Intel's Latest Driver Update Boasts Up to 119% Higher Performance on Arc GPUs

Intel Arc A580 spotted
(Image credit: Intel)

Intel has released another major driver update for its Arc A-series GPUs that adds additional performance enhancements for twenty new and old DX12 and DX 11 titles. Some of the performance improvements are minor, but many of the titles have received massive performance uplifts, with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, in particular, garnering a whopping 119% performance uplift.

Intel's list of driver improvements includes the following: 19% performance uplift in Forza Motorsport (1440p High), 27% uplift in Resident Evil 4 (1080p High RT), 12% uplift in The Last Of Us Part 1 (1080p Ultra). 9% uplift in War Thunder (1080p Max), 37% uplift in Payday 3 (1080p Ultra), 5% uplift in Naraka: Bladepoint (1080p Highest), 32% uplift in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege (1080p Ultra), 7% uplift in Final Fantasy XIV Online (1080p Ultra), 42% uplift in Age of Empires 2: Definite Edition (1080p Ultra), 88% uplift in Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (1080p Ultra). There's more...

10% uplift in Total War: Warhammer 2 (1080p Ultra), 10% uplift in Tomb Raider (1080p Ultra), 6% uplift in Mad Max (1080p Very High), 14% uplift in Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (1080p Ultra), 90% uplift in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (1080p Extra), 8% uplift in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (1080p Very High), 10% uplift in BeamNG.drive (1080p High), 22% uplift in Kingdom Come: Deliverance (1080p Ultra High), 9% uplift in Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra). Then finally Deus Ex: Human Revolution comes in with a 119% performance uplift at 1080p high settings.

Intel's driver improvements this time around are impressive, though these gains aren't universal — if you're not playing one of the 20 listed games, you likely won't see any change from the previous drivers. The work largely builds on Intel's continued DirectX 11 targeted improvements, where games are whitelisted for a new optimized DX11 code path after testing for stability and performance by Intel's drivers team.

The last major update Intel released brought an average 19% performance improvement across 11 titles, with performance improvements ranging anywhere between 5% to 33%. With this latest driver update, Intel has nearly doubled the number of optimized games in a single driver update. This latest update features an average performance improvement of 29% overall, with game-specific performance improvements ranging anywhere between 5% and 119%.

Intel's Arc A-series graphics cards, and in particular the Arc A750, are selling at really competitive prices, with several potentially making our list of the best graphics cards (depending on current prices). Intel's GPUs are particularly impressive in the low-cost market, where the A750 can frequently be found for just $200. The drivers still have room for growth, of course, as evidenced by the continued gains in many older titles, but they're at least mostly viable now.

Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • evdjj3j
    It would be cool if someone wrote an article using benchmarks to compare how performance has progressed since the cards were first released.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    Admin said:
    Many of these gains are for older DirectX 11 games, though.
    That's a good thing, don't make it sound like it's disappointing.
    They were already doing well in modern games and nobody thought that they would ever bother with older games so that they are is a good thing.
    Reply
  • Elusive Ruse
    Speaking of DX11, can they run Baldur's Gate 3 now?
    Reply
  • hannibal
    Gamer nexus did test BGe also with Intel GPUs… It is not pretty, but they are working now!
    BG3 is really easy to GPUs. Even 580 is fast enough in act3… the CPUs on the other hand… not so much.
    Reply
  • LolaGT
    The hardware was always the real deal, too bad they didn't have decent drivers on debut.
    That has always been the catch, though.
    Reply
  • kjfatl
    I wonder what comes next with Intel. They knew that it would take years to get the drivers improved, tuned, etc. Is the next step in a couple years a truly high performance card, or will they stick with the 90% of machines sold to business and industrial customers. leaving the high margin boards to Nvidia. I'm sure the engineers at Intel can and want to release a card that will make Nvidia stockholders shake in their boots, but I suspect the business team will be reluctant to make the investment.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    kjfatl said:
    I wonder what comes next with Intel. They knew that it would take years to get the drivers improved, tuned, etc. Is the next step in a couple years a truly high performance card, or will they stick with the 90% of machines sold to business and industrial customers. leaving the high margin boards to Nvidia. I'm sure the engineers at Intel can and want to release a card that will make Nvidia stockholders shake in their boots, but I suspect the business team will be reluctant to make the investment.
    For intel to really get into the GPU market fully they will need to finish building up the FABs, if they can make the GPU tiles themselves that will make their cards cheaper to make for them and they will be able to produce much more of them helping even more with economy of scale. Until them they are just testing the waters and are doing some ground work.
    Reply
  • JayNor
    "...if they can make the GPU tiles themselves that will make their cards cheaper to make..."

    That's an interesting claim ... although they have been using tsm n5, which perhaps is stable and high yielding.

    Intel gets some experience building gpu tiles at tsm and embedding these into their foveros designs. Perhaps tsm will learn to do the same, for example if tsm customers want a tile with the advantages of PowerVIA.
    Reply
  • Ogotai
    TerryLaze said:
    For intel to really get into the GPU market fully they will need to finish building up the FABs, if they can make the GPU tiles themselves that will make their cards cheaper to make for them and they will be able to produce much more of them helping even more with economy of scale. Until them they are just testing the waters and are doing some ground work.
    nope.. its the drivers that intel needs to get right, and fix. intel can make thousands of gpus, if the drivers are still crap, or dont work properly, then no one wants them. that is the case here. when arc 1st came out, stores here had lots on the shelf, now, its down to 2 of most models.. as i said before, those i know were intersted in arc when announced, but then it was released, and the drivers were crap, and now, it seems some have lost interest in arc, because of the drivers. with all of intels money that you sure like to tout, they should of been able to fix them, alot sooer, as they would of been able to hire enough people, and the right people to fix them.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    Ogotai said:
    nope.. its the drivers that intel needs to get right, and fix. intel can make thousands of gpus, if the drivers are still crap, or dont work properly, then no one wants them. that is the case here. when arc 1st came out, stores here had lots on the shelf, now, its down to 2 of most models.. as i said before, those i know were intersted in arc when announced, but then it was released, and the drivers were crap, and now, it seems some have lost interest in arc, because of the drivers. with all of intels money that you sure like to tout, they should of been able to fix them, alot sooer, as they would of been able to hire enough people, and the right people to fix them.
    No amount of perfect drivers will increase the amount of units that they can produce...
    They do need to fix their drivers, no question about it, but for them to become a big player in the GPU market they need to be able to produce huge quantities of cards.
    Reply