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Intel Arc A380

Intel Arc A380: Budget GPU with Ambitions

April 2025

Architecture and Key Features

Xe-HPG: The Foundation for a New Player

The Intel Arc A380 graphics card is built on the Xe-HPG architecture, designed for a balance between performance and energy efficiency. The manufacturing process is 6 nm (TSMC), which helps reduce heat generation and increase core frequencies. The base GPU frequency is 2000 MHz, with a peak of up to 2450 MHz.

Unique Features

- XeSS (Xe Super Sampling): Similar to NVIDIA's DLSS, it uses AI for image scaling while maintaining detail. In games like Cyberpunk 2077, XeSS boosts FPS by 30–40% in "Performance" mode.

- Hardware Ray Tracing: RT accelerator blocks provide support for global illumination and reflections effects, but their power is limited (performance is lower than NVIDIA RTX 3050).

- Support for Standards: DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.3, OpenGL 4.6, and AMD FidelityFX CAS (Contrast Adaptive Sharpening) technology.

Memory: Speed and Size

GDDR6 and 96-bit Bus

The Arc A380 is equipped with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory with an effective speed of 15.5 Gbps. The bus width is 96 bits, resulting in a bandwidth of 186 GB/s. For comparison, the NVIDIA RTX 3050 (128 bits) has a bandwidth of 224 GB/s.

Impact on Performance

The memory size is sufficient for gaming at 1080p on high settings, but in 1440p there may be stutters due to a lack of VRAM in projects with HD textures (e.g., Horizon Forbidden West). The bandwidth limits the rendering speed of complex scenes, making the card less suitable for 4K gaming.

Gaming Performance

1080p: Comfortable Gaming

- Apex Legends (high settings): 75–90 FPS.

- Elden Ring (medium settings + XeSS): 60 FPS.

- Cyberpunk 2077 (medium settings, ray tracing off): 45–55 FPS. With RT enabled, it drops to 25–30 FPS, but activating XeSS boosts it back up to 40 FPS.

1440p and 4K: Not for Everyone

In Fortnite (Epic settings, 1440p): 35–45 FPS. To achieve smooth gaming, you need to reduce quality or use XeSS. 4K remains impractical — even in CS2, the average FPS does not exceed 60.

Professional Tasks

Editing and Rendering

The card shows modest results in software like Adobe Premiere Pro and Blender. In PugetBench tests for Premiere Pro, it scores 450 points compared to 600 for the NVIDIA RTX 3050. Support for AV1 encoding is a plus for streamers looking to save bandwidth.

Scientific Calculations

OpenCL performance is sufficient for basic tasks (data processing in MATLAB), but NVIDIA's CUDA cores remain unmatched. For serious computations, it is better to consider models with a larger number of cores.

Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP 75 W: Energy Efficiency

The A380 does not require additional power — the PCIe x16 slot is sufficient. This makes it ideal for compact builds. Average power consumption in games is 60–70 W.

Cooling and Cases

The reference models come equipped with a heatsink and a single fan. Under load, temperatures reach 70–75°C. For better cooling, it is recommended to use a case with 2–3 fans (e.g., Fractal Design Meshify C).

Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 (6 GB)

- Price: $180 vs. $130 for the A380.

- The RTX 3050 is 15–20% faster in games, but does not support AV1 encoding.

AMD Radeon RX 6400

- Price: $120.

- The RX 6400 is weaker in ray tracing and lacks a counterpart to XeSS but consumes only 53 W.

Conclusion: The A380 is a compromise for those looking for new technologies on a budget.

Practical Tips

- Power Supply: A 400 W PSU is sufficient (e.g., be quiet! System Power 10).

- Compatibility: Requires PCIe 4.0 x16 and a motherboard with UEFI (check for BIOS updates).

- Drivers: By 2025, Intel has fixed most issues, but keep software updated through Intel Driver & Support Assistant.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price ($130–150).

- Support for AV1 and XeSS.

- Energy efficiency.

Cons:

- Weak RT performance.

- Only 6 GB of memory.

- Limited optimization in older games.

Final Verdict

The Intel Arc A380 is a solid choice for:

1. Budget Gamers willing to compromise on AAA titles.

2. Streamers who value AV1 encoding.

3. Office PCs with the ability to run light games.

If you’re looking for maximum FPS for $150, consider the AMD RX 6400. But for an introduction to ray tracing and modern technologies, the A380 is the best option in its class.

Basic

Label Name

Intel

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

June 2022

Model Name

Arc A380

Generation

Alchemist

Base Clock

2000MHz

Boost Clock

2050MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 4.0 x8

Transistors

7,200 million

RT Cores

Tensor Cores

Tensor Cores are specialized processing units designed specifically for deep learning, providing higher training and inference performance compared to FP32 training. They enable rapid computations in areas such as computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition, text-to-speech conversion, and personalized recommendations. The two most notable applications of Tensor Cores are DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and AI Denoiser for noise reduction.

128

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

6 nm

Architecture

Generation 12.7

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

6GB

Memory Type

GDDR6

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

96bit

Memory Clock

1937MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

186.0 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

65.60 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

131.2 GTexel/s

FP16 (half)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.

8.397 TFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

4.282 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

1024

L2 Cache

4MB

TDP

75W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.3

OpenCL Version

3.0

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 Ultimate (12_2)

Power Connectors

1x 8-pin

Shader Model

6.6

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Suggested PSU

250W

Benchmarks

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 2160p

Score

10 fps

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1440p

Score

27 fps

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p

Score

41 fps

FP32 (float)

Score

4.282 TFLOPS

3DMark Time Spy

Score

4277

Blender

Score

315

Hashcat

Score

210867 H/s

Compared to Other GPU

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 2160p / fps

GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER

47 +370%

Radeon RX 6600 XT

39 +290%

RTX A2000

26 +160%

GeForce GTX 970

15 +50%

Arc A380

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1440p / fps

GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

95 +251.9%

Radeon RX 5700 XT

75 +177.8%

RTX A2000 12 GB

54 +100%

GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB

33 +22.2%

Arc A380

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p / fps

GeForce RTX 3070

141 +243.9%

Arc A770

107 +161%

GeForce RTX 2060

79 +92.7%

Radeon RX 6500 XT

46 +12.2%

Arc A380

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Arc Graphics 128EU Mobile

4.516 +5.5%

Quadro P4000 Mobile

4.31 +0.7%

Arc A380

4.282

Radeon HD 8990 OEM

4.178 -2.4%

Zhongshan Subor Z+ GPU

4.074 -4.9%

3DMark Time Spy

GeForce RTX 2060 12 GB

7866 +83.9%

RTX A2000 12 GB

5781 +35.2%

Arc A380

4277

T1000 8 GB

3069 -28.2%

GeForce GTX 950

1921 -55.1%

Blender

GeForce RTX 2060

1506.77 +378.3%

Arc A550M

848 +169.2%

Quadro T1000 Mobile GDDR6

415 +31.7%

Arc A380

315

GeForce GT 1030

45.58 -85.5%

Hashcat / H/s

Radeon HD 7990

278176 +31.9%

Quadro P5000

245484 +16.4%

Arc A380

210867

Radeon RX 580

204331 -3.1%

Radeon R9 290X

204127 -3.2%