Intel Claims 71% Arc GPU Performance Boost in Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 gets XeSS
(Image credit: CDPR)

Intel appears to be delighted with software and driver updates that have boosted Arc graphics performance by over 70% in Cyberpunk 2077. The chipmaker’s drivers have gone from strength to strength over recent months, but Cyberpunk 2077 has been given an extra leg-up as developers CD Projekt Red have implemented the code to support Intel XeSS 1.1 technology for the first time.

According to Intel’s in-house tests, a humble Arc A750 combined with a Core i9-13900K previously achieved 39 fps in Cyberpunk 2077 before the latest updates. Now, with the latest drivers and XeSS support, gamers can enjoy the same 1080p Ultra and RT Medium thrills at an average of 67 fps. Please note that XeSS was set to ‘Performance’ mode to deliver this uplift.

(Image credit: Intel)

In case you haven't been paying attention at the back, Intel XeSS is the company's AI-upscaling technology that aims to compete directly against Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR2. Unlike DLSS, it works with other vendors' GPUs, but it does so via a different code path. Really, it's designed to take advantage of Intel's Arc XMX cores to accelerate processing, so it will often be the best choice for Arc users, even where other options are available. We provided a deep dive into the technology, which you can read here. What we would like to emphasize for this article, though, is that XeSS delivers the best results where games are particularly demanding on hardware.

Four XeSS modes are available for gamers to choose between in the graphics settings of compatible games; Ultra Quality, Quality, Balanced, and Performance. The latter delivers the greatest frame rate uplifts (4x upscaling), but the bias toward speedy performance means that pixel peepers will more easily see image fidelity defects. Intel's latest blog boasting about the Cyberpunk 2077 performance uplift is based on tests with XeSS Performance mode enabled. Being positive about the result, it's good to see that RT is enabled while the Arc A750 rises "above that sweet 60 fps marker."

While Intel's blog is interesting, as it highlights the march of progress that Arc owners have experienced, we published a more overarching view on the latest Cyberpunk 2077 performance stats earlier this week. Please read our complete and comprehensive AMD – Intel – Nvidia GPU stuffed article that looks closely at Cyberpunk 2077 RT Overdrive Path Tracing. Unfortunately, we concluded that RT Overdrive is only viable on the highest-end RTX 40 GPUs with DLSS at this time. However, our story also has a full set of comparative benchmarks using the game's RT Ultra settings with DLSS 2 / FSR 2 / XeSS upscaling in Performance mode.

(Image credit: Future)

You may think it’s a chart glitch that our Arc A770 result at 70 fps was better than the Arc A770 with XeSS at 67 FPS in the test we ran. However, the first result used AMD FSR2 upscaling instead, which provided greater uplifts than XeSS, but its Performance mode wasn’t as nice quality-wise.

So, if you're after maximum frame rates, it looks like FSR2 still beats out XeSS on Arc graphics cards. For nearly the same level of performance but with higher image quality, XeSS gets the checkmark.

Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

  • Colif
    Nice, maybe we can make newer games look better instead of making a 2 year old game look better.

    Maybe its a sign of a general lack of good games coming out we have to improve on games from the past.
    Reply
  • Eximo
    Colif said:
    Maybe its a sign of a general lack of good games coming out we have to improve on games from the past.

    Development time for impactful games has become years long, and in terms of popularity it is often franchises that win out over new titles. Elden Ring maybe as the standout new title?

    Hogwart's Legacy, Spiderman, and your usual CoD and Battlefield seem to be the high graphics titles of note (I am sure I am missing some)

    How many years is Witcher 4 going to take?
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    Colif said:
    Nice, maybe we can make newer games look better instead of making a 2 year old game look better.

    Maybe its a sign of a general lack of good games coming out we have to improve on games from the past.
    It's probably just CD Projekt Red pushing out the DLSS 3 and Overdrive update and saying, hey, let's toss in XeSS support as well. Since the game already has DLSS 2 and FSR 2.1 support, adding XeSS should have been pretty trivial.
    Reply
  • atomicWAR
    Colif said:
    Nice, maybe we can make newer games look better instead of making a 2 year old game look better.

    Maybe its a sign of a general lack of good games coming out we have to improve on games from the past.
    While I appreciate a devs supporting games years after launch, there does seem to be a lot of 'add RT/DLSS/FSR/Xess support' to older games attitude to create buzz for these newer features when new games are slow to adopt, use flawed and or have poor implementations (most typical). I'll never forget Quake 2 being the killer app for RTX 2000 gpus, lol. Things have improved but they are still typically low quality or moon shots Path Tracing that don't work at playable frame rates on 99% of new GPUs.
    Reply
  • I think the title should make it clear that this is about XeSS and not just about Intel Arc GPUs.
    Reply
  • Giroro
    Pretty sure Intel thinks their 'Xe' brand is the Greek letter 'Chi'. So, I still think XeSS is pronounced "Cheese".
    Reply
  • oofdragon
    Do anyone care about Intel GPU?
    Reply
  • Eximo
    Yes. Having a third competitor in the GPU space could disrupt prices. Right now Nvidia and AMD are easily able to ask almost whatever they want for high end GPUs. Unless someone comes along and says, no, you can have that performance for 30% less money.

    A770 didn't quite make it this go around (which is a 16GB card for $400, under $300 if you get the 8GB card), but it is priced according to its performance, not features. If Battlemage or Celestial can do anywhere near the RTX4070 or RX6800 for $500 they will have a winner.

    RX 6800 is there right now at $470 (After lowered pricing following the 4070 launch), and is what Nvidia could be doing with the RTX4070, but they choose to ask $600.

    AMD chose to wait 6 months since the launch of the 7900XTX and 7900XT before launching any of the lesser cards (If we believe the June launch date). Nvidia has spaced out the 40 series more tightly at the high end (one card per month, but waited an additional 3 months for the 4070. (Though somewhat understandable, mobile 4080, desktop 4070 /Ti share a GPU, so they've really launched three products with that chip) AMD has launched all their mobile 7000 series parts with Navi 33, with the two desktop cards being Navi 31.

    If the RX 7800 is reasonably priced, and there is no reason to suspect it will with the 7900 XT's $900 price, there is room for a disruptor. Though Intel looks to still be about a year out from their next launch.
    Reply
  • Faylow
    Giroro said:
    Pretty sure Intel thinks their 'Xe' brand is the Greek letter 'Chi'. So, I still think XeSS is pronounced "Cheese".
    Maybe "Chess"??
    Reply
  • Faylow
    Faylow said:
    Maybe "Chess"??
    Or maybe "Excess"
    Reply