Intel Arc has come a long way - 2023 driver update!

all right guys Dominic here for kick Guru and it is time to revisit Intel Arc in 2023 if you cast your mind back to my launch day review last October you'll probably remember I wasn't especially keen on either the a750 or the a770 simply due to the number of software problems well Intel has been hard at work and is promising some significant improvements with its latest drivers so today we'll be putting that to the test I've also got Acer's Predator bifrost a770 custom card to use as part of this testing so without further Ado let's dive in and find out what is really new with Intel Arc [Music] thank you our testing today then is pretty straightforward first of all I grabbed Intel's a750 limited edition 8 gigabyte card as well as the Acer Predator bifrost a770 16 gigabyte card and set about benchmarking both of these gpus using the 4123 driver which was the latest from Intel at the time I started testing to see how far the cards have actually progressed I also grabbed the 3491 driver from all the way back in October and that does mean data from both the 3491 driver and the 4123 driver will be included in our charts and that will look a little something like this I tested 12 games in total at 1080P and 1440p resolutions and we've also got comparisons against the RTX 3060 and the RX 6600 XT all of our testing was done using our regular GPU test system which is powered by MSI this is built on Intel's I9 12900k CPU paired with the MSI Meg z690 UniFi motherboard and we've also got 32 gigabytes of a data xpg Lancer ddr5 memory all testing was done using the MSI mpg321 urqd 4k monitor incidentally this is also the last time we will be using this test rig as I've actually just switched to a system with a 13900 KS but stay tuned for that content coming soon as I said in this video we are going to be focusing on 1080P and 1440p data I won't go over every single one of our Benchmark charts for reasons that will become clear however if you do want to see the raw data from every single one of the 12 games we tested then head over to the written article on kikguru.net we're gonna kick things off then with a game I don't actually actually usually test but funnily enough it's usually the game with the most concurrent players on Steam I am of course talking about CS go a game which initially gave Intel Arc some significant problems but Intel is now claiming the performance should be much much better it's pretty easy to see why people weren't happy with arc's performance in this title with the one percent lows using the 3491 driver being completely terrible and the game just felt very stuttery at 1080p thankfully the 4123 driver has fixed these issues completely with performance now being right in line with the RTX 3060 and the RX 6600 XT it's also the same story at 1440p the game has transformed from being a frankly stuttering mess into being something that's as playable as it gets with the this game engine now the a770 is about 20 FPS behind the 6600 XT but compared to where it was before this really is a transformative difference just to visualize this further I also put together a frame time graph for the a770 when running CS go you can see just how inconsistent the frame plans were originally with huge spikes and then huge dips from one frame to the next now there are still a couple of frame time spikes when using the 4123 driver but the overall frame time delivery is just so much more consistent Total War Warhammer 3 is another game that has seen big improvements as a dx11 title on the 3491 driver Arc performance was just way behind the competition and it also featured some pretty nasty visual artifacting with the 4123 driver though we're actually looking a 50 performance increase for the a770 and that puts it right up there with the RTX 3060 and it's now 15 faster than the RX 6600 XT likewise at 1440p we do see a similar jump forward with the 4123 driver providing a 38 uplift in terms of the average frame rate but crucially it's the one percent lows that see a 59 uplift resulting in much tighter frame time dispersal than what we saw originally it's fair to say though that not every single dx11 title out there will see an improvement from the newer driver I tested God of War at both 1080P and 1440p and there was no measurable performance Improvement When jumping to the newer driver of course you will see some minor differences in the frame rate numbers but that really is just down to run to run very and it does not indicate a difference in overall performance that being said there were actually a couple of dx12 titles that did show a small performance Improvement including Forza Horizon 5. at 1080p for instance we're observing a three percent Improvement to the average frame rate which is just outside margin for error but slightly more significant is the five percent increase to the one percent lows now this wouldn't be super noticeable in game but again it's just tightening up those frame times when using the 4123 driver gears 5 also saw a small boost to the average frame rate when using the 4123 driver however rather weirdly the one percent lows are still pretty poor when compared to the 6600 XT and the RTX 3060 this does go to show that the latest drivers are a Magic instant fix for every performance Pro problem that Arc may have something Intel themselves have said there is still a long road ahead of them there's also plenty of other games which just don't show any performance Improvement using the latest driver cyberpunk 2077 for instance is a good example here with still poor one percent lows which are apparent when playing the game Horizon zero dawn has an overall experience is much better but again there's been no improvements made by the 4123 driver when compares to the 3491 driver overall then across the 12 games I tested clearly the performance improvements in CS go and Total War Warhammer 3 do stand out as being the most significant and honestly they are real game changers there's a few other examples where the average frame rates improve between four to six percent but plenty of games also showed no real difference that that's broadly the same picture as we see at 1440p as well the good news is that no games I tested saw a performance decrease and I didn't notice any weird driver bugs in these 12 games either what this means for Intel Arc versus its competition however is quite significant based on the 3491 driver the a770 really made no sense against the RTX 3060 as it came in 15 slow on average at 1080p with the 4123 driver however it's on par if not marginally faster overall while it's now just behind the RX 6600 XT we also know though that the a770 does scale better at 1440p where it climbs to the top of the chart using the 4123 driver and it now offers a seven percent Improvement to its one percent lows versus the RTX 3060 naturally that performance increase also means a big Improvement to cost per frame the a770 is retailing for 370 pounds at the time of filming and the 4123 driver translates into an 18 reduction in cost per frame versus the 3491 driver it has to be said though that the a750 is the real star of the show offering class leading value at 1080p likewise up at 1440p we're now looking at a 19 reduction in cost per frame for the a770 purely due to the extra performance on offer from the 4123 driver it may not be quite as good value as the RTX 3060 but it really is a massive improvement from the launch driver now I