A Weibo user who goes by the alias "Golden Pig Upgrade" has delighted us with the first gaming benchmarks (via HXL) for Intel's Arc A730M mobile graphics card. He previously provided a couple of synthetic benchmarks, but there's nothing like real-world performance to evaluate the Arc A730M's gaming capability.
Once again, the reviewer used the same Machenike Dawn Discovery Edition 2022 gaming laptop that brings together the Core i7-12700H (Alder Lake-H) processor, the Arc A730M, and 16GB of DDR5-4800 memory. If you're not familiar with Intel's Arc family of graphics cards, the Arc A730M utilizes the chipmaker's ACM-G10 silicon. The graphics card incorporates 24 Xe cores with a graphics clock of 1,100 MHz. In addition, the Arc features 12GB of GDDR6 across a 192-bit memory interface. From a hierarchy standpoint, the A730M sits comfortably below the flagship A770M, which delivers up to double the compute performance of the former.
We recommend you approach the Arc A730M benchmarks with caution since we don't know the laptop's settings in the Weibo user's tests. For example, it's unknown whether he had Dynamic Tuning Driver (DTT) enabled or not. DTT is a feature that dynamically optimizes the power limits for the processor and graphics card to improve performance, battery life, or thermals. Furthermore, it's evident that Intel's Arc drivers still have a long way to go, as the Weibo reviewer commented that Shadow of The Tomb Raider refuses to work and crashes every time he opens the game. Finally, the frame times also reflect the lack of software optimization for some tested games.
Intel Arc A730M Benchmarks
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Game
Max. Framerate
Average Framerate
Min. Framerate
Resolution
Quality
Metro Exodus
122.44
70.00
9.57
1920 x 1080
High
Metro Exodus
97.02
55.00
9.30
2560 x 1440
High
F1 2020
133
123
106
1920 x 1080
High
F1 2020
105
95
84
2560 x 1440
High
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
64
38
10
1920 x 1080
Very High
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
71
32
9
2560 x 1440
Very High
The Arc A730M performed great in Metro Exodus with average framerates of 70 FPS and 55 FPS on the high quality preset at resolutions of 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440, respectively. Unfortunately, the driver's poor optimization manifested itself as the reviewer recorded framerate dips as low as 9 FPS.
The graphics card's performance in F1 2020 was excellent even with the high preset. The Arc A730M had no problems keeping the average framerates above 60 FPS during the benchmark, no matter the resolution. Even the minimum framerates never dropped below 80 FPS.
The Arc A730M only struggled in Assassin's Creed Odyssey on the very high preset,where the graphics card barely provided a playable experience above 30 FPS. However, the Weibo user observed minimum framerates going down the drain (10 FPS or below).
It's unfair and wrong to judge the Arc A730M's performance based on three titles. But if we look at what's available right now, the Arc A730M performs like a GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile in Metro Exodus. In F1 2020 or Assassin's Creed Odyssey, however, Intel's quasi-flagship is more like a GeForce RTX 3050 Mobile.
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Availability for Intel's Arc-powered laptops is improving; however, the Arc A5 and A7 SKUs won't debut until late summer. It'll be a while before we can get our hands on the A730M or A770M to give it a proper review.
Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
In my opinion, Intel’ s GPU may sound great on paper, but the actual performance and stability may be lacking. Perhaps there is potential with the hardware, but the software may be the issue/ limiting factor here. I do feel they have to start somewhere, and this is going to be that starting point. Now the question is, how long will it take Intel to finally release their ARC GPUs. They are late, and very late, with no ETA in sight since they will always kick the can further down the road whenever the supposed ETA is approaching.
This may be their big splash into dedicated graphics, but it's turning out to be a ripple. Their 2nd tier card is between a 3050 and 3060. Top tier, we'll see.
And then driver optimizations seem garbage. Hard to believe big Intel is this far behind. Maybe their iGPUs have been a hindrance more than a help with development.
Finally, these cards are actually going to compete with Nvidia and AMD's Ada Lovelace and RDNA3 GPUs, not the current gen. Rough spot.
And then driver optimizations seem garbage. Hard to believe big Intel is this far behind. Maybe their iGPUs have been a hindrance more than a help with development.
We will see, I agree for now, support for their gpu is hilariously bad. MAYBE they will get this in check, maybe they won't.
I will withhold any judgements for now, we saw driver update double their performance in one game, if that IS NOT a unique, they might turn this mess around. Damn unlikely, but not impossible.
9FPS drops suggest there is some problem in there.
Another way to look at this is that Intel is NOT trying to compete directly with 1st tier cards, at least not in this go-round. If I was a marketing guru at intel, I would say it's more important to get our products out there that meet a more limited expectation which is where we will market it. Plenty of money to be made in budget conscious hardware. Once the market share is established and people feel more secure about buying an Intel GPU, then we will have 1) greater technical experience at making a potential top tier GPU and 2) a decent reputation/market share for such a product to be received in. Their pricing will be a key factor in this approach. Gotta walk before you run, and it seems to me they are at a pretty good jog already.
