Conclusion
In today’s review, we have put the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition to the test and tested all gaming aspects, including 1440p, 1080p, Ray Tracing, and Intel XeSS upscaling. The Intel Arc A770 16GB Limited Edition video card has an MSRP of $349.99 and supports the latest modern technologies, including DX12 Ultimate features.
In this price range, its direct competition from NVIDIA is the 12GB GeForce RTX 3060 video card, and from AMD it is the 8GB Radeon RX 6600 XT. Prices do fluctuate, and there are versions of the Radeon RX 6600 XT which might be cheaper, but the GeForce RTX 3060 has remained at fairly high pricing, above its MSRP of $329.99. The EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC BLACK GAMING we used for comparison today is in fact $549 online right now, yes $549, and at its lowest has been $429, though its MSRP was supposed to be $329.
The lowest-priced GeForce RTX 3060 12GB video card on Newegg right now is $354 in February of 2023. We wanted to put this pricing in perspective for you since the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition is actually available at Newegg right now for $349.99. Therefore, you can clearly see that the GeForce RTX 3060 would be the closest card on the NVIDIA GPU side, not the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti which starts at +$400. Even then, most of the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB’s are much more expensive than the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition.
On the AMD side, things get a bit more muddied. The Radeon RX 6600 XT had an MSRP of $379 at launch, but its pricing has maintained its MSRP better than the GeForce RTX 3060, and in fact, has dropped in price since its launch. Now the MSI Radeon RX 6600 XT GAMING X 8G we used for comparison today is still riding high at $399 online, but it was at exactly $349 for several months before now, and this was a higher-priced RX 6600 XT, to begin with. The Radeon RX 6600 XT can actually be found for as low as $275, but its pricing does vary a lot and many cards are actually in the $330-$399 range. Due to its price fluctuating so much on the high side, that is why we also wanted to include the Radeon RX 6600 which has an MSRP of $329 but is cheaper than that now.
Therefore, as you can see the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition is in a unique position, actually available at its MSRP of $349.99. It sits in a place that NVIDIA nor AMD is occupying right now with new hardware, it competes in the range of the Radeon RX 6600 XT and GeForce RTX 3060 12GB video cards, a place only Intel is pushing forward right now with a new GPU.
Performance
Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition is a 1440p gaming video card. We wanted to first find out, in our testing, if the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition plays best at 1080p or 1440p, we wondered if it could truly allow an enjoyable 1440p resolution gameplay experience. Our testing indicates that it certainly does. In many games, even modern and graphically challenging games, the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition allowed a playable experience. In the games that were even more challenging, we could make them very playable by enabling Intel XeSS or AMD FSR upscaling technologies when the games supported that, which boosted up framerates quite nicely.
Forspoken was challenging, this is a new game, and there will be patches coming out to improve performance. That said, Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition did well with XeSS enabled, allowing a playable experience, but what’s even better, it outperformed every video card in our comparison, including the GeForce RTX 3060 by 18%. Dying Light 2, which is often very challenging, played well even without needing upscaling at 73FPS average. Again it beat the GeForce RTX 3060 and Radeon RX 6600 XT in performance by a great deal, 24%. Even Cyberpunk 2077 was playable as long as we used FSR, and it was still just a hair faster than the RTX 3060. In every other game, performance was at 60FPS or higher on Intel Arc A770, and this was 1440p.
At 1080p gaming the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition smashed gaming. Here we were able to get 60FPS in Forspoken without even needing upscaling. We got near 100FPS in Dying Light 2, and 60FPS in Cyberpunk 2077. All other games were 80FPS+ at 1080p, without upscaling. Then if you really needed more, upscaling is there for you, nearly 70FPS in Forspoken with XeSS.
We also experienced good things with Ray Tracing. In fact, we can definitively say Ray Tracing on Intel Arc A770 is superior to Radeon RX 6000 series (RDNA 2) performance, and rivals GeForce RTX 3060 Ray Tracing performance. At 1440p, new graphically challenging games are going to be iffy for a playable experience, even with upscaling, but this is typical of cards in this price range. We did find F1 2022 playable with FSR at 1440p and Ray Tracing, as well as Far Cry 6 and maybe Dying Light 2 with XeSS.
