Recently joined Team Blue (Intel Arc)...

[AbedsBrother]

...with the purchase of an Intel Arc A770 (the Acer Bifrost). It's paired with an i7-11700 (non-k, but P1 overclocked) on an Asrock Z590 itx/ax motherboard with 32 GB ram and an nvme m.2 boot drive running Windows 11 Home. I play my games at 3440x1440, targeting at least 60fps.

I went into this experience knowing the Intel drivers were a work in progress.

When everything works as it should, the A770 is about +25% faster than my old 5700XT, which puts it roughly on the level of a 3060Ti. The 16GB of vram is handy even for some older games at max settings (Rise of the Tomb Raider uses around 10GB at max settings, Far Cry 5 uses about the same or a little more). Cyberpunk and Shadow of the Tomb Raider perform great w/ XeSS (which is far superior to FSR 2.1). Deathloop ran VERY well, despite a warning when booting the game that Intel gpus aren't supported; ~60fps High at 3440x1440 with all raytracing ON. Fallout 4 runs buttery smooth (using TruBy9 mod to play in 21:9).

But there have been some chug-a-thons as well. Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Just Cause 4 and (oddly) Deus Ex Human Revolution Director's Cut chug along at 20-30 fps with the gpu barely used. Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey both run badly, with low utilization and stutter-y frame-times.

The Intel Arc Control Center allows for overclocking, but doesn't allow for a negative voltage offset, so no undervolting. Driver updates don't show a progress bar, but require a reboot when they're complete; I open the task manager and when the cpu activity drops to 1-3%, I assume the update has finished. The Intel in-game overlay displays a lot of real-time information about the cpu and gpu, but doesn't include an fps counter (!). Installing the drivers also installed the Intel hdmi audio driver, which nuked my motherboard's Realtek audio driver (still looking for a solution to that - not a big deal, I'm mostly on headphones anyway). The Arc Control recording software works well, but doesn't have a hotkey to initiate recording (you have to minimize the game, press Record, then maximize the game again), and only records 16:9 aspect video; my display is 21:9, so footage recorded on my display has black bars (OBS offers more options anyway).

Can't adjust the gpu rgb without downloading & installing Acer's Bifrost software, which I'm not bothering with right now. By default the rgb continuously cycles through the rainbow of colors.

The Acer Bifrost is noisy, which comes from having a blower fan. It's in a small form factor build (Fractal Core 500), and it does a good job of venting heat, so no complaints. Under extended max load the core temp is 82C.

The gpu IS an encoding beast in Handbrake, rendering 10bit 720p AV1 at ~350fps. H265 in Vegas 15 (my software is old but still works) renders a 10 minute 3440x1440 video in about 3 minutes.

TL;DR The performance is there in the A770. It's up to Intel to unlock it. Worth considering if you're excited to be a part of a beta test, but not if you're looking for a gpu that "just works."

[Bad 💀 Motha]

It's not really a problem to GAME on the A770. It's definitely a consideration now that Drivers have come along way for it in the last 6 months or so. However it still throws its hands up with VR stuff. That makes it an instant no-go for some folks.

Everyone on tighter budgets should definitely consider it though, especially at the new $339 price tag it just got reduced to.

[🦜Cloud Boy🦜]

There is only 10% performance gap between the Arc A750 and A770.
For $250 msrp the Arc A750 is a better buy as it deliver almost same performance as RTX 3060.

For $330 msrp the Arc A770 is not justifiable when you can buy a 6700xt for around $350 these days.

[Cathulhu]

Yeah, Intel ARC still has some teething issues, but for their first foray into dedicated videocards, it could have been a lot worse.

Let's see how Battlemage and Celestial improves over Alchemy. And of course the drivers and the DX9 situation.

[76561198343548661]

Enjoy your new card !

i like A380 because it has 6GB and is 75W and is nearly as fast as GTX 1650 which has only 4GB . But it s like a budget one yet .

A750 8GB draws more power than RX 6600 8GB (225W vs 132W), so in this price range my choice would be RX 6600 .

As for A770 it s on par with RX 6600 XT but draws 225W vs 160W of RX 6600 XT , The advantage of A770 is 16GB VRAM vs 8GB of RX 6600 XT .

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Well it depends on usage too folks.
Can the AMD Radeons Encode? Haha NO

[A&A]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Bad 💀 Motha:

Well it depends on usage too folks.
Can the AMD Radeons Encode? Haha NO

Do you need an encoder if you have a new intel iGPU?
Or using software x264 encoding?

[carl]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από AbedsBrother:

...with the purchase of an Intel Arc A770 (the Acer Bifrost). It's paired with an i7-11700 (non-k, but P1 overclocked) on an Asrock Z590 itx/ax motherboard with 32 GB ram and an nvme m.2 boot drive running Windows 11 Home. I play my games at 3440x1440, targeting at least 60fps.

Enjoy your new card and thanks for the detailed post. Is the build a content creation centred PC? I also have a Z590i board albeit with an i5 11400.

The A770 Acer Bifrost is something I have been looking at with interest. I like the novel and good looking aesthetic. I had wondered how the noise and thermals of the cooler would work. I've watched a couple of reviews on YouTube. However it's still at £400 in the UK and I have an RX 6600 XT în my primary games PC so hard for me to justify the purchase right now. The larger vram capacity interests me as I want to build a PC for unreal engine development as a hobby.

