Arc A770 Ray Tracing Competitive to or Better Than the RTX 3060: Intel at IFA Berlin

[Deleted member 185088]

Having had to deal with ATI drivers I will overpay 20-30% for Nvidia GPU, because they just work.

I had both for years, didn't see any issues with ATI or nVidia.
With AMD I faced more issues (stupid HDMI audio) less with nVidia but there were few.
Now though, both are spending enough money to make their drivers less awful, nVidia just offers more stuff.

 

[Tomorrow]

N=1 versus the consensus, well done. Why even post it? Its not helpful to a company that its fan/userbase isn't hyper critical about its performance, not just on their own stuff, but in general. Criticism pushes a company to do better. AMD did that several times because of community backlash, why not call it out if they drop the ball?

Consensus is still based on sample size on 1 generally as i doubt most people owned multiple RDNA 1 cards (unless they were mining with them).
Hardware Unboxed never found these problems on a clean system.

 

[Tropick]

What was your latest AMD card? Because if it really was ATI card then your experience is way out of date.

I've exclusively used Nvidia cards for the last 10ish years, until about a month ago when I picked up a Red Dragon 6800XT because my microcenter was offering a ridiculously low price for it, $579.

I was a little bit nervous to leave my Nvidia bubble but I've been very impressed so far with the stability of the drivers. Granted I only use a single 1440p monitor over DP, but still. Even after my extensive meddling with driver/FreeSync/resolution settings I have yet to experience a crash or black screen (except when my performance-greedy ass tries pushing the VRAM timings way too low ) AMD has definitely cracked down on their driver stability.

 

[HD64G]

I have years to see a series of PC products that are leaked so much and previewed for so long and still being off sale. Maybe a record of all times. They might get a Guiness one for that since they might lose on all else with Arc.

 

[bug]

I've exclusively used Nvidia cards for the last 10ish years, until about a month ago when I picked up a Red Dragon 6800XT because my microcenter was offering a ridiculously low price for it, $579.

I was a little bit nervous to leave my Nvidia bubble but I've been very impressed so far with the stability of the drivers. Granted I only use a single 1440p monitor over DP, but still. Even after my extensive meddling with driver/FreeSync/resolution settings I have yet to experience a crash or black screen (except when my performance-greedy ass tries pushing the VRAM timings way too low ) AMD has definitely cracked down on their driver stability.

This is one aspect people tend to lose sight of: even GPUs we deem problematic are still pretty darn stable. It's not like AMD or Nvidia will release a product that will crash 30-50% of the time. What we deem problematic, still has a failure rate of less than 10% and even that is usually under some specific circumstances (most of the time when paired with a specific overclocking tool).
Also, a lot of the stability of recent drivers is due to WDDM. Starting with Vista (yeah, I know), Microsoft was able to get enough useful telemetry to address driver crashes at the source. Everybody's reaping the results of that now.

 

[Vayra86]

Consensus is still based on sample size on 1 generally as i doubt most people owned multiple RDNA 1 cards (unless they were mining with them).
Hardware Unboxed never found these problems on a clean system.

Consensus is not sample size 1. Its sample size frequently enough to be a thing. A thing also because of the nature of bugs, not just frequency.

In a similar way, the bugs on Intel arent worrying because of frequency but rather nature of them. Its about elemental things; scheduling (remember frame pacing on AMD?), boost/clock behaviour and cooling (again...), general consistency and overall support. If small things go wrong, okay. If elemental things are missing... goodbye market share.

I've exclusively used Nvidia cards for the last 10ish years, until about a month ago when I picked up a Red Dragon 6800XT because my microcenter was offering a ridiculously low price for it, $579.

I was a little bit nervous to leave my Nvidia bubble but I've been very impressed so far with the stability of the drivers. Granted I only use a single 1440p monitor over DP, but still. Even after my extensive meddling with driver/FreeSync/resolution settings I have yet to experience a crash or black screen (except when my performance-greedy ass tries pushing the VRAM timings way too low ) AMD has definitely cracked down on their driver stability.

