Intel A770 16GB Price Drop

ValdemarJ

Newegg has an Asrock A770/16GB for $300. https://www.newegg.com/asrock-arc-a770-a770-pg-16go/p/N82E16814930102?Item=N82E16814930102

Is this card becoming more competitive for mid range and a flagship 1440p/144Hz option?

The hardware looks solid and it sports 16GB of GDDR6, which is the cheapest 16GB card I could find on their listing. There is also an Acer version of the same card for $320.

The next cheapest card after that is an XFX RX6800, which is arguably a much beefier card. You are getting what you pay for with the 6800, but I think the A770 is closer to the historic mid-range MSRP than we've seen in a long time.

Two big concerns, are the mainboard/cpu requirements and driver maturity. You need newer hardware to use the card properly, but it supports both Intel and AMD.

Initially I wrote off Intel's effort because they stumbled out of the gate with focus and direction and I figured it was another half-baked attempt. But, I think I was wrong and they could be shaping this up to be a solid 1440p card.

Vrika

If you don't own any games and want something exclusively for playing new AAA games as they release, then A770 would be good choice.

But if you already own a larger game library and want to occasionally replay some of your old games, then something like RTX 4060 also at $300 would be much better purchase. A770's driver support would be much worse limitation than RTX 4060's limited RAM is.

Gorwe

Vrika said:

If you don't own any games and want something exclusively for playing new AAA games as they release, then A770 would be good choice.

But if you already own a larger game library and want to occasionally replay some of your old games, then something like RTX 4060 also at $300 would be much better purchase. A770's driver support would be much worse limitation than RTX 4060's limited RAM is.

Just purchase something like AMD's 6800. Or, if going for cheaper alternative, 6700. That's the best solution imo.

But Intel's prices are really enticing.

Vrika

Gorwe said:

Vrika said:

If you don't own any games and want something exclusively for playing new AAA games as they release, then A770 would be good choice.

But if you already own a larger game library and want to occasionally replay some of your old games, then something like RTX 4060 also at $300 would be much better purchase. A770's driver support would be much worse limitation than RTX 4060's limited RAM is.

Just purchase something like AMD's 6800. Or, if going for cheaper alternative, 6700. That's the best solution imo.

But Intel's prices are really enticing.

Both NVidia and AMD have good offers. My point wasn't about whether you should get NVidia or AMD, but rather that I'd recommend against Intel. If we're lucky their next GPU generation could be good enough, but this GPU generation really isn't yet.

Gorwe

Vrika said:

Gorwe said:

Vrika said:

If you don't own any games and want something exclusively for playing new AAA games as they release, then A770 would be good choice.

But if you already own a larger game library and want to occasionally replay some of your old games, then something like RTX 4060 also at $300 would be much better purchase. A770's driver support would be much worse limitation than RTX 4060's limited RAM is.

Just purchase something like AMD's 6800. Or, if going for cheaper alternative, 6700. That's the best solution imo.

But Intel's prices are really enticing.

Both NVidia and AMD have good offers. My point wasn't about whether you should get NVidia or AMD, but rather that I'd recommend against Intel. If we're lucky their next GPU generation could be good enough, but this GPU generation really isn't yet.

Agreed. What's it about their drivers?

ValdemarJ

Gorwe said:

Vrika said:

If you don't own any games and want something exclusively for playing new AAA games as they release, then A770 would be good choice.

But if you already own a larger game library and want to occasionally replay some of your old games, then something like RTX 4060 also at $300 would be much better purchase. A770's driver support would be much worse limitation than RTX 4060's limited RAM is.

Just purchase something like AMD's 6800. Or, if going for cheaper alternative, 6700. That's the best solution imo.

But Intel's prices are really enticing.

The 6800 is at least $130 more. This is currently the cheapest 16GB GPU on US Newegg. I'm just going by that and local mileage may vary wildly.

Right now the Arc drivers are immature but are improving at a good clip. DX9 and 11 performance has improved a lot.

Right now the card can keep getting better, but the 4060 never will because its at its own hardware ceiling.

The 4060 has 8GB GDDR6 on a 128bit memory bus with 272GB/s bandwidth.

The A770 has 16GB GDDR6 on a 256bit memory bus with 560GB/s bandwidth.

