Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition Review

The arrival of Intel's Arc GPUs marks the first time I have ever reviewed a graphics card not manufactured by AMD or Nvidia. Those two companies have dominated the GPU market for decades, but now there is a third player breaking into the discrete graphics segment. This review is focused on the $349 A770 Limited Edition, but we do also have a day-1 review of the A750 Limited Edition that you can find HERE.

With the cards arriving last week, I've spent the last six days benchmarking a wide variety of different games, engines and APIs to develop a clear picture of exactly what these cards are capable of. Right now, I just can't say with confidence that these cards are ready for the mainstream market. At least, not yet.

Before we get into the issues, it's worth commending Intel for the good they have done. For one, the Limited Edition coolers not only look fantastic, but they run quiet and cool. There's a little bit of coil whine, but for the most part, this is a highly successful first-party design.

In terms of gaming performance, there are a few occasions where the ACM-G10 silicon really shines. I'm talking about performance in games such as Red Dead Redemption 2 and Dying Light 2, where the A770 is significantly faster than the likes of the RX 6600 XT and RTX 3060. In ray-traced workloads too, we even saw the A770 matching the RTX 3060 Ti, which for a first-generation ray tracing architecture is hugely impressive.

So while we got a glimpse of what the A770 can do, talking about the hardware only gives half the story. Right now, the drivers and software are the real problems here.

Throughout my testing, I experienced incredibly poor frame times in certain games, visual glitches that affected two of the twelve games I wanted to benchmark, as well as game crashes and even system BSODs. Performance in DX11 titles is also a huge problem for Arc, while Rebar is absolutely essential for a hope of a smooth gaming experience. I'd add to that by saying I wasn't trying to go out of my way to find problems. I simply set out to benchmark a wide variety of titles, and this was my experience.

The problems are so varied and significant that it becomes impossible to recommend buying an ARC GPU right now. While the $349 price point for the A770 Limited Edition certainly looks good on paper, multiple RX 6650 XTs are currently selling on Newegg.com for between $300-329. That GPU offers performance that is broadly similar but on a platform that is just head and shoulders above Arc in terms of stability and consistency.

I'd also add to that with a word of caution on the A770 itself. My testing doesn't show a particularly large delta between the A750 and the A770, with the later card 9% faster on average at 1080p, despite being priced 21% higher. The A770 8GB model may well make more sense, but certainly, the A750 looks more attractive on paper.

That point is entirely academic at present though, as currently, we are not in a position to recommend any of the Arc lineup – Intel has plenty more work to do before we can consider making nuanced recommendations. We remain optimistic that Arc could be a success in the future, as we say there certainly are glimpses of strong potential here, and we look forward to testing the A750 and A770 as major updates land and hopefully change the picture.

Right now, however, Intel Arc isn't ready for the mainstream market.

The Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition has an MSRP of $349, and Intel is adamant that cards will be in stock and selling for that price on October 12. We're still unclear on UK availability and pricing, but will update this article when we know more.

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Pros

• Impressive ray tracing performance for a 1st gen architecture.
• Outperforms the RTX 3060 handily in certain games.
• Well-designed Limited Edition cooler.
• Overclocked fairly well.

Cons

• DX11 performance is woeful compared to DX12 or Vulkan.
• Resizable BAR support is an absolute must.
• We experienced numerous crashes, visual glitches and BSODs while testing.
• Frame times can be incredibly erratic in certain games.
• Performance isn't much better than the A750, despite a 21% price difference.
• Overall efficiency is poor compared to RDNA 2.
• Pricing isn't currently aggressive enough to warrant the significant risk of purchase.

KitGuru says: The GPU market needs another player, and we can definitely see signs of potential for Intel Arc. That said, there's still a ways to go before we can recommend picking up an Arc graphics card.

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