Intel’s Arc A380 Failed to Deliver its Promises
It’s not every day that we get to see news about Intel, but for those looking forward to the new Arch Alchemist, we’re afraid that there’s some bad news to take. The Arc A380 was announced to be Intel’s first dive into discrete GPUs, which at first glance seems like a delayed move, considering how big of a company Intel is already.
According to Intel’s first announcement, the Arc A380 is comparable to the likes of AMD’s Radeon RX 6400, which is the king of budget GPUs and has been loved by many gamers worldwide. While it is a bold claim, many people have been hyped, knowing that Intel already said that their A380 would perform 25% faster than the RX 6400.
With all those hypes, of course, the expectations have been so huge that people immediately put the A380 to the test. While Intel’s claim is true that it is better than the RX 6400, it only does with a 4% difference. Quite a letdown from the promised 25%. It has also prompted the others to check the other cards that are in the Arc lineup.
The Arc A380 has already been released by Intel after some time of teasing, but in the meantime, it is only available in the Chinese market. What’s worse is that they’re only sold on pre-built rigs, which makes it hard for custom builders and DIY gamers to check if the A380 is the real deal.
With the global demand, however, Intel reassured that they would ship out the A380 along with the other cards on its family for custom builders in China, and soon, they target to reach a global presence.
Intel claims that the A380 is 25% faster than the RX 6400 from the release announcement, where they included a performance infographic, promising gamers that they will release a card that is not just for budget purposes but also a powerful one that can blow the RX 6400 out of the park.
Other than that, Intel provided no evidence. No gameplay or actual testing benchmarks to back up their claim that the A380 can beat the RX 6400. With this confusion, different people put the A380 to the test with different benchmarks, and the results are not promising.
On the other hand, it seems like Intel is aware of this information. What went wrong is the general perception of the public that A380 and RX 6400 shares the same price point. It turns out that Intel considers the price vs. performance comparison, which actually makes sense since RX 6400 is a lot more expensive.
As of the moment, the A380 sells in China for $153, while the RX 6400 is being sold for $178. Taking performance per dollar into consideration, Intel’s claim makes sense but is still a lot lower since the benchmarks found out that the boost is only around 20%.
Still, it’s not a good way to introduce a product to the public. While a lot of companies rely on deception and manipulation of variables, it’s not always perceived well by the public, and in this instance, a lot of people are upset.
The Arc series is still in its infancy, so it’s not yet safe to arrive at a conclusion. For now, let’s hope that Intel becomes more transparent with its releases and avoid data deception.
