Gamers get excited about Intel's Arc GPU, the first discrete gaming graphics card launched by Intel. But the hype over Intel arc graphics is fading due to reports of subpar performance, broken drivers, and so on.

The Intel Arc GPU has in-built 28 Xe cores, 26 ray tracing units, a 2,050 MHz clock speed, and 8GB of GDDR6 RAM. This doubles memory and has power across the board, like 32 Xe cores and ray tracing units.

Besides such advanced in-built functionalities, Intel ARC is lagging. There are several reasons behind this subpar performance that we'll explore in this blog:

Inconsistent Performance Across Games

The lackluster performance of Intel Arc graphics is due to poor software optimizations for the Intel Arc A380 graphics card. The gaming results show Intel's GPU lags behind AMD's Radeon RX 6400 and Nvidia's GTX 1650.

Let's see how:

For example, in Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, the Arc A380 produced an average frame rate of 99.4 frames per second. Meanwhile, the Radeon RX 6400 posted an FPS of 111, while the GTX 1650 achieved an FPS of 125.

If we see Grand Theft Auto 5, the Arc A380 could only achieve an FPS of 81, while the RX 6400 and GTX 1650 produced frame rates of over 100.

Xess Works Only In A Handful Of Games

Intel XeSS, or Xe Super sampling, is an upscaling functionality of the Intel ARC graphics card. It works by rendering your game at lower resolutions. This technology upscales your gameplay through machine learning and dedicated AI hardware inside the GPU.

XeSS helps in improving the overall image quality of games. Intel XeSS has been added to Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Hitman III
Super People
The Settlers
Dolmen
Anvil

Armageddon
Ghostwire: Tokyo
Grid Legends
Vampire: Blood Hunt

Chorus
Death Stranding
Chivalry II
Enlisted

How Does Intel XeSS Work?

Intel XeSS works similarly with Nvidia's Deep-Learning Super sampling and AMD's dynamic tech duo of Fidelity FX Super Resolution (FSR) and Radeon Super Resolution (RSR).

This offers you high frame rates in your favorite games using AI-assisted training and algorithms to handle the task.

XeSS performs temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) to clean up jagged edges. This replaces traditional anti-aliasing technology.

Intel Arc GPU Alchemist graphics cards consist of XMX cores, which run the AI model to perform the upscaling. They're similar to Nvidia's tensor cores.

Older Games Are Problematic

Intel Arc shines in modern games with DirectX12 and Vulkan support, such as ATOM RPG Trudograd, Baldur's Gate 3, Ballistic Overkill, Battle Axe, and so on.

Intel Arc has a massive backlog of older games to get through, and those rely on equally older APIs, like DirectX 9.

Take, for example, Shadow of the Tomb Raider. When gamers use DX12, its recommended API, both the Arc A770 and A750 easily keep pace with the competition. On the other hand, the switch to DX11 and the A770's performance plummet. With resizable BAR left on, it runs 49 percent slower.

The reason is that the older DirectX11 API relies on Microsoft and the GPU driver to manage the game's memory. Intel needs time for optimization of their graphics cards with a range of older games, such as

X COM: UFO Defense.
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee.
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
Baldur's Gate II.
Planescape: Torment.

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.
Half-Life.
Deus Ex.

These games are designed to keep GPU hardware in mind for supporting Nvidia and AMD.

Unfortunately, Intel Arc consumes more power than its Nvidia and AMD counterparts, both under load and idle.

The use of idle power is startling. Arc machines use nearly double that of their counterparts. Even under load, you're looking at about 50 percent more help than the RX 6600.

Intel’s Arc Alchemist cards are being built on chipmaker TSMC’s N6 nodes, which are just a revision of the N7 node used on AMD’s graphics cards. The basis of Xe HPG core is Xe core, which basically features 16 vector units and 16 Xe matrix execution units along with L1 cache. This system also consists of dedicated ray-tracing units. These slices separate various alchemist graphics cards.

As per Intel, it can smoothly add up to eight slices to a graphics card. It has a total of 32 Xe cores, 512 XMX, and vector units as well. It isn’t possible to speculate on how future architectures will work.

Overclocking

Intel Arc drivers feature in-built advanced overclocking units. This allows you to push your device’s clock speed compared to its previous versions. Intel doesn’t officially confirm the exact overclocking speed, but yeah! It must be similar to their AMD and Nvidia counterparts.

Arc Alchemist performs great work in overclocking without consuming a lot of power. Simply put, a significant overclocking speed can be achieved with no extra cost.

Intel’s continuously exploring new features for its drivers. These advanced drivers will line up major modern gaming lines. The drivers also help with resource-intensive tasks such as video streaming, photo editing, redording, and so on.

Real-Time Ray Tracing And XeSS

Thanks to Intel Arc Alchemist cards that come with advanced support and the latest gaming features like DirectX 12 and Vulkan Ray Tracing, Due to the AI-assisted super sampling feature, it works with Nvidia DLSS technology. However, it’s not as powerful as DLSS in games such as Hitman 3.

Bottom Line

Intel Arc GPU graphics need some advanced upcoming support for older games, adequate bandwidth encoding, and power efficiency to break the duopoly of Nvidia and AMD in the graphics world.

Why Intel Arc Gpu May Not Be an Ideal Option for Serious Gamers