[AbedsBrother]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Bad 💀 Motha:

Well it depends on usage too folks.
Can the AMD Radeons Encode? Haha NO

They can encode, actually. My 5700XT was great with h265. And my video editing software, Vegas 15, has good OpenCL acceleration.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από carl:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από AbedsBrother:

...with the purchase of an Intel Arc A770 (the Acer Bifrost). It's paired with an i7-11700 (non-k, but P1 overclocked) on an Asrock Z590 itx/ax motherboard with 32 GB ram and an nvme m.2 boot drive running Windows 11 Home. I play my games at 3440x1440, targeting at least 60fps.

Enjoy your new card and thanks for the detailed post. Is the build a content creation centred PC? I also have a Z590i board albeit with an i5 11400.

The A770 Acer Bifrost is something I have been looking at with interest. I like the novel and good looking aesthetic. I had wondered how the noise and thermals of the cooler would work. I've watched a couple of reviews on YouTube. However it's still at £400 in the UK and I have an RX 6600 XT în my primary games PC so hard for me to justify the purchase right now. The larger vram capacity interests me as I want to build a PC for unreal engine development as a hobby.

It's mostly for gaming. Sometimes I make an occasional YouTube video.

Yeah, I doubt you'll see much increase in fps vs your 6600XT. The vram and encoding would be the main attractions. XeSS is the real deal (which surprised me), but it's not in many games yet. The Bifrost does not have a 0% fan mode, so the fans do run constantly (but they're not too noisy at idle, just under load). And 82C under load is about 12-15 degrees cooler than my 5700XT's hotspot.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από A&A ✠:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Bad 💀 Motha:

Well it depends on usage too folks.
Can the AMD Radeons Encode? Haha NO

Do you need an encoder if you have a new intel iGPU?
Or using software x264 encoding?

I'm in a funny situation there. Intel has this tech called Deep Link & Hyper Encode that allows the iGPU and Arc gpu to encode together, boosting productivity. Need 12th gen or better, though, and I'm on 11th gen. Trying to use the iGPU to encode in OBS results in a massive fps-hit. I assume it's something to do with OBS fighting with the game over cache allocation (the 11700 only has 16MB of L3), but that's just a guess on my part.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από smallcat:

Enjoy your new card !

i like A380 because it has 6GB and is 75W and is nearly as fast as GTX 1650 which has only 4GB . But it s like a budget one yet .

A750 8GB draws more power than RX 6600 8GB (225W vs 132W), so in this price range my choice would be RX 6600 .

As for A770 it s on par with RX 6600 XT but draws 225W vs 160W of RX 6600 XT , The advantage of A770 is 16GB VRAM vs 8GB of RX 6600 XT .

I run the Bifrost power-limited at 175W. I lost like 50 points in Superposition, but it runs a bit quieter. I'd love to undervolt it (which I did to my Radeon gpus for years), but Intel needs to provide the option in its software. There is a 3rd party tool that can do it, but it's too easy to mess up stuff like that (for me, anyway).

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από 🦜Cloud Boy🦜:

There is only 10% performance gap between the Arc A750 and A770.
For $250 msrp the Arc A750 is a better buy as it deliver almost same performance as RTX 3060.

For $330 msrp the Arc A770 is not justifiable when you can buy a 6700xt for around $350 these days.

I almost went for a 6750XT reference model, and if I wanted the best fps for the money that's what I should have done. But I'm tech-curious. Simple as that.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Cathulhu:

Yeah, Intel ARC still has some teething issues, but for their first foray into dedicated videocards, it could have been a lot worse.

Let's see how Battlemage and Celestial improves over Alchemy. And of course the drivers and the DX9 situation.

I didn't go ahead with the purchase until I'd heard some leaks about Battlemage, indicating Intel is in this for the long haul. The drivers have apparently made a lot of progress, but there's still a long way to go - esp. for DX11 games.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

No AMD Radeon does well with encoding. It's a fact. Can easily look it up. The encoding they can do is laughable even compared to what the onboard Intel UHD series can do. Doesn't come close to what the Intel ARC or even an old GTX 10 series GPU can do.

[AbedsBrother]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Bad 💀 Motha:

No AMD Radeon does well with encoding. It's a fact. Can easily look it up. The encoding they can do is laughable even compared to what the onboard Intel UHD series can do. Doesn't come close to what the Intel ARC or even an old GTX 10 series GPU can do.

That totally explains why my 5700XT curb-stomps the 11700's UHD750 igpu when encoding h265, whether in OBS, Handbrake or Vegas.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

IDK maybe they do OK with H265 then. I always remembered they weren't very good at raw AVI or H264

[emoticorpse]

How much was it?

[AbedsBrother]

Under $350

[Bad 💀 Motha]

5700 XT is a little lacking in the gaming arena though. I suppose 6700 XT is a decent alternative.

[AbedsBrother]

5700XT was always kind of a stretch at 3440x1440, performance-wise. The 8GB of vram has been a limitation since Far Cry 5. Didn't help that the one I have is a Powercolor Red Dragon w/ a dual slot cooler. Great for sff builds, terrible for actual cooling performance. Had to downclock & undervolt to keep temps reasonable.