Even with immature drivers it has been outperforming the 4060 in benchmarks. I really didn't expect the 4060 to even come up tbh.

I absolutely agree the 6800 is a better card, but it also is much more expensive and more power hungry.

I'm also not recommending this card, but I do think it is starting to get a lot more interesting and relevant. I absolutely recommend against anyone buying a 4060. I think there are better cards in the range than that unless you want the latest DLSS on 1080p.

Vrika

ValdemarJ said:

Gorwe said:

Vrika said:

If you don't own any games and want something exclusively for playing new AAA games as they release, then A770 would be good choice.

But if you already own a larger game library and want to occasionally replay some of your old games, then something like RTX 4060 also at $300 would be much better purchase. A770's driver support would be much worse limitation than RTX 4060's limited RAM is.

Just purchase something like AMD's 6800. Or, if going for cheaper alternative, 6700. That's the best solution imo.

But Intel's prices are really enticing.

The 6800 is at least $130 more. This is currently the cheapest 16GB GPU on US Newegg. I'm just going by that and local mileage may vary wildly.

Right now the Arc drivers are immature but are improving at a good clip. DX9 and 11 performance has improved a lot.

Right now the card can keep getting better, but the 4060 never will because its at its own hardware ceiling.

The 4060 has 8GB GDDR6 on a 128bit memory bus with 272GB/s bandwidth.

The A770 has 16GB GDDR6 on a 256bit memory bus with 560GB/s bandwidth.

Even with immature drivers it has been outperforming the 4060 in benchmarks. I really didn't expect the 4060 to even come up tbh.

I absolutely agree the 6800 is a better card, but it also is much more expensive and more power hungry.

I'm also not recommending this card, but I do think it is starting to get a lot more interesting and relevant. I absolutely recommend against anyone buying a 4060. I think there are better cards in the range than that unless you want the latest DLSS on 1080p.

Everyone knows that Intel's drivers are improving, and that's why we're hoping for good things from Intel's next GPU generation.

But let's be realistic here: Arc Alchemist isn't even popular enough that I could find it on Steam charts. If Intel's next gen GPUs succeed, Intel is going to be focusing on its drivers, not on drivers for the really small number of Alchemist users out there.

I'm hoping for good things from Intel's next GPU generation. But from the next generation, this one is already kind of miss.

Iselin

In somewhat related news, AMD has just revealed FSR 3 and which cards it supports. It includes the Intel Arc GPUs:

What GPUs support FSR 3?

Last year, FSR 2.0 went a long way toward making the technology more competitive with DLSS while also working on a wider range of graphics hardware from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. Contrary to some prior speculation, FSR 3 will continue to support a wide range of old and new GPUs from all three major GPU companies. AMD has confirmed to us that the following graphics hardware should all support FSR 3:

• Radeon RX 5000, 6000, and 7000 series. AMD "recommends" running it on a 6000- or 7000-series GPU, mostly because faster cards will give you a better experience.
• Intel Arc GPUs and, presumably, upcoming integrated GPUs with similar feature sets.
• All Nvidia RTX-series GPUs, including the RTX 20, 30, and 40-series.
• Unspecified game consoles (likely the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S).

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/08/amds-fps-doubling-fsr-3-is-coming-soon-and-not-just-to-radeon-graphics-cards/

Quizzical

The problem with relying on future driver improvements is that they stop after a while.  When Battlemage launches, the driver improvements for Alchemist are probably done.  If you think that drivers are good enough today to make the card viable, then go ahead and buy one.  Future driver improvements are just an added bonus.  But don't buy a card that you think is bad today in hopes that it will be better in the future.

Gorwe

Iselin said:

In somewhat related news, AMD has just revealed FSR 3 and which cards it supports. It includes the Intel Arc GPUs:

What GPUs support FSR 3?

Last year, FSR 2.0 went a long way toward making the technology more competitive with DLSS while also working on a wider range of graphics hardware from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. Contrary to some prior speculation, FSR 3 will continue to support a wide range of old and new GPUs from all three major GPU companies. AMD has confirmed to us that the following graphics hardware should all support FSR 3:

• Radeon RX 5000, 6000, and 7000 series. AMD "recommends" running it on a 6000- or 7000-series GPU, mostly because faster cards will give you a better experience.
• Intel Arc GPUs and, presumably, upcoming integrated GPUs with similar feature sets.
• All Nvidia RTX-series GPUs, including the RTX 20, 30, and 40-series.
• Unspecified game consoles (likely the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S).

