Skip to main content

AMD takes a swing at Intel with claims of beating Arc GPUs

Intel hasn’t provided comparisons between its new discrete Intel Arc Alchemist GPUs and the competition, so AMD took it upon itself to fill in the missing information.

AMD compared the Intel A370M GPU to its own RX 6500M. The results were not great for Intel.

AMD comparison chart for the RX 6500M and the Intel Arc A370M.
AMD

Intel Arc Alchemist graphics cards have only just been released, so there isn’t much in the way of benchmarks for users to check out before choosing to buy a laptop with those GPUs. Intel has provided some comparisons to give an idea of the performance of the A370M and A350M, but it mostly compared the GPUs to its own Iris Xe integrated graphics cards. Such a comparison is almost certain to prove favorable for Intel Arc, so it does little in terms of giving customers an idea of what exactly they can expect.

Recommended Videos

With only Intel benchmarks to go by, all we could do to gauge the performance of thev A370M was to speculate based on its specs. The company did not send out samples of the product to reviewers ahead of time either. As such, until the first actual users receive their Intel Arc products, we wouldn’t have known much … if not for AMD.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!

AMD decided to compare its Radeon RX 6500M laptop graphics card to Intel’s A370M, which happens to be the top chip Intel currently offers. The GPUs feature a very similar set of specs, so it’s not outlandish to compare these two models.

AMD and Intel each have 4GB of GDDR6 memory and the same power requirements, with a TDP range of 35 watts to 50 watts. The Intel Arc 370M has 8 Xe-cores, which is the equivalent of 1,024 FP32 cores, and AMD’s Navi 24 XM GPU has 16 compute units, adding up to the same. Both chips are produced on TSMC’s N6 process node. There’s a difference in transistor count, but it’s in Intel’s favor: It comes with 7.2 billion transistors versus AMD’s 5.4 billion.

On paper, these are similar units and should deliver comparable performance. According to AMD’s findings, that’s not quite what we’re getting.

Intel's graph on Arc Alchemist gaming performance.
Intel

AMD tested the cards at 1080p resolution and on medium settings with the aim to hit at least 80 frames per second (fps). The games used for this test were Hitman 3, Total War Saga: Troy, F1 2021, Strange Brigade (this one was played on high settings), and Final Fantasy XIV. As seen on the top graph, AMD wins in each one of those tests, with Intel not breaking past 71 fps at any point.

This is a tough blow for Intel. Some of the games revealed a massive gap between the two GPUs. For example, in F1 2021, AMD managed to hit 135 fps while Intel trailed far behind at just 63. Intel’s highest score of 71 comes from Final Fantasy XIV, where AMD maintained 99 frames per second.

As VideoCardz points out, Intel initially claimed to be able to deliver 90 fps in 1080p gaming. However, the games used for that graph were entirely different titles than what AMD has used for this comparison. AMD has most likely chosen titles that were optimized for its GPUs in order to test the RX 6500M and compare it to the A370M. The same can probably be said for Intel.

While this is an official benchmark, it’s difficult to fully trust tests that come from Intel’s direct competitor. An independent benchmark leaked on Twitter yesterday, showing the performance of the A350M GPU. It landed in a similar ballpark to Nvidia’s somewhat dated GTX 1650 graphics card. We’ll have to wait for more users to get their hands on Intel Arc before we can get benchmarks that are 100% unbiased.

Monica J. White
Monica is a computing writer at Digital Trends, focusing on PC hardware. Since joining the team in 2021, Monica has written…
Prices for Intel’s Arc B580 are already shooting through the roof
The Intel logo on the Arc B580 graphics card.

Intel just launched its new $249 Arc B580 graphics card, and as you can read in our Intel Arc B580 review, it's one of the best graphics cards you can buy. It seems PC gamers have gotten the memo, as most models of the card are sold out online. If you want to get one now, you'll have to spend close to double the list price.

Looking at online retailers, it looks like Newegg has the most models listed for sale, though almost all of them are sold out. The only models available come from Gunnir, and they're both very expensive. The , while the . Both are sold by third-party sellers -- they aren't sold and shipped by Newegg -- so I wouldn't recommend spending up for one of these cards.

Read more
Intel Battlemage is almost here, but the wait isn’t over
Intel Arc A770 GPU installed in a test bench.

After weeks of rumors, it's finally a fact: Intel Arc Battlemage is on the imminent horizon, and the company is set to announce its next-gen GPUs on December 3. However, according to leaks, we're not getting the full scope of Intel Battlemage just yet. In fact, it may be a long time before we see Battlemage rank among the best graphics cards.

It's been a quiet year for Intel's discrete graphics department, but the last few weeks have been filled with leaks, and now, Intel itself confirms that we're getting some sort of an announcement tomorrow. It's unclear what exactly is being announced, other than the fact that it's Battlemage.

Read more
Intel may be shipping Battlemage GPUs, but it’s not what it seems
Intel Arc A580 graphics card on a pink background.

Intel's upcoming Battlemage graphics cards might be a lot closer than they seemed to be. A GPU dubbed "BMG B580" appeared in a recent shipping manifest -- but it's not quite what it might seem. On the bright side, this isn't the only sign that Intel's best graphics cards are on the immediate horizon.

The shipping manifest, first spotted by josefk972 on X, actually dates back to September 18, but it went unseen up until now. The manifest refers to the BMG B580 -- which, in all likelihood, will be the successor to Intel's budget Arc A580. However, it's not the GPU itself that's being shipped; Intel is only shipping the retail boxes for the B580.

Read more