Intel discrete graphics ARC A380, versus 51 gaming benchmarks versus AMD Radeon RX 6400 head-to-head comparison. This will provide a better understanding of how the ARC A380 performs in various games. (Comparison results below the article are for reference only!)
The purpose of this comparison is to go one step further with 51 gaming benchmarks covering 1080p and 900p (1600x900) resolutions, using quality settings. At some point we may also look at overclocked performance as many of you have requested, but first we want to prioritize stock performance to get a clear benchmark of Intel ARC 3 A380 performance.
Intel has not been released outside of China for the A380, so this is still an unreleased product for most gamers. But this is less about buying advice and more about taking a look at the first Intel ARC discrete graphics card aimed at the entry-level market.
For testing, a Ryzen 7 5800X3D test system was used, and yes, no one would pair a budget graphics card with this processor, but the point was to test pure graphics performance while avoiding the introduction of CPU bottlenecks that would skew the data.
For low-end to entry-level graphics testing, we typically use medium quality settings in games, or settings that make sense for a given title. Also note that in this test, both the A380 and RX 6400 were tested with Resizable BAR enabled only. As we discovered in our original A380 review, ReBAR is mandatory for this product because without it, performance is simply horrendous.
In terms of drivers, we are using AMD's Adrenalin Edition 22.7.1 and Intel Graphics Driver 30.0.101.1743. As mentioned, the benchmarks run at 1080p and 900p, and we'll look at about a dozen games each before jumping into the 51-game breakdown chart.
Starting with Death Stranding , we found comparable performance between the two cards, which is a good result for the A380 if it ends up costing about $50 less than the Radeon 6400.
At 900p the Intel GPU was 3% faster, and then at 1080p the average frame rate performance was about the same, although the A380 did offer a 1% low of 20%.
Relative to the Radeon 6400 in Hitman 3, the A380 was incredible, delivering over 70% better performance at both test resolutions. Games were noticeably smoother and more fun with the ARC card, hitting 77 fps at 900p and 60 fps at 1080p, compared to just 34 fps with the RX 6400.
The results here are pretty remarkable, and while we did see other similar examples, I'm sorry to tell you that they were few and far between...
Another standout performance from the Intel A380 is the Blockade 2, it was 64% faster than the Radeon 6400 at 1080p, pushing the average frame rate from a laggy 45 fps to a fairly smooth 74 fps, and 1% lower at 62 fps.
The experience was much better with the ARC GPU, it's a shame we didn't see more of it.
Wolfenstein: Youngblood is another successful game for ARC GPUs. Both the A380 and RX 6400 performed very well at 900p, averaging over 100 fps, although the Radeon GPU ended up taking the top spot with a 10% advantage.
However, we were able to use the "Ultra" quality preset, which gave the A380 and its larger 6GB VRAM buffer an advantage at 1080p, allowing it to pull ahead by 36% to deliver a very respectable average of 75fps.
We hit our first snag on the A380 when we tried to launch Dirt 5, it simply wouldn't work with Intel's graphics card, the game wouldn't even load and you'd just get an error message.
Obviously this is an unfortunate software issue, but it's also a shame because this modern game runs fine on low-end hardware using moderate quality settings, so it's highly playable with the RX 6400.
Next up is Apex Legends, where the A380 is competitive with the Radeon 6400, falling just a few frames behind, meaning both can exceed 90 fps at 1080p. The results for the A380 are great, especially if it ends up being cheaper than the RX 6400.
It's a similar story in F1 22, here the A380 is 10% slower at 1080p, which isn't bad although it lags behind the 16% at 900p The margins are starting to creep up, certainly for those with high refresh rate monitors Notice the difference here.
Battlefield V ran better at 900p with a Radeon GPU, with the A380 being 15% slower on average frame rates and 20% slower on the 1% low.
margins are indeed close to 1080p, but even then the Intel GPU is 10% slower. Overall, the game is playable, but if you had the choice, you'd rather play it with the RX 6400.
We've already heard how Intel is prioritizing support for new APIs like DirectX 12 and Vulkan, so these results are perhaps not surprising. CSGO is still a hugely popular game, so these results will be a complete deal-breaker for many of you.
The Radeon 6400 gives you more than twice the performance, and while the A380 still looks very playable, stability is a real issue here.
During our testing, the game twice failed to run properly and crashed to the desktop, something that never happened on Radeon's card, at least not when benchmarking this game in recent years. Intel still has a lot of driver work to do here.
Intel A380 Struggling is fortnite . Granted, these frame rates are playable, but they're not ideal for competitive shooters, and the effects we got from the Radeon 6400 were more impressive and ideal for those with high refresh rate monitors.
