.029 Mpix/s
- Double-float (FP64): 1.000 Mpix/s vs. 594 Mpix/s
- Quad-float (FP128): 109 Mpix/s vs 22 Mpix/s
For games, FP32 operations are commonly considered the most important of the four metrics. Although it is difficult to compare FP32 operations in the form of the theoretical specification of the computing power, in the case of the Sandra benchmark these are real measurement results.
In addition, the benchmark also reveals details about the specifications. The clock rate of 2.1 GHz is particularly interesting. It is conceivable that this is the typical speed under load, comparable to AMD’s game clock, as previous rumors speak of a maximum clock rate of between 2.2 and 2.5 GHz:
| Radeon RX 6800 | cores: 3.840 | Rate: 1.815/2.105 MHz (Game-/Boost-Takt) | Storage: 12GB GDDR6 | TBP: 250W |
| Arc A780* | cores: 4.096 | Rate: 2,100 MHz (possible Game Rate) | Storage: 16GB GDDR6 | TBP: 275-300W |
| Geforce RTX 3070 Ti | cores: 6.144 | Rate: 1,575/1,770 MHz (nominal base/boost clock, real rather 1,900 to 2,000 MHz boost) | Storage: 8GB GDDR6X | TBP: 290W |
In addition to Arc A780, a benchmark for the Arc A380 entry-level model is also included in the database (via Wccftech). That brings it to 2,956 Mpix/s and thus delivers almost exactly a third of the performance of the top model from the Arc Alchemist series.
What does this mean for performance in games?
Although the computing power of the A780 can compete with the RTX 3070 Ti in synthetic benchmarks and even surpass it overall, this does not mean that this has to be the case in games as well. As mentioned above, it is important to pay attention to the details in the form of the individual results. In addition to the development of powerful hardware, the connection via software or to the graphics driver is also crucial for performance.
Intel itself is rumored to see the Arc Alchemist graphics cards as a kind of test field for driver optimization, before the actual attack on the high-end models from AMD and Nvidia is to take place next year with Arc Battlemage:
Intel vs. Nvidia und AMD
Major attack on RTX 4000 and RX 7000 to take place in 2023
When will Intel graphics cards appear? An exact release date has not yet been set. Intel’s homepage mentions the first quarter of 2022. However, rumors speak of a product launch at the end of March.