This must also be underlined: praise companies for doing a sound job. RDNA2 is in a great place. If I was buying, i would go there.

 

[shovenose]

Consensus is not sample size 1. Its sample size frequently enough to be a thing. A thing also because of the nature of bugs, not just frequency.

In a similar way, the bugs on Intel arent worrying because of frequency but rather nature of them. Its about elemental things; scheduling (remember frame pacing on AMD?), boost/clock behaviour and cooling (again...), general consistency and overall support. If small things go wrong, okay. If elemental things are missing... goodbye market share.


This must also be underlined: praise companies for doing a sound job. RDNA2 is in a great place. If I was buying, i would go there.

right, hence my recent experience with the asrock a380 that I spent two days playing with until I got mad and returned it for a refund. If it can only output to a monitor once in two hundred boots it ain’t much good.

again, outputting to a monitor is a fundamental core basic thing. I’m not talking driver bugs with inconsistent performance or bsod. I’m talking it straight up doesn’t work. And I’m not the only one with that problem. At least one other Newegg reviewer has my same experience.


although it’s possible I just got bad luck and a defective one. When a different model becomes available I will try again, I am hoping for an a770. For now I bought an rx6600 and it’s perfectly stable and hey, actually works!

 

[Dragokar]

I have years to see a series of PC products that are leaked so much and previewed for so long and still being off sale. Maybe a record of all times. They might get a Guiness one for that since they might lose on all else with Arc.

Maybe the gonna give an A750 for free for every 13900KS buyer........

 

[evernessince]

RDNA1 had issues, so you really don't need to have long term experience. AMD made sure to treat the new generation of gamers with a similar meal.

OK, RDNA2 is fine. Who knows about 3. They're still inconsistent as fuck - Nvidia is consistent, with the occasional screw up. Its like two different worlds. The same can be said of the frequency and quality of GPU generations the last decade.

But the most consistent is Intel, who haven't managed to release something great in GPU or iGPU to save their lives.

No Nvidia definitely has had recent issues as well.

- New world bricking cards
- Space invader 2000 series

They had VR stuttering issues for 6 months and just recently patched flickering issues in the latest hotfix driver.

In terms of screwups I'd say they are about even.

Consensus is still based on sample size on 1 generally as i doubt most people owned multiple RDNA 1 cards (unless they were mining with them).
Hardware Unboxed never found these problems on a clean system.

Yes, I always found it interesting that reviewers did not observe many of the reported issues with RDNA 1. Even Steve from HWUB who used an RDNA 1 card as a daily driver. I really wish someone had done a video on the topic investigating the situation because as it stood you had a bevy of unverified claims from reddit and reviewers saying they've had no issue. If I remember correctly it wasn't until 6 months after launch around january that people started reporting issues at a higher frequency, after AMD released it's yearly driver update.

 

[ModEl4]

A750 will be competitive with RTX 3060 based on A380 raytracing behaviour, it's not hard to imagine it!
A750 has 7 slices active vs 2 of A380 so 3.5X (+clock diff) the theoretical raytracing output and what's the difference between raytracing throughput between GA106 based RTX 3060 and RTX 3050?
Regarding performance loss when you enable raytracing, logically A750 will have less delta vs RTX 3060 from the delta that A380 had vs RTX 3050.

 

[watzupken]

I think Intel made a good first attempt at delivering an enthusiasts class GPU. However, it is getting annoying that they are claiming how good their GPUs are, but not actually making it available. What good is it when you can't actually buy it. It is all talk, and anyone can claim they have the best product on paper. Intel don't have a clean record for their marketing materials where competitors product used for comparison are generally gimped. And truth to be told, for a RTX 3060/ 3070 class of GPUs, its been largely proven that RT is not worth the performance hit. So even if they fare better, it will still tank performance.

 

[ratirt]

Drivers aren't expected to be perfect from the beginning (or even years later as both AMD and Nvidia have shown us), but Intel's drivers weren't very good in the past, so that's definitely something to keep an eye out for.

