Intel Arc A770 16GB - 250 Games Benchmark

Intel Arc A770 Tested in 250 Games: 93% Playable, 5% Unplayable

Hardware Unboxed’s Comprehensive Test of Intel’s Fastest Discrete GPU

Intel’s Arc A770 and A750 graphics cards, launched nearly 20 months ago, have faced numerous challenges, particularly with graphics driver optimizations. Despite these hurdles, Intel has made significant strides in improving their drivers, often releasing updates more frequently than AMD and NVIDIA. These updates have resulted in substantial performance gains, transforming the initial struggles of the Arc series into a more promising experience.

2024 Performance and Insights

How does the Arc GPU series fare in 2024? Hardware Unboxed provides a detailed look by testing the Arc A770 across 250 games, a rare and extensive review in the graphics card industry. This test offers a broad overview of the card’s support, performance, and any issues encountered.

Test Setup and Results

The Arc A770, Intel’s flagship Alchemist model with 32 Xe-Cores and 16GB VRAM, was used for this test. The latest drivers and a fully supported platform, including Intel’s ResizableBAR requirement, were employed. The results are as follows:

• 93% (233 games) were playable (typically above 40 FPS)
• 87% (218 games) worked without major issues
• 5% (12 games) were not playable (due to launch or performance issues)
• 2% (4 games) did not work at all (including titles like Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, Sim City 4, Left 4 Dead 2, and Saints Row 2)

Surprising Findings

Contrary to expectations, newer titles like Alan Wake 2 and Starfield posed more problems than older games. Despite Intel’s efforts to support older graphics APIs, newer games have proven to be more challenging for the Arc series. This highlights an area where Intel’s optimization efforts need to focus.

Game Settings and Performance

Most games ran on maximum, ultra, or high settings, with some requiring upscaling assistance. Only a few games needed reduced graphics settings. An interesting issue was that some games defaulted to using the integrated graphics solution in the CPU rather than the discrete Arc GPU, suggesting a potential area for improvement for Intel and game developers.

Future Prospects

Intel is set to launch its Core Ultra 200V series, codenamed Lunar Lake, featuring the Xe2-LPG architecture derived from the Xe2-HPG architecture (Battlemage). This new architecture is expected to hit the market in 2025, with current software progress benefiting Xe2 as well.

Additionally, Intel is venturing into gaming handhelds powered by Xe-LPG, with MSI being the first major company to adopt Intel for their gaming devices. Plans are in place to upgrade these devices to Xe2-LPG, increasing the pressure on Intel to ensure their GPU platform excels not only in discrete graphics but also in integrated solutions.