The newly launched Intel A380 is equivalent to Nvidia’s GTX 1650 and AMD’s 6500XT, but does it hold better than the green and red team in terms of pricing and performance?
Intel has been trying to enter the GPU market for years as they were limiting themselves to integrated graphics solutions only. The time has come and Intel has a brand new lineup of dedicated GPUs with their first Intel Arc Alchemy series. Let’s look at one of their cheapest variants so far, the Intel Arc A380, a budget graphics card aimed at those looking to get the most out of their budget.
Availability
Currently, you can get Intel’s Arc GPUs as there’s no stock shortage for the new series. See where to get these Intel graphics cards below:
| Model | Memory | MSRP | Amazon link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Arc A770 | 16 GB | $349 | View on Amazon |
| Intel Arc A750 | 8 GB | $289 | View on Amazon |
| Intel Arc A380 | 6 GB | $139 | View on Amazon |
Pricing and Release Date
The Arc A380 came out in June of 2022 at a starting price of $139. Even though this could be a great budget option, this model does have some issues we will look at.
Specifications
The A380 is built on the ACM-G11 architecture with a TSMC N6 process technology. It has a 157 mm2 die size with a total of 7.2 billion transistors. As far as connectors go, it uses the usual PCI-Express 4.0 x8, with Intel making it clear that Resizable BAR is a big part of this card’s performance. The card has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 96-bit memory interface. It has a total output of 15.5 Gbps, reaching 186 GB/s of memory bandwidth.
Even though it features an 8-pin PCIe power connector, the A380 only takes up 75 W of power. It has a core clock of 2000 MHz which can be boosted up to 2450 MHz.
For people passionate about video editing and other media-related functions, the A380 features multiple video encoding technologies. It can handle H.264, H.265, AV1, and VP9. Since it uses the Xe Display Engine, it can handle up to two displays at 8K 60 Hz + HDR, four displays at 4K 120 Hz+ HDR, or up to four 1440p or 1080p with 360 Hz+ HDR. The A380 has two DP 2.0 and two HDMI 2.0b connectors to handle this.
Performance
Despite having more GDDR6 memory than other GPUs in its price range, the A380 struggles with video games. All GPUs in the Intel Arc series have had many issues with drivers, especially when dealing with older APIs like DirectX 11. The A380 is no different, so if you’re interested in playing older games, be aware that some might not work or suffer from performance issues.
Compared to other GPUs, the A380 is on par with the Nvidia GTX 1650 and the AMD RX 6500 XT. Since Nvidia introduced ray tracing with the 2000 series, the A380 does come out ahead since it has eight RTUs (ray tracing units). It also comes out on top of the 6500 XT, but only by a bit.
Regarding individual games, Borderlands 3 and Total War: Warhammer 3 are the A380’s biggest wins compared to the 6500 XT and the GTX 1650. Other games like Forza Horizon 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 work better on the 6500 XT, but the difference is somewhat negligible.
In conclusion, the A380 is a great GPU for people primarily interested in video editing. It will run most games decently enough, but hardcore gamers should look elsewhere. Given that this is Intel’s first foray into the dedicated GPU market, a lot can be excused as we look to the future. We will have to wait and see if the Arc Battlemage series will fix a lot of these issues and turn Intel into a real contender.