I wouldn't say perfect later years. They would require constant improvement and updates. Intel drivers is crap literally but if they are serious about the dGPU then it has to change and I'm sure Intel knows that

 

[Tomorrow]

I think Intel made a good first attempt at delivering an enthusiasts class GPU.

The what?

Even A770 is midrange at best. Alchemist if far from enthusiast class GPU.
Also it's not the first attempt. DG1 was the first and was meant for developers and for Intel itself to perfect drivers before Alchemist.

 

[64K]

Even A770 is midrange at best. Alchemist if far from enthusiast class GPU.

Agreed and not even close to upper midrange class compared to what we have now much less enthusiast. By the time the nextgen GPUs get released in a few months the A770 will barely be entry level class. Assuming you could even buy an A770 and the drivers get sorted out it's still a horrible purchase for gamers.

 

[bug]

This must also be underlined: praise companies for doing a sound job. RDNA2 is in a great place. If I was buying, i would go there.

There's one weakness to RDNA2: RT. If you get a new card to check out RT, Nvidia is still the better choice. But yes, RDNA2 is solid. Lately, the choice between AMD and Nvidia was dictated by what you could a better price for, with prices being all whacky and everything.

 

[Tomorrow]

There's one weakness to RDNA2: RT. If you get a new card to check out RT, Nvidia is still the better choice. But yes, RDNA2 is solid. Lately, the choice between AMD and Nvidia was dictated by what you could a better price for, with prices being all whacky and everything.

Reming me how many good RT implementations we have. I doubt that RT is an argument for 90%> of buyers. Maybe the top 10% enthusiasts who care about it will buy based on that. Not that < 3080 RT perf is anything to write home about anyway.

 

[Vayra86]

There's one weakness to RDNA2: RT. If you get a new card to check out RT, Nvidia is still the better choice. But yes, RDNA2 is solid. Lately, the choice between AMD and Nvidia was dictated by what you could a better price for, with prices being all whacky and everything.

But there isn't a single RT game worth playing more than once. So great, you can run through a handful that deploy some rays in otherwise bland nonsense. I'll wait

Its just like VR: there is no killer app, or there aren't enough to justify the expense or investment. Even Alyx wasn't enough - its the exception to the rule. And the momentum for a steady stream of killer apps isn't there either. Its the same chicken/egg situation, ain't nobody got time for that except rich nerds.

Other than that, technically, you are obviously correct.

No Nvidia definitely has had recent issues as well.

- New world bricking cards
- Space invader 2000 series

Absolutely, New World happened on EVGA top end cards only; and Space Invaders were in the end a little storm in a cup that apparently touched a limited batch. One caused by VRM/board and the other memory. My popcorn is always ready, love the struggles.

The subject here is drivers, not hardware fault/DOA. All companies have issues, its all about frequency/severity/impact. The basics of incident priority But we all have our own perspectives on this, YMMV as always. The numbers and market shares however don't lie and do reflect these notions. And once more... here comes Intel, where you often don't even know whether the cause is a DOA or just shitty drivers or some horrible combo.

 

[bug]

Reming me how many good RT implementations we have. I doubt that RT is an argument for 90%> of buyers. Maybe the top 10% enthusiasts who care about it will buy based on that. Not that < 3080 RT perf is anything to write home about anyway.

But there isn't a single RT game worth playing more than once. So great, you can run through a handful that deploy some rays in otherwise bland nonsense. I'll wait

Its just like VR: there is no killer app, or there aren't enough to justify the expense or investment. Even Alyx wasn't enough - its the exception to the rule. And the momentum for a steady stream of killer apps isn't there either. Its the same chicken/egg situation, ain't nobody got time for that except rich nerds.

Other than that, technically, you are obviously correct.

I didn't say RT is great at this time (haven't checked it out myself). But as someone who has been tracking GFX tech for a while, I, for one, would sure like to get a taste of it. Just not at current prices. If price is fine for you and you want to try RT, Nvidia still has an edge in this corner (pun) case. Other than that, like @Vayra86 said, RDNA2 is pretty much on par with Ampere.

 

[Dragokar]

I have an idea, they could make a lottery and give out limited edition cards to the winners. Wouldn't that be great? Oh wait..............