The Intel Arc owners thread

[humbug]

Gamers Nexus retests Arc.

TLDW: it's a really cost-effective solution but there are still too many games where Arc doesn't work well.

Steve says its "a scary card for AMD" its twice the size of the RX 7600 and built on the same TSMC N6 node and Intel have to sell it for less, i don't think Steve knows how this works, if Intel lose money on every GPU they sell them AMD are happy if they sell a lot of them, Intel have a lot of finatial problems, the more finatial problems they add to that the better AMD figure that....

I mean Steve says it performs really well for what it is, but its the size of a 7900 XTX with its MCD's. Are you sure about that Steve?

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

Not watched the video yet, but about to put it on!
I imagine scary, in the way that they might be getting sales and mindshare? And any sale of an Arc card, is potentially a lost sale for AMD.

Sure Battlemage will rectify a lot of the problems with Arc. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what Intel do, based on my A770 experience.
AMD are the masters of blundering GPU launches, and Intel definitely tried to emulate the AMD launch experience (lacking performance, bad drivers, too high a price, Raja Koduri...) . We know regardless of what is released most just buy Nvidia because "green" and a youtuber told them to. A third player watering down AMD's GPU sales will not be a good thing for them.
Arc isn't going to sink Intel, just like Vega didn't destroy AMD.

 

[humbug]

Not watched the video yet, but about to put it on!
I imagine scary, in the way that they might be getting sales and mindshare? And any sale of an Arc card, is potentially a lost sale for AMD.

Sure Battlemage will rectify a lot of the problems with Arc. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what Intel do, based on my A770 experience.
AMD are the masters of blundering GPU launches, and Intel definitely tried to emulate the AMD launch experience (lacking performance, bad drivers, too high a price, Raja Koduri...) . We know regardless of what is released most just buy Nvidia because "green" and a youtuber told them to. A third player watering down AMD's GPU sales will not be a good thing for them.
Arc isn't going to sink Intel, just like Vega didn't destroy AMD.

The only data that i can find on it is Q4 2022 and Q1 2023.

Q4 2022:
Nvidia 86%
AMD 12%
Intel 2%

Q1 2023
Nvidia 84%
AMD 12%
Intel 4%

So AMD are flat, Nvidia shrank by 2 percentage points, and Intel gained 2 percentage points, so they took market share from Nvidia, but not from AMD.

https://www.jonpeddie.com/news/the-graphics-add-in-board-market-continued-its-correction-in-q1-2023/

 

[KraniX]

Gamers Nexus retests Arc.

TLDW: it's a really cost-effective solution but there are still too many games where Arc doesn't work well.

I considered Arc for my next card but went with a 4060 primarily due to the poor performance in older direct x titles. That's the majority of my backlog.

 

[humbug]

I think people willing to buy AMD as a cheaper alternative to Nvidia will buy AMD, not Intel because they already have what Steve says Intel offer only with consistent performance and stable drivers.

As to why Intel took Nvidia's market share and not AMD's i can only conclude its Intel's and tech jurnoes choice to compare them mainly to Nvidia, to alomst ignore AMD's existence.

Not a good strategy when your aim is to take AMD's market share because you're only giving people the option of comparing it to Nvidia and trying to convince people of that is going to be 100 X more difficult vs AMD, those who do buy AMD arent going to listen to tech jurnoes telling them to buy Intel over Nvidia, they already buy AMD over Nvidia.

Yeah, I wouldn't do it. 10% more performance than AMD but some games either don't work or have 30fps? Pointless.

Steve Walton keeps saying AMD have to be a lot cheaper than Nvidia, well Intel have to be a lot cheaper than AMD, which is exactly what Intel wanted to avoid which is why they and tech jurnoes compared mainly to Nvidia.
If you're only offing about the same as AMD why would anyone buy Intel instead?

There is no way in hell i would have bought an equivilent to RX 7800 XT Battlemage for 10% cheaper, i wouldn't even consider it, i know i'm getting a stable and reliable GPU from AMD.

Intel market share is 'for the cause' sponsors. That's not going to change until they have sevral generations of 100% the best and cheapest GPU's.

 

[Quartz]

Daniel Owen is not impressed.

 

[humbug]

Daniel Owen is not impressed.

See how different that is to Steve Burke's conclusions? The thing is still completely broken, eveyother game you pick up is unplayable, even those that look ok on bar charts have horrendous frame times actually playing them and it feels horrible.

