intel-arc-alchemist-a380:-memory-spec-change,-hdmi-2.1-clarification,-and-gpu-photo-shoot

When we noticed Intel’s Arc Alchemist GPUs within the figurative flesh final week, there have been just a few oddities within the presentation. Some of them may be defined as complicated Chinese-to-English translation points, however variations in numbers stick out moderately readily, and there have been a few these, too.

Chief amongst them was the “Gunnir Arc A380 Photon 6G OC” card’s use of 15.5 Gbps GDDR6 reminiscence. Per Intel’s official specs, the Arc A380 was purported to be outfitted with 16 Gbps reminiscence. You might imagine, “it’s 500 Mbps; does it even matter?” and effectively, yeah, really, it does, not less than slightly. The change drops the cardboard’s reminiscence bandwidth from 192 GB/sec to 186 GB/sec, which is a distinction that may very well be readily felt in gaming.
This used to say 16 Gbps. Source: Intel Arc A380 Specifications

Well, because it occurs, Intel has up to date its official specs for the Arc A380 to decrease the reference reminiscence pace. That is to say that apparently, Arc A380 playing cards will include 15.5 Gbps reminiscence. This isn’t the largest deal; only a contact of misplaced efficiency. It’s nonetheless not a terrific look for a corporation to be decreasing the specs of a product after it is already on retailer cabinets, although. Imagine for those who purchased a automotive with 400 kW and discover that it is solely doing 385, after which the producer tells you “oh, that’s actually the real spec.”

The different quantity that is completely different from Intel’s spec sheet on the Gunnir card is the HDMI revision. Intel lists the Arc A380 as being able to DisplayPort 2.0 and HDMI 2.1, however the Gunnir product web page particularly lists HDMI 2.0. This is arguably a extra main lower than the reminiscence pace subject above, though now we have to remind everybody that simply because one thing says “HDMI 2.1” doesn’t suggest it helps any of the HDMI 2.1 options (as a result of the HDMI licensing authority is seemingly bonkers).

Well, on this case Intel is passing the buck to Gunnir. In a tweet yesterday, the corporate’s graphics division particularly said that the A380 helps HDMI 2.1, however that it is as much as AIB producers to utilize it. This is completely cheap; HDMI encoding is often performed by a separate IC and it is as much as the AIBs to utilize an HDMI encoder that helps HDMI 2.1. Whether anybody will really accomplish that on such a low-end GPU is one other query altogether.

By the best way, the photographs on this put up are literally photos of the Gunnir Arc A380 Photon card. Chinese tech site MyDrivers really received ahold of certainly one of these Photon playing cards, and tore it down for everybody to gawk at. You can head over to MyDrivers to take a look at the remainder of their photograph shoot.