There’s a new player in the GPU game and Intel’s newly $250 Arc A750 just managed to crack our list of the best graphics cards thanks to drastic improvements (and a $40 price cut) since its October launch. But the brawl for supremacy in the key $300 to $450 price range is much tighter. With similar performance and stability updates in hand, how does the flagship Intel Arc A770 ($329 for 8GB, $349 for 16GB) fare against Nvidia and AMD’s battle-hardened contenders?
That’s what PCWorld contributor Keith May decided to put to the test in the video below. Keith slapped the latest available drivers on the 16GB Arc A770, the 12GB EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC Black Gaming Edition, and the 8GB Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX 6600 XT, then let the benchmarks fly.
The results are eye-opening, especially when you consider that the custom third-party EVGA and Asus GPUs go for $400 or more on the street right now despite their lower memory capacities.
All of these cards deliver rock-solid 1080p/Ultra gaming performance across our suite of tests, duking it out across the board, with Nvidia’s RTX 3060 often winding up on the bottom of the heap even though it has the highest street price. The Radeon RX 6600 XT scores some overwhelming wins at 1080p resolution, but the Arc A770 picks up the pace at 1440p and womps on all comers when it comes to ray tracing performance—yes, Intel even beats Nvidia’s vaunted RTX 30-series ray tracing chops.
The Arc A770 lags a bit in 1 percent low (read: smoothness) performance, but remains very playable in all tests. It’s a huge turnaround for Intel’s Arc drivers, which suffered from significant stability issues and wildly inconsistent performance at launch.
You’ll need to watch Keith’s video to see the full results, but the bottom line? He declares “There’s very little Arc A770 leaves on the table right now performance-wise, and as opposed to even a couple of months ago, I can comfortably recommend it as an option”—especially with its ample 16GB memory capacity.
While there’s no clear winner here thanks to the fluctuating price points for the Nvidia and AMD options, what is clear is that after several months of intense software improvements, Intel has now earned its right to sit at this table with the Arc A770. These debut Arc graphics cards have only been available for a few months, but Intel is already squeezing some deliciously fine wine from them.
Author: Brad Chacos, Executive editor
Brad Chacos spends his days digging through desktop PCs and tweeting too much. He specializes in graphics cards and gaming, but covers everything from security to Windows tips and all manner of PC hardware.