Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 vs Intel Arc A770 vs Intel Arc A370M

Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650

The Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 (GT3e) is a processor graphics card for Kaby Lake models announced in January 2017. As the successor to the Intel Iris Graphics 550 (Skylake), the Iris Plus Graphics 650 is used for 28-Watt models and is equipped with 64 MB eDRAM cache. There should not be any big changes compared to the Iris Graphics 550.

The so called GT3e version of the Kaby Lake GPU probably still has 48 Execution Units (EUs), which can reach up to 1100 MHz depending on the model. Besides eDRAM cache, the Iris 650 can also access the system memory (2x 64 Bit DDR3L-1600/DDR4-2400) via processor interface.

Compared to the Iris Plus 640 from the 15-Watt models, the Iris 650 only has a slightly higher maximum clock as well as almost twice the TDP, which allows a better utilization of the Turbo Boost potential.

Performance

The exact performance of the Iris Plus Graphics 650 depends on the CPU model, because maximum clock as well as the size of the L3 cache can differ a bit. The system memory (DDR3/DDR4) will influence the performance as well.

The fastest chips are high-clocked Core i7 models like the Core i7-7567U. Depending on the game, the Iris Plus 650 will probably be on par with a dedicated GeForce 930M and can handle smooth gameplay in modern titles in low up to medium settings.

Features

The reworked video engine now fully supports hardware decoding of H.265/HEVC videos. Contrary to Skylake, however, Kaby Lake can now also decode H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The video output is possible via DP 1.2/eDP 1.3 (up to 3840 x 2160 @60 Hz), whereas HDMI is also supported in the older 1.4a standard. An HDMI 2.0 output can be added via converter from DisplayPort. The GPU can drive up to three displays simultaneously.

Power Consumption

The Iris Plus Graphics 650 is used for 28-Watt processor and therefore medium-sized notebooks.

Intel Arc A770

The Intel Arc A770 is a mid-range desktop GPU and is manufactured using the 6 nm process at TSMC. The graphics processor has 4,096 shader units and 8 or 16 GB GDDR6 VRAM with a 256-bit interface (16 Gbps, 512 GB/s).

Features

As the top model based on the Alchemist architecture, Intel offers the Arc A770, the top model in the series. As a completely new development, Intel wants to put pressure on AMD and Nvidia with these graphics cards. Features such as ray tracing are supported and the Intel Arc A770 comes with 32 RT cores. Intel is also implementing 512 Tensor Cores, which we can already find in the current graphics cards from Nvidia. With support for AV1, the graphics card is particularly interesting for content creators. Only the Ada Lovelace models from Nvidia and the RDNA3 GPUs from AMD are currently capable of hardware-side encoding and decoding with the new codec.

Performance

The performance of the Intel Arc A770 is comparable with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 or an AMD Radeon RX 7600 comparable. The Intel model copes much better with newer games. With ray tracing enabled, the Intel Arc A770 can even outperform its two competitors. Based on the performance shown, the Intel Arc A770 is ideally suited for 1080p gaming in 2023.

Power consumption

The manufacturer specifies the power consumption of the Intel Arc A770 at 225 watts (TGP). This is slightly more than a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 or the AMD Radeon RX 7600.

Intel Arc A370M

The Intel Arc A370M is a dedicated mobile entry level graphics card for laptops based on Xe HPG microarchitecture. It uses the ACM-G11 chip and offers all 8 Xe-cores (128 ALUs), 8 ray tracing units and a 64-bit memory bus for 4 GB GDDR6 graphics memory. The chip integrates 7.2 billion transistors and the die measures 157 mm2.

The performance is in the entry level of dedicated graphics cards for laptops in 2022. AMD did publish some gaming benchmarks with medium settings in 5 games that showed that the Radeon RX 6500M is clearly faster. Intel only compared the A370M (with a faster CPU) to the slower Iris iGPU in the i7-1280P (see below). Thanks to the additional 2 cores and higher clock speeds, the entry level Arc A350M should be clearly left behind.

The chip also integrates two media engines for VP9, AVC, HEVC, and AV1 8k en- and decoding. The 4 display pipes support up to 4x 4k120 HDR via DMI 2.0B or DisplayPort 2.0 10G. 

The A370M is produced in 6nm at TSMC (N6 process) and supports dynamic power share (using Deep Link) with 12th gen Intel CPUs (Alder Lake).