Gameplay Performance at 1440p
We are going to focus on 1440p gameplay performance with the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition video card on this page. 1080p and Ray Tracing will be tested later in this review. We will include XeSS, FSR, and DLSS performance on the same graph in the games that are supported. For video card comparisons we are using an EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC BLACK GAMING, MSI Radeon RX 6600 XT GAMING X, and SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 6600 GAMING.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO)
We are going to include CS:GO in this review, because it is an older game, based on DX9, and quite popular. CS:GO was released on September 23, 2014, and uses the Source engine. This game runs in DX9, and will be a good test for an older API on Intel Arc A770, plus, this game recently got a driver update from Intel improving performance. We will utilize the workshop FPS benchmark from uLLeticaL.
We are going to start with an old game, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) which was released way back in 2014 and based on DX9. The reason for this is that Intel Arc GPUs have, in the past, had poor DX9 performance. Intel has been hard at work at improving DX9 performance, and CS:GO is one game that Intel has specifically improved performance in with the latest drivers. Since this is still a popular game, highly played, and tops the charts on Steam survey, we included it here for all of these reasons.
At 1440p, with the highest graphics settings, the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition provides 288FPS, which is very playable. At this performance level, it still has much catching up to do to reach GeForce RTX 3060 or Radeon RX 6600/XT. The Radeon RX 6600 and Radeon RX 6600 XT perform the best in this game, with the Radeon RX 6600 XT providing the highest framerate. The Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition is 32% slower than the Radeon RX 6600 XT and 22% slower than the GeForce RTX 3060. This performance scaling, is not the norm, however, as you will see in all the other games.
Forspoken
Forspoken was released on January 24th, 2023, on the PC and uses the Luminous Engine. The game supports all upscaling methods, including NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR, and Intel XeSS, and Ray Tracing. We are going to customize the settings and enable the highest graphics settings, including Ultra High Texture Memory. We use the built-in benchmark.
In a newly released game, like Forspoken, the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition performs decently even at 1440p compared to the other comparison video cards. It provides a 45FPS average, but what makes it more interesting is that with Intel XeSS even on Ultra Quality mode gives you around 54FPS average, and the game is much smoother and playable.
The GeForce RTX 3060 comes close with DLSS, but without upscaling the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition is 18% faster than the GeForce RTX 3060. Intel Arc A770 is majorly faster than the Radeon RX 6600 XT, being 80% faster! Granted, there may be driver optimizations not yet made, and needing to be made, on Radeon RX 6600/XT series GPUs in this game. The AMD driver available is quite old, and not optimized for this game. The Intel Arc A770 with XeSS is 6% faster than the RTX 3060 with DLSS and 50% faster than RX 6600 XT with FSR.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare II
Call of Duty Modern Warfare II was released on October 27, 2022, on the PC and uses the IW 9.0 gaming engine. The game supports all upscaling methods, including NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Image Scaling, AMD FSR 1.0, AMD Fidelity FX CAS, and Intel XeSS. We use the highest quality option of each. We customize every graphics setting to the maximum value for the best image quality and enable everything. We use the built-in benchmark.
In Call of Duty Modern Warfare II the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition easily provides 60FPS gameplay at 1440p, making the game very playable and an enjoyable gameplay experience. Performance is further enhanced with Intel XeSS boosting framerates up by 15% bringing it up to 70FPS and the gameplay experience is very smooth. The Intel Arc A770 is 13% faster than the Radeon RX 6600 and is close in performance to the Radeon RX 6600 XT. The GeForce RTX 3060 is the fastest GPU here, at 75FPS the Intel Arc A770 is 19% slower than the RTX 3060.
F1 2022
F1 2022 was released on June 28th, 2022 on the PC and uses Codemasters Ego engine. The game supports Ray Tracing, DLSS, AMD FidelityFX, and FSR. We are going to run the game with the highest quality settings of “Ultra High” and TAA+FidelityFX. We will enable DLSS and FSR as needed at the Quality setting for both. We will utilize the built-in benchmark in the Imola track, in dry conditions with a far-chasing cam.