do have a few other performance metrics that I do want to cover in this video but before we get onto those it's worth taking a closer look at the Acer Predator a bifrost a770 you may have already seen it from a few b-roll Clips but this card has a pretty unique overall design featuring a 70 millimeter blower fan and one 90 millimeter axial fan for its cooling those fans sit within a premium feeling shroud that actually makes use of a fair amount of brushed metal and we can also see a metal backplate that features a whole section of repeating text if you didn't already know that this was a predator card you certainly do now we also get plenty of RGB lighting from the bifrost with the two fans which light up along with the Predator logo on the front side I have to say it is a good looking implementation overall and you can actually preview a range of different effects from within Acer's software now despite the amount of metal used for the bifrost it's actually a relatively light card weighing in at 1.16 kilos on my scale so that actually means is barely any heavier than Intel's own limited edition model it's also impressively compact in a world where RTX 4090s are just ridiculously large this is a pleasant dual slot card measuring in just 267 millimeters long and 117.8 millimeters tall power is supplied by two eight pins compared to the limited edition which has one eight pin and one six pin while we can also see three DisplayPort 2.0 ports and one HDMI 2.1 as for the next section in this video This is the first Intel custom card that I have reviewed so we've only got one other point of comparison and that's Intel's own limited edition model that being said the bifos does actually come with some downloadable software and Acer offers a choice of the default or the Turbo Modes for interest sake I did actually test both of these modes for the bifrost so you will see two data points for the acid GPU but of course only one for the Intel limited edition kicking off with thermals then there's really very little difference between the two cards out of the box the bifrost hits 71 degrees under load and it ran three degrees hotter using the turbo mode due to its increased power consumption Intel's Arc limited edition card remains a very well built model however and this peaked at just 70 degrees on the GPU likewise there's basically nothing to split these cards when looking at memory thermals either the bifrost using its default mode hits 70 degrees while the Intel limited edition ran just two degrees hotter so it really is is a negligible difference the main benefit to using the bifrost over Intel's own card however is that it does actually run a touch quieter I measured it in operating at 36 decibels under load and that marks a three decibel reduction against the limited edition card weirdly though in my testing the turbo mode actually operated with the same exact fan speeds as the default profile peaking at 1490 RPM I have to say that fan control as a whole is still a bit funny on Intel Arc even with the 4123 driver using Asus software for instance you can actually set a manual fan speed with 10 steps but even when I selected a fixed 30 fan speed the reported fan RPM actually still fluctuated so there is definitely still some hysteresis issues going on I could however see a difference between the default and the Turbo Modes when looking at graphics card only the power jaw granted it wasn't a big difference but the turbo mode pulled 221.5 watts compared to just under 213 Watts for the default mode and that was tested in cyberpunk 2077. funnily enough though that extra power really didn't translate into an increase in performance for the bifrost I measured next to no difference in frame rates between the default and the Turbo Modes so that also means you don't get any real performance benefit versus the Intel limited edition even with the bifrost's higher power Target overall then there is no doubt in my mind that Intel's Arc gpus are significantly more viable now in 2023 than they were back at launch the new driver really has led to some massive performance increases just take a look at CS go for instance which has absolutely been transformed from a stutter three mess into an experience that's just as good as you would get from the RTX 3060 or the RX 6600 XT the new driver also brought significant improvements to Total War Warhammer 3 and a number of visual glitches that I first encountered back in October with the launch driver were no longer present I also have to say that overall stability as a whole does seem to be a lot better as I only had one crash during my testing with the 4123 driver and that just happened to be in cyberpunk also we can't ignore the fact that Intel art control center is no longer an overlay that's right you can now actually move around the window and even minimize it so that really is a much more pleasant user experience of course as I alluded to this new driver isn't an instant fix for all of arc's problems idle power drawer does remain high hitting almost 50 Watts when the GPU is simply displaying the Windows desktop and that's compared to just 12 Watts for the RTX 3060 I also had a weird issue during my testing with the a770 where I simply could not get a display signal using this card after I'd actually used ddu on the GPU that I tested previously and the only way to get around this was to clear the CMOS every time and that happened about two or three times during my testing other issues include fan control which does still seem to be pretty buggy while a couple of digs 12 games I tested still have pretty inconsistent one percent lows and that includes gears 5 and cyberpunk 2077. to Intel's credit they are definitely saying there is still work to be done and I've actually sat in on a couple of press briefings with Tom Peterson and I have to say the overall Vibe is that they are absolutely committed to further improving the overall software experience for Intel Arc so you can bet as and when new Drive updates do come out later this year and maybe even into the future we will definitely be checking those out and Reporting back on what's changed a final word has to go to the Acer Predator bifrost a770 being completely honest as the company's first DIY GPU is really not bad at all across the board it is generally a match for Intel's limited edition but with the bifos having one key benefit that it does run a touch quieter on the load here in the UK it's currently listed at 450 pounds on Acer's web store but there is a 50 pound instant discount so it'll really set you back 400 pounds that's actually a 30 pound premium compared to Intel's Limited Edition version and I'm not totally convinced it's actually worth it as the two of very closely matched I guess it's just going to come down to whether or not you prefer the RGB or the overall appearance of the Acer bifrost which if you do it isn't a bad card anyway guys that is gonna do it for this video if you liked it please do toss me a thumbs up and as always let me know your thoughts down in the comments below please do subscribe if you haven't already and ding that notification Bell so you can stay up to date when we upload a new video in the description you'll also find links to our Discord server and also our brand new merch store where you can pick up a couple of cool t-shirts that is it for this one though guys I'm Dominic for kick Guru and I'll see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: KitGuruTech

