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Intel Arc A780

Intel Arc A780: A Deep Dive into the Graphics Card for Gamers and Professionals

April 2025

1. Architecture and Key Features

Xe-HPG 2.0: A New Stage of Evolution

The Intel Arc A780 is built on the updated Xe-HPG 2.0 architecture, which replaces the first generation of Xe-HPG. The main improvements focus on optimizing the performance of compute units and supporting modern APIs, including DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.3. The card is manufactured using TSMC's 5nm process technology, providing high energy efficiency and transistor density (up to 24 billion).

Unique Features

- XeSS (Xe Super Sampling): An upscaling technology similar to NVIDIA's DLSS and AMD's FSR. In "Performance" mode, XeSS boosts FPS by 40-60% at 4K while preserving detail.

- Ray Tracing 2.0: Enhanced RT cores deliver a 30% faster ray tracing performance compared to the first generation of Arc.

- Full Compatibility with FidelityFX: Intel has integrated support for AMD's open technologies, including FidelityFX CAS and Variable Rate Shading.

2. Memory: Speed and Efficiency

GDDR6X and Bandwidth

The Arc A780 is equipped with 16GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus. The bandwidth reaches 672 GB/s thanks to a clock speed of 21 Gbps. This allows for smooth operation at 4K resolution while reducing the risk of a "bottleneck" in resource-intensive scenes.

Impact on Performance

The memory size and high data transfer speed make the card ideal for games with detailed textures (e.g., Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty) and rendering tasks. In ray tracing tests, the A780 shows 15% fewer FPS drops compared to models with GDDR6.

3. Gaming Performance

FPS in Popular Titles

- Cyberpunk 2077 (4K, Ultra + RT): 48-55 FPS (up to 72 FPS with XeSS).

- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare V (1440p, Ultra): 120 FPS.

- Fortnite (1080p, Epic + RT): 144 FPS.

- Starfield (1440p, High): 90 FPS.

Ray Tracing: Price for Realism

Activating RT reduces FPS by 25-35%, but XeSS compensates for the losses. For example, in Alan Wake 3 (1440p, RT Ultra), without XeSS there are 44 FPS, while with XeSS Quality it jumps to 62 FPS.

4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing and 3D Rendering

- DaVinci Resolve: Accelerated H.265 encoding due to the built-in AV1 codec.

- Blender: OpenCL and OneAPI support provides rendering speeds on par with NVIDIA RTX 4070.

- Machine Learning: Integration with Intel oneDNN enhances efficiency in AI tasks.

Comparison with CUDA

While NVIDIA's CUDA remains the standard for professional software, the optimization for OneAPI makes the A780 attractive for developers using cross-platform solutions.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Generation

TDP and Recommendations

The card’s TDP is 225W. For stable operation, the following is required:

- A power supply of at least 650W (considering peak loads).

- A cooling system with three fans or liquid cooling (for overclocking).

Temperature Management

In stress tests (FurMark), the maximum temperature reaches 78°C. A case with good ventilation is recommended (such as the Lian Li Lancool III or Fractal Design Meshify 2).

6. Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA RTX 4070 vs. AMD RX 7700 XT

- Price: Arc A780 — $499, RTX 4070 — $549, RX 7700 XT — $469.

- 4K Performance: The A780 is 8% faster than the RX 7700 XT, but 12% slower than the RTX 4070.

- Technologies: Intel’s AV1 support provides a streaming advantage.

7. Practical Tips

Building a System

- Motherboard: Compatible with PCIe 5.0 but works on PCIe 4.0 (with up to 3% performance loss).

- Drivers: After the Q1 2025 update, stability improved by 40%. Be sure to install the Intel Graphics Command Center.

Budget Builds

For the A780, optimal processor choices are Intel Core i5-14600K or Ryzen 5 7600X.

8. Pros and Cons

✅ Pros:

- Best price-performance ratio in the $500 segment.

- Support for AV1 and open standards (FidelityFX, OpenCL).

- Improved drivers and low noise level.

❌ Cons:

- Limited selection of partner models.

- In rare games (e.g., Hogwarts Legacy 2), a 10-15% FPS drop compared to alternatives is observed.

9. Final Verdict: Who is the Arc A780 for?

This graphics card is the perfect choice for:

- Gamers wanting to play in 1440p/4K without overpaying for a brand.

- Streamers thanks to AV1 encoding.

- Professionals working with cross-platform software (Blender, DaVinci).

The Intel Arc A780 proves that a third player in the GPU market can provide not only a competitive product but also innovations like hybrid RT support and open standards. If you are looking for a balance between price, functionality, and quality — this is your option.

Basic

Label Name

Intel

Platform

Desktop

Model Name

Arc A780

Generation

Alchemist

Base Clock

2200MHz

Boost Clock

2200MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 4.0 x16

Transistors

21,700 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.

512

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.

256

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

6 nm

Architecture

Generation 12.7

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

16GB

Memory Type

GDDR6X

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.

256bit

Memory Clock

1093MHz

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.

559.6 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.

281.6 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.

563.2 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.

36.04 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.

18.38 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.

4096

L2 Cache

16MB

TDP

200W

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

2x 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.

128

Suggested PSU

550W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

18.38 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Arc A770

20.053 +9.1%

A100 SXM4 40 GB

19.1 +3.9%

Arc A780

18.38

RTX PRO 3000 Blackwell Mobile

16.699 -9.1%

Quadro RTX 8000

15.984 -13%