Even though the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition is sitting at the bottom of the graph here, notice how the actual performance is still very playable. It provides a nearly 90FPS average at 1440p and this is with the highest graphics settings (Ultra graphics, sans Ray Tracing) at 1440p. The fact is, the Intel Arc A770 is providing a very playable experience at 1440p and is close to Radeon RX 6600 in this game. When you turn on FSR that framerate is boosted by 26% and is now over 100FPS at 1440p, which is plenty playable. The Intel Arc A770 is 9% slower than the GeForce RTX 3060 and 19% slower than the Radeon RX 6600 XT.
Dying Light 2
Dying Light 2 was released in February 2022 on the PC and uses Techland’s C-Engine. The game supports Ray Tracing, DLSS, and FSR2. We have updated the game to the 1.90 patch. We use the built-in preset to set “HIGH QUALITY” which sets the highest game graphics, without Ray Tracing. We manually enable DX12 and ASYNC Compute. We use the built-in benchmark.
In Dying Light 2 the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition is able to provide a playable gameplay experience at 1440p with this game at its highest game settings (sans Ray Tracing) at 74FPS. This is pretty amazing and shows the Intel Arc A770 is a capable video card in a demanding game graphically, at 1440p. This is a modern DX12 game that is very demanding on graphics. The Intel Arc A770 ends up being 24% faster than the GeForce RTX 3060 and Radeon RX 6600 XT in this very demanding game. Even more, turning on Intel XeSS improves performance by another 25% taking it up to 90FPS at 1440p! With Intel XeSS performance is 14% faster than the RTX 3060 with DLSS or RX 6600 XT with FSR.
Far Cry 6
Far Cry 6 was released in October of 2021 and uses the Dunia Engine. We utilize the built-in benchmark for testing. We have the HD Texture pack installed and turned on. We utilize the “Ultra” graphics preset which sets all options to the highest game settings. This game supports FSR upscaling.
Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition is able to provide a very playable gameplay experience in Far Cry 6 at 1440p with “Ultra” settings and HD Textures turned on. We are getting about 81FPS, which is 14% faster than the GeForce RTX 3060 and 17% faster than the Radeon RX 6600 XT. Turning on FSR brings performance up by another 25% to 100FPS at 1440p in this game at the highest settings.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 was released in December of 2020 and uses the REDengine 4. We have the game patched to version 1.61 and utilize the built-in benchmark. We test using the Graphics Preset option to set graphics settings, mainly “Ultra”. This game supports DLSS and FSR2.
As we all know, Cyberpunk 2077 is very demanding, but the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition actually is able to hold its own against the competition at 1440p with “Ultra” settings. Performance is not playable until we utilize upscaling, but it is still on par with both the GeForce RTX 3060 and Radeon RX 6600 XT in this game at 1440p with “Ultra” settings. We do need to utilize upscaling, in this case, FSR2, in order to make the game playable at 1440p. Enabling FSR2 brings about a 10% improvement in performance. We do see the Radeon RX 6600 XT benefit more from FSR2 in this game, bringing that up to 56FPS which is better.
Watch Dogs Legion
Watch Dogs Legion was released on the PC in October of 2020 and uses the Disrupt game engine. We utilize the built-in benchmark for testing. We have the HD Texture pack installed and enabled for testing. We use the built-in graphics preset of “Ultra” for testing. This game supports DLSS upscaling.
The Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition provides a playable experience in Watch Dogs Legion at 1440p with “Ultra” settings, which is again very amazing. It outperforms the competition, at 11% faster than the Radeon RX 6600 XT and 20% faster than the GeForce RTX 3060! We don’t need upscaling to make it playable here, the Arc A770 can already give us nearly 60FPS at 1440p as it is.
Discussion (16 replies)
Join Discussion →Nice review. I had no idea Intel would be able to put out something that is actually competitive, AND at a lower price point than Nvidia. And I have been reading how the drivers are improving. Let's hope they keep cracking the whip on the driver team.... there is more to life than just CS:GO and F1 numbers.
I doubt this is going to supplant my 1080ti, but for someone on a budget or building new, this is interesting. We really do NEED competition in the GPU field to get the prices down. I know it won't compare to a $800+ 4070ti, but it seems to be holding up well to the $400+ 3060.
Oh almost forgot.... does this one provide any benefit to video compression work, since it supports all the common high end codecs?
