Our 2022 GPU testbed consists of a Core i9-12900K processor, MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4 WiFi motherboard, and DDR4-3600 memory (with XMP enabled). We're running Windows 11 to ensure we get the most out of Alder Lake, and we're running the latest game patches and drivers for this testing. We originally started with Intel's 3259 drivers (30.0.101.3259), Intel gave us early access to version 3267 (to fix Spider-Man Remastered performance), then released updated 3268 drivers the next week, and now we're on to version 3276. To say that driver updates are coming fast and furious would be an understatement.
On that note, we've heard about many driver issues, including an inability to fully uninstall and then install new drivers. While the drivers do have a clean install option, Intel's own instructions for one of the beta drivers recommended running Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) before installing the updated drivers. That's our general approach with AMD and Nvidia GPUs as well, just to be clear, and that's how we proceeded with testing. So far, we haven't encountered issues installing or uninstalling (via DDU) the latest releases, so hopefully those bugs are a thing of the past.
Still, there are other issues and complaints with the drivers. One off-putting experience is Intel's use of overlay mode for all driver interactions. You can press Alt+I to open the driver control panel this way, but it still feels a bit odd. We're told Intel is investigating changing the driver interface to a traditional window, or perhaps it will just change the way the overlay works. Either would be an improvement, though it's still possible to use the drivers in their current state.
We also encountered an incompatibility with an older Acer XB270HK monitor, where it simply didn't work right with the A380. We could only set the resolution to 640x480, even though it's a 4K display. Perhaps it's the G-Sync hardware in the display, and an updated driver fixed the issue after we informed Intel about the problem, but the display can't be used to see the POST (Power-On Self Test) or access the system BIOS. Maybe a tweak to the A380 firmware could address the problem, but the display works with every other GPU we've tested in recent years.
As far as game compatibility is concerned, that's harder to assess. We have a standard gaming test suite of eight games, plus six additional games that we test with DirectX Raytracing (DXR) enabled. That's a far cry from testing every game under the sun, though we did also check a couple of recent game releases — Spider-Man Remastered and Saints Row 5 — and both worked with the latest drivers.
Over the course of testing, during the past couple of weeks, we encountered a few issues. Total War: Warhammer 3 worked okay with an earlier driver, but we've seen some rendering issues with the latest 3276 beta release. We're also still unable to run Minecraft with ray tracing enabled, which according to Intel will require the game developer to add the Arc GPUs to the support matrix. An update should be shortly forthcoming, we're told. Full compatibility with every game out there will require time, but Intel seems to be watching and fixing things as quickly as it's able, and hopefully that will continue into the coming years.
We've tested at 1080p with medium settings, and 1080p and 1440p using ultra settings. Thanks to having 6GB of VRAM, the Arc A380 does a bit better in some games than the competing 4GB GPUs from AMD and Nvidia, though 1440p tends to be far too demanding. We've also tested at 1080p in DXR games using "medium" settings for the preset as well as ray tracing effects. Going beyond medium in DXR games isn't advisable on the Arc A380.
Intel Arc A380 on Older Platforms
We also tested the A380 on our previous generation test PC, which has a Core i9-9900K CPU and an MSI MEG Z390 Ace motherboard. Officially, the 300-series chipsets aren't on the list of Intel validated platforms for Arc GPUs. That feels more than a little absurd, as we've tested the latest AMD and Nvidia GPUs on PCs that are more than a decade old without issues.
You can see in the above video that the PC wouldn't POST properly with the Arc A380 as the only GPU. This appears to be a motherboard compatibility issue, and Intel is aware of the problem. We're told an updated VBIOS or firmware for the Gunnir card should be able to fix things, but we haven't been able to get the required firmware yet. The workaround in our case was to put in a second graphics card — any GPU should suffice — and then we could get into Windows and commenced testing the A380 on an older CPU. We've heard from at least one other Z390 user that it worked fine in a different motherboard (from Asus), but it's still a strange issue to encounter and could affect other older motherboards.
We'll include the Core i9-9900K results at 1080p in our standard benchmarks. There are other caveats to using an Arc GPU, like Intel's "requirement" that your motherboard support PCIe Resizable BAR. Our Z390 board does support the feature (via a beta BIOS), but as mentioned already, even that wasn't quite sufficient. If you don't have a system with ReBAR support, we strongly recommend giving Arc GPUs the cold shoulder until you upgrade the rest of your PC.
Intel Arc A380 Overclocking
There's very little support for overclocking on Arc A380 right now, as traditional utilities like MSI Afterburner don't support the card. We ended up maxing out the power slider in the Arc Control utility, increased the voltage by 0.225V, and set the OC slider to 25 — anything higher than that resulted in instability. The resulting performance gains are relatively limited, and we confined our overclocked testing to 1080p medium. As a quick aside, the most recent driver release appears to have nixed the overclocking options, probably so Intel can correct a few bugs and hopefully get things working better.
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