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Intel Arc Pro A50

Intel Arc Pro A50: Detailed Review of the Graphics Card for Gamers and Professionals

April 2025

1. Architecture and Key Features

Xe-HPG 2.0 Architecture: Intel's Evolution

The Intel Arc Pro A50 graphics card is built on the updated Xe-HPG 2.0 architecture, which is a logical evolution from the first version. Major improvements focus on optimizing ray tracing performance and increasing energy efficiency. The manufacturing technology is TSMC N6 (6 nm), which has helped reduce thermal output and increase clock frequencies.

Unique Features

- XeSS 2.0 — This is Intel’s answer to NVIDIA's DLSS, but it is open source. Machine learning algorithms enhance image resolution with minimal quality loss. In games like Cyberpunk 2077, XeSS 2.0 provides a performance boost of 30–40% in Quality mode (1440p).

- Hardware Ray Tracing — Eight accelerated RT cores deliver realistic lighting. It performs decently in Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (45–50 FPS on medium settings at 1080p).

- Support for FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) — Compatibility with AMD's technology broadens the list of optimized games.

2. Memory: Speed and Efficiency

GDDR6 and Bandwidth

The Arc Pro A50 features 8 GB of GDDR6 with a 128-bit bus. The memory bandwidth reaches 384 GB/s, which is 15% higher than that of the previous generation (A40). This is sufficient for gaming at 1080p and 1440p, but there may be limitations at 4K due to the memory capacity.

Impact on Performance

- In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare V (1440p, Ultra), the graphics card delivers stable 75–80 FPS.

- When ray tracing is activated in Control (1080p, High), FPS drops to 40–45, but with XeSS 2.0, it rises to 60.

3. Gaming Performance

Resolutions and Settings

- 1080p: An ideal choice for esports projects. In Apex Legends (Ultra) — 120–130 FPS.

- 1440p: Comfortable gaming in AAA titles. Horizon Forbidden West — 55–60 FPS (High).

- 4K: Only for less demanding games or with XeSS/FSR enabled. Fortnite (Epic) — 40–45 FPS.

Ray Tracing: Is It Worth It?

RTX load “eats up” to 30% of performance. It is recommended to enable RT only in combination with XeSS/FSR. For example, in Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p, RT Medium + XeSS Balanced) — 55–60 FPS.

4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing and Rendering

With support for AV1 and HEVC, the A50 is effective in DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro. Rendering a 10-minute 4K video takes about 8 minutes (comparable to NVIDIA RTX 3060).

3D Modeling

In Blender and Maya, the card shows average results. OpenCL performance is 20% lower than that of the RTX 3050, but it is sufficient for beginner designers.

Scientific Calculations

Support for oneAPI and OpenCL makes the A50 suitable for machine learning and simulations. However, the lack of a CUDA equivalent limits its use in specialized tasks.

5. Power Consumption and Thermal Output

TDP and Recommendations

The model has a TDP of 95 W, allowing it to run without additional power (powered via PCIe x16).

Cooling

- The standard cooling system is dual-fan, with noise levels up to 32 dB under load.

- For cases with poor ventilation, it is recommended to install additional intake fans.

6. Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA RTX 3050 (8 GB)

- Pros of NVIDIA: Better ray tracing support (50–55 FPS in Control compared to 40–45 for A50) and driver stability.

- Cons: Higher price ($230 versus $200 for A50).

AMD Radeon RX 7600

- Pros of AMD: Higher performance in Vulkan games (e.g., Red Dead Redemption 2 — 70 FPS compared to 65 for A50).

- Cons: Lack of hardware AV1 encoder.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply

A power supply of 450 W is sufficient (e.g., Corsair CX450). For systems with Core i5/i7 class processors, a 550 W unit is recommended.

Compatibility

- Motherboards: PCIe 4.0 x16 (backward compatible with PCIe 3.0).

- Recommended drivers: Intel continuously improves optimization — update the software through the Intel Driver & Support Assistant.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros

- Price of $200 for 8 GB of GDDR6.

- Support for AV1 and XeSS 2.0.

- Low power consumption.

Cons

- Limited ray tracing performance.

- Drivers still lag behind NVIDIA in stability.

9. Final Verdict: Who is the Arc Pro A50 For?

This graphics card is an excellent choice for:

- Gamers with a budget of up to $250, who want to play at 1440p.

- Content creators working with AV1 content.

- Users who value energy efficiency.

If you don’t need maximum ray tracing performance, but care about modern codecs and low price, the A50 will be a good purchase. However, for professional 3D rendering, it's better to consider the NVIDIA RTX 3060 or AMD Radeon Pro W6600.

Prices are current as of April 2025. The stated cost refers to new devices.

Basic

Label Name

Intel

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

August 2022

Model Name

Arc Pro A50

Generation

Alchemist

Base Clock

2000MHz

Boost Clock

2350MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 4.0 x8

Transistors

7,200 million

RT Cores

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

2000MHz

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.

192.0 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.

75.20 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.

150.4 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.

9.626 TFLOPS

FP64 (double)

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

1203 GFLOPS

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.

4.909 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

None

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

FP32 (float)

Score

4.909 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon RX 5500 XT

5.092 +3.7%

FirePro S9150

4.968 +1.2%

Arc Pro A50

4.909

GeForce GTX 980 Mobile

4.762 -3%

Radeon Pro 575X

4.579 -6.7%