Halo Infinite using the lowest quality settings saw the A380 fail to hit 60 fps, even at 900p, so overall performance was disappointing, especially considering the Radeon 6400 was nearly 40% faster at 1080p.
Moving on to Red Dead Redemption 2, we encountered more driver-related issues. This time the Vulkan API caused a crash and we were able to run our benchmarks, but it did take multiple passes to get the results and basically the game was completely unstable.
However, DirectX 12 appears to run without issue, so the A380 was benchmarked using DX12, while the RX 6400 was tested using Vulkan. The end result is a Radeon performance advantage of 26% at 900p and 22% at 1080p.
Ares’ experience with the A380 was interesting because at first we thought it was going to be another impossible thing. The game did load, but the initial menu was very slow and almost impossible to navigate, but once we managed to hit the "continue" button, the game loaded and was very playable.
As with CSGO, we did experience some crashes while testing, so while we managed to collect the results, they are for reference only due to stability issues. In World War Z Aftermath we have more problems. For some reason, Vulkan isn't available in this title either. We were only able to run with DX11, and while the game ran fine, it would crash on exit and hang the entire system for 30 to 60 seconds, so that was interesting.
What this all means is that the Radeon 6400 was tested using Vulkan, while we were running the A380 using DirectX 11. Performance is pretty poor, especially compared to the RX 6400 which offers over twice the performance.
Far Cry 6 also suffers from a menu bug that makes navigation very slow and makes it difficult to change settings or even enter the game. Other than that, the game didn't crash, at least during our testing, and overall performance was pretty good. This is one of the strong results for the A380.
We've looked at individual results for 15 of the 51 games tested, now it's time to look at how the Arc 3 A380 and Radeon RX 6400 compare at 900p and 1080p across all 51 games.
Starting with the 900p data, we can see that the Arc 3 A380 is a mixed bag, sadly with more "bad" than "good". As mentioned earlier, the A380 has performed respectably in several games including Hitman 3, The Division 2, Doom Eternal, Rainbow Six Battle Royale, and Metro Exodus The return...
performed very competitively, within 5%, across the 7 games tested. But unfortunately, there were 14 races where the A380 was 20% or more behind, with most races having an average margin of 11% or more and 10% or more.
Of course, these results ignore DiRT 5, where the A380 failed to launch and games like God of War and CSGO suffered from stability issues.
1080p's margins are slightly skewed towards the Intel A380, with average processing speeds being 7% slower. But again, this doesn't give us the full picture, as we're looking at a mixed result and ignoring titles that didn't run or had some sort of game-breaking issue.
We have to admit that the Intel ARC 3 A380's performance on this 51-game benchmark wasn't as bad as we expected, but that's not to say the overall experience was great. There are some games that are great, and there are a lot of games that are just fine, but there are also a lot of games that have terrible performance, stability issues, or both. The
Intel driver issue also has two sides... First, we've just tested game support and there's obviously a lot of work to be done to improve performance, compatibility, and stability. The other side of the driver equation is the control application, or Intel's version of Nvidia's GeForce Experience or AMD's Adrenalin software.
Intel's discrete graphics drivers are terrible and have so many issues that it's simply impossible to cover them all in this review. Can confirm that we have encountered almost all of the issues discussed. So it's broken, Intel still has a lot of work to do, especially if they plan to release ARC graphics cards in an "official capacity" later this year.
It's also worth noting that the Radeon RX 6400 is a really bad product, so Intel's entry-level bar is intentionally set extremely low. Currently, the RX 6400 sells for at least $150, making it a reasonable purchase for those in need of a single-slot low-profile graphics card. Otherwise, you're better off saving up for a higher-end graphics card.
In the A380 review, there was hope that Intel would provide driver support, but after spending more time with it, we're not that confident about being willing to take that bet. If there were half decent drivers, it would be better than the Radeon The 6400 is a better product, but it's hard to say if and when they'll get there.
Assuming we need an entry-level graphics card, we figure we'll go to a shopping mall or similar site to find a used GeForce GTX 1650, Radeon RX 580, or something similar. We really hope Intel can turn things around, but that will require some major changes, and we as players aren't sure Intel is capable of doing that. Only time will tell.
You can leave a message under the article and let Yuanxin and everyone see your speech!
[The content of the article is only my personal opinion! Friends who like the article may wish to like, follow and forward Yuanxin so that more friends can receive Yuanxin’s articles! Your support is the driving force for Yuanxin to persist in creating. 】
