Homebrew Intel Arc OC Tool Released by Legendary Overclocker

Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition
Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition (Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Overclocking legend Peter "Shamino" Tan, who currently works for Asus, has released Arc OC Tool, a homemade program to overclock Intel's Arc Alchemist graphics cards. Unfortunately, neither Intel nor Asus endorses this utility, so it's provided as is, and you should only use it at your own risk.

Among the best graphics cards, Intel Arc doesn't play nice with popular third-party overclocking software, such as MSI Afterburner, Asus GPU Tweak III, or EVGA Precision X1. Being a tenderfoot to the graphics card game, it's puzzling that Intel didn't make its graphics cards work with external overclocking applications or at least reach out to the respective parties to usher in support. Until now, Arc owners have been stuck with Intel's Arc Control software to overclock their graphics cards. Arc Control isn't a bad tool, but it certainly has limitations.

Tan built the Arc OC Tool around the Intel Graphics Control Library (IGCL), so the software comes with all the overclocking functions available as of January 9. Although he works for Asus, the Arc OC Tool works with any Arc graphics card and motherboard regardless of the vendor. The program is available for download from overclocking expert Pieter-Jan Plaisier's SkatterBencher website.

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware using various apps and utilities)

Arc OC Tool supports offset and static (locked) overclocking. The former taps into the graphics card’s voltage-frequency curve, whereas the latter enables consumers to dial in a specific voltage and frequency. For now, Intel’s own Arc Control software only allows offset overclocking, so the static feature is exclusive to Tan’s homebrew software.

Or that’s the theory. In limited testing with the Arc A770 Limited Edition, while running FurMark (above), we attempted to force a 2300 MHz clock speed. It didn’t take, and neither did 2,350 MHz. The card happily continued running at 2,200 MHz for the most part, with occasional blips to 2,250 or even 2,300 MHz. But it was doing that before we tried the Arc OC Tool.

Also, it’s worth noting the warning listed on the website:

“IMPORTANT! Be careful when setting the voltage! On my A380 I have to set 1.00000 for the default voltage, then 0.99999 for 10mV less and 1.00001 for 10mV more. If you’re not careful, it’s possible to set >2V as I demonstrated before.”

That... sounds bad. The software isn’t using the right values if a 0.01mV change represents a 10mV change. Given that warning, we didn’t want to poke around at voltage changes much, though we successfully locked up our PC by trying a 200 MHz and 0.01V voltage offset. Proceed with caution, in other words.

Unlike Arc Control, the Arc OC Tool doesn’t come with all the eye candy or the fancy sliders. Instead, Arc OC Tool aims to provide a simple user interface with the essential options for overclocking. So take the Arc OC Tool for a spin if you’re looking for a no-nonsense Arc overclocking application and don’t fancy having more bloatware on your system — not that Intel’s drivers won’t install Arc Control, regardless.

Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • brandonjclark
    Way to go, Peter!
    Reply
  • rluker5
    The tool works for my reference A750 with a couple of caveats.
    The volt adjustment has you adjust by whole volts instead of millivolts - I.E. if I want to add 50mv to my card I type in 50 in the line for volts.
    The OC only adjusts faster, not slower. The only way to decrease your OC is to "reset to defaults" using Arc Control. Arc Control used to do the same thing for me, maybe still does, haven't checked in a while since I just accepted my +25,+25 OC as a good universal one. I highly recommend resetting to defaults frequently when playing with OC with Arc. At least until the platform gets more mature.But I was able to increase my OC, raise my volts and power limit more accurately than Arc Control lets me with this tool.
    I tested it with SOTTR running in windowed since it is easy to alt tab in and out of that game and with Arc Control monitoring, and the OC Tool's monitoring. Other system specs that might matter: mobo is Asus Prime Z690-P, CPU 13900kf - maybe the f might matter because igpu?
    It would be nice if there was a reset to defaults button on the tool. Even though I did have Arc Control running in the background because it applies my OC if I let it start. And the two control parts didn't match, but the monitoring did. And if I changed values on one control I had to restart the other for the changes I had made to register on it.
    And I was hoping to cheat and raise my power limit tbh, which I can't, but you can't complain about the price.

    And it looks like Shamino has beaten MSI AB to the punch on this one :) Congrats! First third party OC tool for Arc in the world!

    Edit: After making a quick use video I noticed the voltage control was off in a nonlinear fashion. +50 gave me +100mv and +150 gave me +150mv in a test shortly after.
    IDK.

    And don't mind the DX11 performance . Arc really doesn't like DX11 in this game.
    wOcEBMV4SvUView: https://youtu.be/wOcEBMV4SvU

    Edit again: Static OC voltage isn't quite right, but better with my A750than with that A380. A setpoint of 1v gives my card 1.165v but the adjustments from that starting point are pretty close. If I give it 1.1v it locks up, but up to 1.05v was fine (card got 1.250v with that). The big benefit with OC Tool that Arc control is missing is undervolting. Sure it is static, but my card happily took a .7v setpoint which resulted in an actual .852v and ran at 2.0ghz. It ran 83% as fast for 62% the power vs stock. Tool wouldn't go lower than .7v for me though.
    The biggest downside is to go back to dynamic clocks I have to clear OC Tool, Arc Control and reboot :/ And my Arc is cool and quiet as it is. But at least I have another option that exists with other brands albeit clumsy.
    Reply