I have not personally tested video encoding, but it does famously support AV1, and according to YT videos I've watched, it's competitively fast at it.
I'm really impressed with RT performance. It absolutely crushes AMD and is very competitive with nvidia.
Thanks, @Brent_Justice for the great review. I really am bummed with how the launch of this card went because I do believe that it is a good card and deserves better. Here's hoping the next launch goes better. I've been following the stories about the driver updates and how they've helped close the FPS gap with many games and have improved overall performance.
Wow the benches are all over the place -- not necessarily a bad thing, it's a new third-party entry. Just interesting to see it doesn't boil down to the usual camps of "plays well on Green" or "plays well on Red".
Hard to really compare anything with RT - the numbers are barely playable even at best, and we are looking at only last-gen stuff from AMD/nVidia (rightfully so, neither has released anything in the lower price tiers on current-gen architectures, but those current gen things have much different RT performance). That, and... I don't really care a whole lot about RT performance in the first place.
Nice review. This entry by Intel is definitely interesting. Truth be told it's a lot more impressive than anything I expected out of them considering how new they are in this space. The gains from drivers is also impressive. When it was first released a lot of people commented that it seemed the hardware was quite good overall but the drivers were holding it back and that definitely seems to be the case in plenty of instances. While the card is far from perfect it does show that Intel has promise in the GPU space.
I'd like to get my hands on one just to mess around with it and see what it does for my uses.
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Wow, I was impressed the A770 pretty much keeps pace with 1080ti. Yeah I know that's old hat by now, but still an awesome card. And for under $400 is impressive.
Lol.
Is there any combination of title, resolution and settings in which this thing is fast enough to be playable, where it will actually use 16GB of VRAM?
I have to wonder why they decided to release this product instead of just the 8GB version.
That said, $349 is by far the cheapest 16GB video card I can think of, so if you have the need for a large amount of VRAM (and not much else) maybe this is your best choice?
Well, if you think about when this card was being designed - Etherium mining could use all the VRAM you could throw at it, and that was really the market Intel was planning on chasing. So... yeah, that's why.
I thought Ethereum liked more memory bandwidth than memory size.
I never mined it myself but yeah, what you say probably makes more sense - but I know there's certainly a floor for it where you have to have a minimum amount of VRAM to play.
I tinkered with mining during its peak since I had so many old cards laying around and was in the process of updating a few as well. It does like more ram but favors speed even more once you're at/over the 8GB mark. I have an EVGA RTX 2080 Super with (GDDR6) that did pretty well because of the faster ram. My older cards, the 1080s (from my last SLI setup) and 1080 Ti did ok but that Super was about 20% better than the 1080 Ti even though it had more VRAM. The cards that did the best were the 2080 Ti and a 3090 but that's not including power usage although undervolting/underclocking could do a lot to balance that.
In the end, before I stopped altogether, the optimal setup on my old X79 motherboard was using the 2080 Super, 2080 Ti, and a 3090. I have to say that the Super was an interesting beast in that while on some levels it was only just more powerful in terms of rasterization of the 1080 Ti, the tensor cores+DLSS allowed it to take a step further and that combined with the faster VRAM gave it just a bit more to boot. The other neat thing is that it only needed 2x 8-pin connectors while the 1080 Ti used 3. I originally bought that Super to use with my original 3700X build with the LG C9 since it was the only thing I could afford to be able to use the C9's 120Hz HDR g-sync, albeit at 1440p. It was also a nice BF deal in that it cost less than the 1080 Ti did at launch.
I had a GTX1070 and later a GTX1070Ti that paid themselves in just a few months with ethereum. Both mined pretty much the same, I figured it was because they had the same bandwidth.
Nicely done!
It is good to see Intel doing very well in the low/mid range gpu space. Perhaps less profit per unit, a whole lot more units sold per year though.
Once Intel is comfortable with its silicone and drivers I am hoping for them to come out swinging with a high end GPU. Looks like they will be able to compete against the raster performance of AMD and the Ray Trace/AI of NV - or so I hope.
Not this generation - I am thinking this was their test run and unofficial Beta testing. In 6-18 months I expect to see second generation Intel GPU's.
Now that Raja Koduri is gone, I don't know if even a next gen is in the works.