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/08/amds-fps-doubling-fsr-3-is-coming-soon-and-not-just-to-radeon-graphics-cards/

Have they revealed anything else?

Edit: Too bad about my Vega, but it's an immortal, legendary card. It can still use FSR2 and as such, it's still gonna be great.

Iselin

Gorwe said:

Iselin said:

In somewhat related news, AMD has just revealed FSR 3 and which cards it supports. It includes the Intel Arc GPUs:

What GPUs support FSR 3?

Last year, FSR 2.0 went a long way toward making the technology more competitive with DLSS while also working on a wider range of graphics hardware from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. Contrary to some prior speculation, FSR 3 will continue to support a wide range of old and new GPUs from all three major GPU companies. AMD has confirmed to us that the following graphics hardware should all support FSR 3:

• Radeon RX 5000, 6000, and 7000 series. AMD "recommends" running it on a 6000- or 7000-series GPU, mostly because faster cards will give you a better experience.
• Intel Arc GPUs and, presumably, upcoming integrated GPUs with similar feature sets.
• All Nvidia RTX-series GPUs, including the RTX 20, 30, and 40-series.
• Unspecified game consoles (likely the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S).

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/08/amds-fps-doubling-fsr-3-is-coming-soon-and-not-just-to-radeon-graphics-cards/

Have they revealed anything else?

Edit: Too bad about my Vega, but it's an immortal, legendary card. It can still use FSR2 and as such, it's still gonna be great.

I don't think that there is much more yet than what's in the article I linked.

I'm sure once some games support both, DLSS 3 and FSR 3 there will be hundreds of side-by-side comparisons... and once again the verdict will be that they both do an almost equal job of improving frame rates but DLSS has the better visual quality.

All besides the point for anyone without a 4000 series Nvidia card who can't do DLSS 3. 

The proprietary vs. open support system kind of reminds me of the G-sync vs. FreeSync thing from a few years back.

I have a 2070 Super so I'm looking forward to games that support FSR 3 and I'll likely use that instead of DLSS 2 since my card can't do DLSS 3.

Gorwe

Iselin said:

Gorwe said:

Iselin said:

In somewhat related news, AMD has just revealed FSR 3 and which cards it supports. It includes the Intel Arc GPUs:

What GPUs support FSR 3?

Last year, FSR 2.0 went a long way toward making the technology more competitive with DLSS while also working on a wider range of graphics hardware from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. Contrary to some prior speculation, FSR 3 will continue to support a wide range of old and new GPUs from all three major GPU companies. AMD has confirmed to us that the following graphics hardware should all support FSR 3:

• Radeon RX 5000, 6000, and 7000 series. AMD "recommends" running it on a 6000- or 7000-series GPU, mostly because faster cards will give you a better experience.
• Intel Arc GPUs and, presumably, upcoming integrated GPUs with similar feature sets.
• All Nvidia RTX-series GPUs, including the RTX 20, 30, and 40-series.
• Unspecified game consoles (likely the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S).

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/08/amds-fps-doubling-fsr-3-is-coming-soon-and-not-just-to-radeon-graphics-cards/

Have they revealed anything else?

Edit: Too bad about my Vega, but it's an immortal, legendary card. It can still use FSR2 and as such, it's still gonna be great.

I don't think that there is much more yet than what's in the article I linked.

I'm sure once some games support both, DLSS 3 and FSR 3 there will be hundreds of side-by-side comparisons... and once again the verdict will be that they both do an almost equal job of improving frame rates but DLSS has the better visual quality.

All besides the point for anyone without a 4000 series Nvidia card who can't do DLSS 3. 

The proprietary vs. open support system kind of reminds me of the G-sync vs. FreeSync thing from a few years back.

I have a 2070 Super so I'm looking forward to games that support FSR 3 and I'll likely use that instead of DLSS 2 since my card can't do DLSS 3.

I'll just purchase a new gfx and use FSR3. Technically, I could use FSR2 with Vega, but ... is it worth it?