18 months ago i got the impression that some of these tech jurnoes wanted to get to a stage where they wanted to say they are now good enough to buy over the other two, because like the rest of us they want the competition.
However, 18 months, 2 years or whatever it is later Intel haven't got even close to that, no where near it, but due to that agenda and their friendship empathy with some of those at Intel they are glosing over more and more of its issues more and more so they can normalise and justify these cards more and more.
Also notice how Steve portrayed the 4060 as a more expensive card when the 8GB 4060 is in fact the same price as the A770 16GB, that's closing over the fact that they are too expensive, Intel have told him they cannot be any cheaper so Steve is glossing over them being too expensive.

How is any of this fair to the consumer? most of these tech jurnoes act like they are concerned with pricing, even call them out on the expensive pricing, but at the same time do everything they can to justify these prices indirectly, Steve Walton is the worst for that for constantly telling you Nvidia's features are "added value" which is exactly how Nvidia want you to think of these things.

Intel have to get good, and then be good for at least 2 generation and they have to be cheap, yes significantly cheaper than AMD, you can't fast track this by polishing a turd and making stupid comments like "AMD should be scared" AMD are rolling around on the floor laughing hysterically.

"Its Vega, its a ____ version of Vega, we warned you, its why we sacked him, but you wouldn't listen and you said its just because we didn't have the money to make it good, after two year's you can't even get it stable, at least we managed that!"

 

[Quartz]

See how different that is to Steve Burke's conclusions?

Actually, Owen has previously been positive about Arc. It all comes down to the games you run. One mix of games gives good results; another mix gives bad results. There's only so much time and they report what they find. That's why it's important to look at multiple reviews.

Having thought about his video a while I think this says more about game developers than Intel: they test their games on Nvidia and AMD GPUs well before release so bugs get reported and fixed. Notice how so often both have 'game ready drivers': this means that the old driver had problems with the game and that Nvidia and AMD have fixed those issues. But I expect they don't bother with Intel so Intel is months behind.

As for review sites, Hardware Unboxed were - much to their discredit - hugely contemptuous of Intel Arc well after release, often simply not bothering to include Arc in their tests. I'll take the honesty of Burke & Owen over HUB any day.

 

[humbug]

Actually, Owen has previously been positive about Arc. It all comes down to the games you run. One mix of games gives good results; another mix gives bad results. There's only so much time and they report what they find. That's why it's important to look at multiple reviews.

Having thought about his video a while I think this says more about game developers than Intel: they test their games on Nvidia and AMD GPUs well before release so bugs get reported and fixed. Notice how so often both have 'game ready drivers': this means that the old driver had problems with the game and that Nvidia and AMD have fixed those issues. But I expect they don't bother with Intel so Intel is months behind.

As for review sites, Hardware Unboxed were - much to their discredit - hugely contemptuous of Intel Arc well after release, often simply not bothering to include Arc in their tests. I'll take the honesty of Burke & Owen over HUB any day.

I think the difference is running automated benchmarks vs actually spending time analysing the game through your mouse and screen.

The problem these days, with all these GPU reviews is automated benchmarking, they get a "review guid" for specific scenes, they in put those parameters in the software, hit return and walk away letting the shoftware run through the game with specific parameters and spit out the results, they send those results to Nvidia, AMD, Intel who tell them if that looks right or not and then publish.

Its a poor substitute for sitting at the desk playing with graphics setting and different parts of the game for a couple of hours, people like Steve Burke are never going to do that, its beneath them, too much important stuff to do with their valuable time, its why smaller tech channels show you a lot of footage of what they are talking about and larger ones mostly just give you meaningless bar charts.

On GPU's and testing, i think you will find that in the majority of cases, if not the vast majority of cases games are made on Nvidia GPU's, its why about 99% of modern games don't take advantage RDNA 3's multithread shaders.

 

[Quartz]

I think the difference is running automated benchmarks vs actually spending time analysing the game through your mouse and screen.

Some do, some don't. This is actually where I rate Owen: he plays the games at least to some extent and doesn't just run benchmarks. For instance he will demonstrate the effects of certain graphical features by running around areas with those effects on and off. But there's much to be said for benchmarks: they provide a baseline across reviewers.

 

[humbug]

Some do, some don't. This is actually where I rate Owen: he plays the games at least to some extent and doesn't just run benchmarks. For instance he will demonstrate the effects of certain graphical features by running around areas with those effects on and off. But there's much to be said for benchmarks: they provide a baseline across reviewers.

