Intel Arc A380 with OC and on AMD Ryzen in the test : Test |CUP | Specs |Config

How high can you overclock the Intel Arc A380 and how fast is the graphics card with an AMD Ryzen CPU? The second article on Intel’s first discrete Arc graphics card provides answers to these and other questions. He also reveals a big – this time positive – surprise.

A 2nd look at Intel Arc A380

In the first test, the Intel Arc A380 (test) proved to be problematic. The hardware is certainly able to compete with the Radeon RX 6400 and the GeForce GTX 1650, and there are also areas where Intel’s first discrete graphics card is superior. But driver bugs and other problems prevailed in the test.

• Intel Arc A380 in the test: A week between laughing and crying

Tests on an AMD Ryzen platform and including OC

Some test series were still missing in the first article, they will now be made up for. So the test will address the question of how well the Arc A380 overclocks and what the performance looks like in combination with AMD’s Ryzen CPU – and there will be a positive surprise here. In addition, the article will also deal with the Gunnir Arc A380 Photon 6G fanstop that didn’t work a week ago, where the second surprise is about to come.

So much in advance: The overall impression of the Arc A380 will not change with the new findings. But it will be shown that not everything that was criticized in the first test has to be found on every system.

This is how the Intel Arc A380 is overclocked

Common overclocking tools don’t yet support Intel’s Alchemist architecture, but Intel has integrated an OC function into the new driver menu. It can be found under “Performance Tuning” and consists of the four items “GPU Performance Boost”, “GPU Voltage Offset”, “GPU Current Limit” and “GPU Temperature”.

So far, so good – and the user still doesn’t really know what the purpose of which function is. The GPU clock, which can be increased with this controller, is simply hidden behind the performance boost. However, the controller does not directly set the clock rates, instead they are increased in percentage increments. Between 0 and 100 percent can be specified there, which is ultimately just as unrealistic as it is wrong. Because 10 percent does not mean 10 percent more clock in this case. At 10 percent, the Arc A380 runs at 2,499 MHz instead of 2,450 MHz, which is just 2 percent more clock speed.

Even with the OC not everything works (correct)

The Voltage Offset slider allows the GPU voltage to be increased. Theoretically at least, practically it has no effect. And maybe that’s a good thing, because with the maximum adjustable +0.725 V, the Arc 380 would probably immediately die OC death at the factory 1.012 V. Not being able to do this at all is still a problem, since the GPU, as soon as it is overclocked, reduces the voltage from 1.012 V to 0.997 to 0.995 V without anything being able to be done about it.

With the GPU current limitation, the power consumption of the GPU can then probably be limited without the other components. The controller can be freely adjusted between 32.5 and 97.5 W and works, but again not as expected. For example, if you set 40.5 W, the GPU still draws 46 W. The factory setting is 64.5 W.

Finally, there is the GPU temperature. It probably ensures that the GPU clocks down at a certain temperature. The factory setting is 90 °C, but the value can be set freely between 55 and 125 °C.

Anyone who now misses overclocking the memory has paid attention. Because the VRAM cannot currently be overclocked on the Arc A380 with the driver menu.

The OC potential is low on the A380

The Gunnir Arc A380 Photon 6G is already overclocked by 100 MHz to 2,450 MHz and this is quite close to the maximum that the graphics card in the editorial office was capable of. 2,562 MHz were still stable before the computer crashed. They are achieved by setting the GPU performance boost to 23 percent, even if this corresponds to only 5 percent more clock.

A manual intervention in the power limit was still not necessary because the GPU is still relatively far from the maximum permitted 64 watts at around 56 watts. Likewise, it was not necessary to pull the temperature controller up.

The GDDR6 memory cannot currently be overclocked. Accordingly, it runs at the usual 7,750 MHz.

OC benchmarks with the Arc A380

Although some YouTube videos claim otherwise, the Arc A380 responds to overclocking like any other AMD and Nvidia graphics card. Accordingly, 5 percent more clock only brings a maximum of 5 percent more performance – something else is simply not possible apart from a measurement inaccuracy.

The Arc A380 never seems to suffer in terms of memory bandwidth, because the graphics card converts the 5 percent higher GPU clock perfectly into a 5 percent higher frame rate – it couldn’t be better. The Arc A380 thus overtakes the GeForce GTX 1650 by 2 percent in the AVG FPS in the test course and reaches a tie with the Radeon RX 6400. However, it must be mentioned that the AMD and Nvidia graphics cards can of course also be overclocked.

Even if 5 percent more FPS is the standard in the individual games, the value is sometimes a bit lower. In Elden Ring, for example, the performance increase is “only” 4 percent, the same applies to Fortnite, Overwatch, Resident Evil Village and The Witcher 3. In three of the five games, however, the Arc A380 struggles anyway, so the minimal discrepancy maybe that can be justified.