Where the Intel Arc A770 really shined was at 1080p with Ray Tracing enabled. Forspoken was challenging for it, but with XeSS it was nearly 60FPS. F1 2022 was playable with FSR enabled, and Dying Light 2 was as well with XeSS, but Far Cry 6 was playable without upscaling. Cyberpunk 2077 was with FSR, and what really surprised us was Metro Exodus Enhanced was playable at 1080p with Extreme Ray Tracing quality mode.
The thing that really shocked us though, with Ray Tracing was how much faster the Intel Arc A770 was at times compared to the GeForce RTX 3060. In Forspoken Intel Arc A770 was 14% faster than RTX 3060 with Ray Tracing at 1080p. In Dying Light 2 it was 15% faster, in Far Cry 6 it was 9% faster, in Watch Dogs Legion it was 18% faster, and in Metro Exodus Enhanced it was 59% faster.
The only downside was how inconsistent some performance was. There were games where the GeForce RTX 3060 and Radeon RX 6600 XT beat it, but then others where Intel Arc A770 smashed RX 6600 XT and RTX 3060. This back and forth is annoying, because it is so game dependent, and so the one you may be playing may not be well optimized with Arc A770, while others might and really show an advantage. In some games, you get more than your money’s worth, and in others, maybe not.
Frametimes
The best way to demonstrate the frametime comparison is to show these two screenshots above from Dying Light 2’s benchmark run. On the left side is the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition, and on the right side is the GeForce RTX 3060. The Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition has a faster framerate, and both video cards are tested at the same game settings. However, while the Intel Arc A770 is winning in framerate, note the frametime graphs shown, it shows it both in FPS and milliseconds.
What you will notice is that on the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition, there are more “spikes” between the different scenes. There are more highs, and more lows and the in-between framerate is less consistent. The GeForce RTX 3060 has a more consistent frametime experience, and just a little less overall frame render time as well, even though the framerate, is faster on Arc 770. This means the experience is better on GeForce RTX 3060, smoother, with fewer stutters, and is consistent.
Let’s be clear, frametimes on Intel Arc have improved a great deal since early launch drivers. Intel has made huge strides in improving the consistency and lowering frametimes in games. There are multiple reviews out there that prove that the frametimes are much better today than they were at launch. That said, the frametimes are still not on par with modern NVIDIA or AMD GPUs. There is still room for improvement, as we saw in our example in Dying Light 2.
To put it simply, the consistency and experience of gameplay are still currently the best on NVIDIA or AMD, and frametimes are still not on par with Intel Arc. Intel has proven they can improve the frametimes, because that has happened, from now compared to launch. Therefore, the potential is there that Intel may eventually match parity with the consistency of frametime with modern NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.
Final Points
The Intel Arc A770, and Arc series in general, is the definition of the ‘fine wine’ argument/meme. When the Intel Arc GPUs were released, performance was chaotic and underperforming. Since the launch, drivers have improved, and Intel has shown multiple iterations of drivers that have improved many aspects of performance, including framerate, and frametime. In fact, in this latest driver, Intel has made its Arc Control software a separate application, rather than an overlay, greatly improving that aspect and building upon user feedback.
Intel is also improving in another way, it is starting to support new games with Day 1 drivers, optimizing its GPUs for said games. This was proven by releasing a driver on 1/24/2023 to support Forspoken, which came out exactly on 1/24/2023. AMD doesn’t even have an optimized driver for Forspoken (at the time of writing) yet on its Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs, and the game has now been out 3-weeks (at the time of writing). Intel also released a driver on 2/7/2023 to support Hogwarts Legacy before the game was even released! These kinds of moves by Intel are important and show that it is serious.
It is clear that Intel Arc A770 has a good architecture, the architecture is solid, and it has the potential to perform well. We are impressed by the Ray Tracing performance at this price range, it is much better than the Radeon RX 6000 series in Ray Tracing, and rivals GeForce RTX Ray Tracing performance at this price range. Intel Arc A770 also has Intel XeSS upscaling technology, and as far as we can tell also rivals DLSS, providing similar image quality, and performance uplift.
Truly the only thing holding back Arc A770 was drivers, and that is continuing to improve over time. There are weaknesses still, inconsistent game performance between games, subpar DX9 performance, and not the best frametimes and consistency, but Intel has shown it can improve, and it has shown that there is great potential in the Intel Arc architecture and GPUs. When it comes to modern games or AAA titles, Intel Arc A770 is a modern GPU that can support the latest features well in this price range. In fact, it is the only new GPU in this price range, and right now rules the $349.99 price point offering the best value.
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.