Here’s why Intel’s A380 GPU could really be a hidden gem

The Intel Arc A380, the only Arc Alchemist graphics card that’s currently available, was just tested in various games after being overclocked.

The performance gains caused by the overclocking show that the GPU has the potential to be much better than what some previous benchmarks may have implied.

Intel’s Arc A380 has already been seen in a number of benchmarks and tests, including Intel’s own, which redeemed it slightly after a round of bad news. This time around, the GPU was put to the test by Pro Hi-Tech, a YouTuber who specializes in overclocking. That’s exactly what he did with the Arc A380 — he boosted the card to unlock some of the hidden power it seems to possess. These results could be a sign of the Arc A380 being a lot better than initially thought.

In order to overclock the GPU, the YouTuber had to take a different approach than usual. This is because well-known clock/voltage tools such as MSI Afterburner don’t support Intel Arc just yet. As such, he didn’t alter the GPUs core clocks; instead, he used Intel’s proprietary graphics utility tool in order to tweak the card’s voltage. Pro Hi-Tech adjusted the GPU Performance Boost setting to 55%, and the voltage offset to +0.255mv. Before moving on to testing the boosted GPU in a gaming scenario, the YouTuber also enabled resizable BAR.

These modifications brought up the clock on the Intel Arc A380 by up to an additional 150MHz, meaning a relatively small boost of six percent. However, the power usage went up considerably, from around 35 watts to — at times — more than 55 watts. That’s an increase of up to 57%, but also, it’s an interesting figure. Intel said that the official TDP of the GPU sits at 75 watts.

This brings us to the results of the testing. In order to give an accurate estimate of the card’s performance, the YouTuber compared the results to those of a regular Arc A380 with no overclock and to Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1650, a card that has often been named as a direct competitor for this entry-level GPU.

Pro Hi-Tech benchmarked the Intel Arc A380 in Cyberpunk 2077, God of War, Doom Eternal, Rainbow Six Siege, Watch Dogs Legion, and World of Tanks. Each and every game showed a performance increase, which is not all that surprising, but the gains are big enough to bring the Arc GPU to a level where it’s on par with the GTX 1650.

In Cyberpunk 2077, the boosted Arc A380 actually managed to beat Nvidia, reaching 51 frames per second (fps) compared to Nvidia’s 42. Some games, such as Doom Eternal, show a massive increase in fps, going from 64 to 102. On average, the stock version of Intel Arc A380 scored 55.1 fps across six titles; the overclocked version hit 75.6, and the GTX 1650 won by a negligible margin with 75.9. This was first spotted by Tom’s Hardware.

These benchmark results show that there might be more to Intel Arc than meets the eye. However, it’s now up to Intel to bring out that potential and tweak the performance of the GPU without requiring users to overclock it. Let’s hope that all the early benchmark data will prove to be useful and will allow Intel to optimize the Arc A380.

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