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Intel’s top-end Arc graphics cards, the A7 series, have been spotted in a number of leaked benchmarks with interesting results – which, admittedly, we should sprinkle liberally with the usual caveats.
So treat this as the rumor it is, but VideoCardz (opens in new tab) reports that Geekbench results have surfaced for the Intel Arc A770 and A750 GPUs (the Limited Edition versions, i.e. the ones made by Intel itself, much like Nvidia and its Founders Edition cards).
Both graphics cards were tested with Vulkan and OpenCL in a PC with an Intel Core i9-12900KS processor (the fastest Alder Lake chip). In the Vulkan test, the A770 managed to get 73,536 points, while the A750 reached 66,609, not too far behind.
With OpenCL, the A770 got 99,482 compared to 88,828 for the A750, so again it was a similar story (albeit with the lesser spec A7 graphics card slightly further behind).
Analysis: putting things in perspective
This is an interesting leak because it’s the first external results for A7 GPUs outside of the bragging rights we’ve heard from Intel. If you remember, Team Blue promised that the Arc A770 is a rival to Nvidia’s RTX 3060 Ti, and the A750 is aimed at tackling the RTX 3060, based on Intel’s own performance comparisons. Which of course, as with any internal benchmarking, should be taken with some spice in light that the most favorable metrics are always chosen for obvious marketing reasons (everyone does this, of course).
Now in these benchmarks we see that the A770 is roughly equal to the RTX 3060, not the 3060 Ti – and the A750 is a bit behind the RTX 3060 (about 10% of that).
But before we get carried away with the idea that these Intel GPUs might be a little weaker than the company promised, we need to remember that this is just one benchmark, and only the vaguest hint at how this A7 graphics card could do in terms of real-world gaming performance (only the Vulkan score is also relevant in this regard, remember).
Of course, Geekbench scores aren’t the best way to judge gaming either, even in the world of synthetic benchmarks, and a prime example of the results shared here are the shaky scores for the AMD RX 6700 XT (which is definitely a lot faster for gaming than the RTX 3060, but not in these results).
In any case, what we can collect here is limited, and we’ll have to wait for in-depth tests and reviews of the Arc A770 and A750 to know how they will really take shape. The good news is that what we already know is that Intel is very aggressively targeting pricing, something we hoped for early on with Arc GPUs, and that should shake up the market for more affordable graphics cards.
Nvidia’s RTX 4060 isn’t coming anytime soon, so Team Green is letting buyers rely on the RTX 3060 and 3060 Ti for now, so hopefully they’ll have to be priced more competitively as Intel hits the market.
Assuming – and given the way the Arc launch has gone so far, we probably shouldn’t assume too much – that the launch will be on time and smooth with a good amount of Intel’s own A7 GPUs. Hopefully Limited Edition is just a name Intel has chosen – as mentioned, like Founders Edition – and no real indication that volume will be limited, meaning we won’t see that many GPUs on the shelves.