I think we’re all a bit sick and tired of the GPU shortage. It’s a bit like a broken record with cards constantly out of stock or carrying overly inflated pricing. As such, we’re looking forward to Intel’s entry into the discrete gaming GPU market. One of our favorite leakers momomo_us found a listing in the SiSoft Sandra database, which indicates the upcoming Arc A380 could end up around the GTX 1650 Super level in terms of performance.
The Arc A380 is an entry level GPU based on the Xe-HPG architecture. It is reported to include 128 Execution Units, a clock of 2.45 GHz and a rather curious 4.8GB of memory. Perhaps the latter is simply a reporting error as can happen with a pre-release device.
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The aggregated result shows the A380 sitting just above the GTX 1650 Super and just below a Radeon RX 580 and Nvidia’s RTX 3050 Ti laptop GPU. On the surface you’d probably agree that this isn’t a stellar result for the A380, but until we get real world results, or have a clear idea of the TDP and pricing of the card, we’ll reserve judgment. It may be that there is some driver maturing to come as well.
Intel is scheduled to hold its CES press event just hours from now, so it's likely we’ll start to get some more concrete information on the upcoming Arc GPU range. We hope to see some real gaming benchmarks, or at least a 3DMark result or two to see just where the cards sit.
Intel has many releases, teasers and unveilings planned, including more of its Alder Lake CPU range for desktop and mobile. The later is a particularly important release for Intel. We can expect to see laptops with 12th Gen CPUs and Arc GPUs. Will they be capable of quality AAA gaming? Will Nvidia be worried that its mobile GPU dominance is under threat? 2022 is a big year for Intel, Nvidia and AMD.
