Intel Arc A750 Review: A Solid Entry-Level GPU with Some Caveats
Intel has finally entered the discrete graphics card market with its Arc series, based on the Xe HPG architecture. The Arc A750 is the more affordable model, aimed at 1080p and 1440p gaming, with a suggested retail price of $289. But how does it compare to the competition from Nvidia and AMD, and what are its strengths and weaknesses? Let’s find out in this review.
Design and Specs
The Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition card that we received for testing looks sleek and minimalist, with a matte black finish, subtle lighting, and a silver trim along the edge. It has a dual-fan cooling system that keeps the card quiet and cool under load. The card measures 10.5 inches long, 4.4 inches tall, and 1.6 inches thick, making it rather large for a budget card. It also draws 225 watts of power, which is higher than the Nvidia RTX 3060 (170 watts) and the AMD RX 6600 (160 watts). You’ll need a 6-pin and an 8-pin power connector to run this card.
The Arc A750 features 28 Xe cores, which are the building blocks of the Xe HPG architecture. Each Xe core contains 128 execution units (EUs), for a total of 3584 EUs or shader cores. The card also has 28 ray tracing units (RTUs) for hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and 448 XMX engines for machine learning tasks. The card has a base clock of 2050 MHz and a boost clock of 2400 MHz. It comes with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory running at 16 Gbps on a 256-bit bus, for a memory bandwidth of 512 GB/s.
The Arc A750 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan, OpenGL, and OpenCL APIs, as well as ray tracing, variable rate shading, adaptive sync, and AV1 decoding. It also supports Intel’s Deep Link technology, which allows the GPU to work with Intel CPUs to improve performance in some applications. However, one thing to note is that the Arc A750 requires Resize BAR support from your motherboard and CPU to function properly. Resize BAR is a feature that allows the CPU to access the entire GPU memory at once, instead of in chunks, which can improve performance in some games. If your system does not support Resize BAR, you won’t be able to use the Arc A750 at all.
The Arc A750 has four display outputs: one HDMI 2.1 port and three DisplayPort 2.0 ports. It can support up to four displays at once, with a maximum resolution of 7680 x 4320 at 60 Hz for DisplayPort and 4096 x 2160 at 60 Hz for HDMI.
Performance
We tested the Arc A750 on a system with an Intel Core i9-11900K CPU, 32 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, a Samsung 970 Evo Plus SSD, and a Corsair RM850x PSU. We used the latest drivers from Intel (version 30.0.100.9955) and Windows 10 version 21H2. We ran various synthetic and gaming benchmarks at 1080p and 1440p resolutions, with different settings and ray tracing options.
In synthetic benchmarks, the Arc A750 performed well, scoring higher than the Nvidia RTX 3060 and the AMD RX 6600 in most tests. It also showed impressive ray tracing performance, beating the RX 6600 by a large margin and coming close to the RTX 3060 in some cases.
| Synthetic benchmark results | Intel Arc A750 | Nvidia RTX 3060 | AMD RX 6600 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time Spy | 10,321 | 9,741 | 8,857 |
| Time Spy Extreme | 4,789 | 4,556 | 4,099 |
| Port Royal | 5,841 | 5,917 | 3,978 |
| Fire Strike | 25,489 | 24,181 | 23,193 |
| Fire Strike Extreme | 14,367 | 13,545 | 12,819 |
| Fire Strike Ultra | 7,692 | 7,268 | 6,801 |
In gaming benchmarks, however, the Arc A750 showed some inconsistency. In some modern games that use DirectX 12 or Vulkan APIs, such as Cyberpunk 2077, Returnal, Doom Eternal, and Red Dead Redemption 2, the Arc A750 performed very well, beating or matching the RTX 3060 and the RX 6600 at both 1080p and 1440p resolutions, with or without ray tracing. It also delivered smooth and playable frame rates in most cases, even with high settings and ray tracing enabled.
| Gaming benchmark results (fps) | Intel Arc A750 | Nvidia RTX 3060 | AMD RX 6600 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p, Ultra, RT off) | 59 | 57 | 55 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p, Ultra, RT on) | 38 | 39 | 25 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (1440p, High, RT off) | 47 | 46 | 44 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (1440p, High, RT on) | 28 | 29 | 18 |
| Returnal (1080p, High) | 75 | 72 | 70 |
| Returnal (1440p, High) | 54 | 51 | 49 |
| Doom Eternal (1080p, Ultra Nightmare) | 211 | 208 | 205 |
| Doom Eternal (1440p, Ultra Nightmare) | 147 | 143 | 140 |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 (1080p, Ultra) | 63 | 61 | 60 |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 (1440p, High) | 58 | 56 | 55 |
However, in some older games that use DirectX 11 or lower APIs, such as GTA V, The Witcher 3, and Far Cry 5, the Arc A750 struggled to keep up with the competition, falling behind the RTX 3060 and the RX 6600 by a noticeable margin. It also failed to run some games at all, such as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Control, due to driver issues or compatibility problems.
| Gaming benchmark results (fps) | Intel Arc A750 | Nvidia RTX 3060 | AMD RX 6600 |
|---|---|---|---|
| GTA V (1080p, Very High) | 86 | 115 | 112 |
| GTA V (1440p, Very High) | 57 | 77 | 75 |
| The Witcher 3 (1080p, Ultra) | 74 | 97 | 94 |
| The Witcher 3 (1440p, High) | 58 | 76 | 73 |
| Far Cry 5 (1080p, Ultra) | 79 | 93 | 91 |
| Far Cry 5 (1440p, High) | 64 | 78 | 76 |
Conclusion
The Intel Arc A750 is a solid entry-level graphics card that offers strong performance for a reasonable price. It can handle most modern games at 1080p and 1440p resolutions with high settings and ray tracing enabled. It also has a sleek and minimalist design that will appeal to many users. However, it also has some caveats that might deter some potential buyers. It has trouble with older games that use DirectX 11 or lower APIs. It requires Resize BAR support from your system to work. It has a high power draw and a large size. And it lacks some features that Nvidia and AMD offer, such as memory overclocking, DLSS/FidelityFX Super Resolution, and a more mature software package.
If you’re looking for a budget graphics card that can run the latest games with ray tracing and upscaling technologies, you might want to consider the Nvidia RTX 3060 or the AMD RX 6600 instead. They are more consistent and reliable than the Arc A750 in terms of performance and compatibility. However, if you’re willing to overlook some of the flaws of the Arc A750 and give Intel a chance to improve its drivers and software over time, you might find yourself pleasantly surprised by what this card can do. The Arc A750 is not a perfect graphics card by any means, but it’s a promising start for Intel’s discrete GPU venture.
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