Agreed, i use the larger reviewers to get the headline bar charts as a quick reference, but that's about as useful as they are, i always look for more and for that i look to various smaller channels.

Another thing i used to like is GPU teardowns, before deciding on which AIB to get i want to see it torn down, i want to know the weight and design of the cooler, i want to know what's on the PCB, the quality of those components, how well its put together.

Hardware Unboxed used to be great for that, until one day they decided that it wasn't worth their time doing that with multiple AIB GPU's, well then what's the point in watching your channel? you're just like everyother mainstream channel and i only need to watch one of those, my time is better spent looking for other channels who will tear down the GPU's.

I think people watch mainstream channels because they are mainstream channels, they don't actually offer much that's useful.

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

Humbug, I notice that you will sing praises of literally anything that confirms your opinion.
Can't say I've ever heard of that YouTube reviewer, but if his video confirms your bias and allows you to say that the card is totally broken, then he's obviously doing something wrong.
It's just not the experience I have had with my card. I know you have the chip on the shoulder when it comes to anyone BUT AMD, but calm down.

You need to lose the tinfoil hat. There isn't some sort of pro-Intel journo conspiracy going on. The fact is, at specific prices Arc can be worth it.
A lot of what you post here, is similar to things you might be frustrated at others posting should it be directed at your chosen brand. And I know you'll come back and say brand agnostic, but you must see your own AMD bias?

 

[humbug]

Humbug, I notice that you will sing praises of literally anything that confirms your opinion.
Can't say I've ever heard of that YouTube reviewer, but if his video confirms your bias and allows you to say that the card is totally broken, then he's obviously doing something wrong.
It's just not the experience I have had with my card. I know you have the chip on the shoulder when it comes to anyone BUT AMD, but calm down.

You need to lose the tinfoil hat. There isn't some sort of pro-Intel journo conspiracy going on. The fact is, at specific prices Arc can be worth it.
A lot of what you post here, is similar to things you might be frustrated at others posting should it be directed at your chosen brand. And I know you'll come back and say brand agnostic, but you must see your own AMD bias?

I also have an Nvidia bias when it comes to Intel ARC given Nvidia also offer better value.

Change my mind.

 

[Quartz]

New drivers (101.5330) available.

Intel® Arc™ & Iris® Xe Graphics - Windows*

This download installs Intel® Graphics Driver 31.0.101.5444 for Intel® Arc™ A-Series Graphics, Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics, and Intel® Core™ Ultra Processors with Intel® Arc™ Graphics.

www.intel.com

Intel® Game On Driver support on Intel® Arc™ A-series Graphics and Intel® Core™ Ultra with Intel® Arc™ Graphics for:

• Nightingale*
• Pacific Drive*

Game performance improvements on Intel® Arc™ A-Series Graphics Products versus Intel® 31.0.101.5194 software driver for:

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey* (DX11) Up to 24% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Ultra High settings
Fortnite* (DX12) Up to 8% average FPS uplift at 1080p with High settings and Nanite enabled
Remnant 2* (DX12) Up to 8% average FPS uplift at 1080p with High settings

 

[Quartz]

I also have an Nvidia bias when it comes to Intel ARC given Nvidia also offer better value.

This depends upon your price point. Nvidia have surrendered the sub £250 market.

 

[humbug]

This depends upon your price point. Nvidia have surrendered the sub £250 market.

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[Emlyn_Dewar]

8gb 3060? No thanks.

As for the new driver, I'm away for a few days, but don't have any interest in Nightingale.
Strange to see AC Odyssey improvements. Was it previously messed up?
Feel like I need to install a lot of the older games in my library soon.

 

[Quartz]

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Which is completely monstered by the RX 6600, the A750, and maybe (I'm not sure) the A580. All cards that are considerably cheaper.

 

[humbug]

Which is completely monstered by the RX 6600, the A750, and maybe (I'm not sure) the A580. All cards that are considerably cheaper.

And its £200, cheaper than the A750, but we are talking about Nvidia here.

Sapphire Radeon RX 6600 Pulse Gaming 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card

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[SuperElectric]

The other problem ARC has is absolute performance. If you have a 3060ti/6700xt or faster and are looking to upgrade, ARC isn't an option.

Battlemage will help somewhat, but even if intel manage to do the impossible and double their performance per watt (or the equivalent in die space), thats only 7800XT/4070 super performance. Which by December/January could be worth less than £400.