Views: 36,474

Keywords: kitguru, video, technology, news, interviews, reviews, exclusive, kitguru membership, join kitguru, intel arc, intel arc driver, intel arc revisit, intel arc a770, intel arc a750, a770 vs 3060, a770 vs 6600 xt, a770 vs, acer predator bifrost, acer a770, predator a770, intel arc a770 gaming test, arc a770 vs rtx 3060, intel arc a770 vs rtx 3060, intel arc a770 benchmark, intel arc driver update, a770 driver, a750 driver

Id: WV3SqTagIw8

Length: 18min 37sec (1117 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 03 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/helloiamyourpeepaw]

Great to hear intel is really dedicated to this line of cards. We really could use more competition in this market

[u/doommaster]

The DisplayPort issues have still not been fixed.

[u/ChickenWiddle]

Has anyone seen a noticable improvement of H264 DEcoding via Quick Sync compared to say, quick sync on a 11th Gen i7?

I did a quick rudimentary test and I don't see much improvement at all?

[u/F9-0021]

It would be really nice if the drivers didn't make my laptop almost unusable when the GPU is on. It was fine when .4090 came out, now it's broken again. I can hardly go an hour sometimes without the system completely locking up or blue screening due to a video driver issue.

And it's the A370m at fault, because when I disable it and go off the iGPU, the system works perfectly fine for as long as I need it to.