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First Intel Arc A350M leaks: Good leads over Radeon 680M, Nvidia MX450 and close to GTX 1650 Max-Q, but Intel's entry-level GPU lags behind MX570

Arc A350M is off to a decent start but is no match for a GTX 1650 Mobile. (Image Source: Intel)
Arc A350M is off to a decent start but is no match for a GTX 1650 Mobile. (Image Source: Intel)
The first 3DMark leaks of the Arc A350M GPU indicate that Intel's entry-level GPU is off to a decent start with good gains over the Radeon 680M, Nvidia MX450, Iris Xe Max, and even the GTX 1650 Max-Q. However, Arc A350M seems to be fighting an uphill battle against the likes of the GTX 1650 Mobile and the upcoming GeForce MX570. The scores are still early but do make for an interesting comparison.

Intel recently announced its Arc family of GPUs for the laptop niche. While benchmarks from reviews can be expected in the coming weeks, early benchmarks are already out at the usual places in the interwebs. 

The Arc A350M is the entry-level offering for laptops with six Xe cores and six RT cores. It sports a 1,150 MHz clock and supports a 64-bit 4 GB GDDR6 VRAM.

Known leaker @harukaz5719 on Twitter managed to source some preliminary numbers for the Arc A350M, and they appear to fall somewhere in between the Radeon 680M in the Ryzen 9 6900HS and the GeForce GTX 1650 when scores in the Performance mode are considered.

The Arc A350M seems to have scored 6,876 points in Fire Strike graphics in the Default mode and 7,318 points in the Performance mode indicating a 6.4% increase. Similarly, in Time Spy Graphics, the Arc A350M manages 2,441 points in the Default mode and a substantially high score of 3,197 in the Performance mode. We are not sure what caused a nearly 31% jump in scores, so it's recommended to take these with a pinch of salt for the moment.

3DMark
2560x1440 Time Spy Graphics
Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4GB Laptop GPU
  (3281 - 5295, n=23)
4448 Points
MX570 Pre-Sample
GeForce MX570,
3980 Points
Average NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Mobile
  (3554 - 3904, n=9)
3689 Points
Average NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile
  (2900 - 3700, n=31)
3430 Points
Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro
A350M, i7-1260P
3197 Points
Average NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q
  (2836 - 3238, n=10)
2998 Points
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
Radeon 680M, R9 6900HS
2292 Points
Average NVIDIA GeForce MX450
  (1086 - 2300, n=16)
1796 Points
Average Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics
  (1697 - 1766, n=3)
1735 Points
1920x1080 Fire Strike Graphics
Average NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4GB Laptop GPU
  (9138 - 14157, n=22)
11708 Points
Average NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Mobile
  (9691 - 10733, n=9)
10133 Points
Average NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile
  (7741 - 9810, n=32)
9195 Points
Average NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q
  (6985 - 8618, n=12)
7853 Points
Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro
A350M, i7-1260P
7318 Points
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
Radeon 680M, R9 6900HS
6848 Points
Average Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics
  (6111 - 6447, n=3)
6297 Points
Average NVIDIA GeForce MX450
  (4336 - 5753, n=17)
4869 Points

Arc A350M is in close proximity to the GTX 1650 Max-Q with good leads over Radeon 680M

Still, these scores do make for some interesting comparisons. For instance, considering the scores in the Performance mode, the Arc A350M is about 7% and 39% faster than an average Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q and the Radeon 680M, respectively in 3DMark Time Spy Graphics. However, it also seems to be about 7% slower than an average GTX 1650 Mobile.

The Arc A350M shows similar trends in Fire Strike Graphics, but the Radeon 680M now trails the Arc A350M by just 6%. The average GTX 1650 Max-Q manages to overtake the Arc A350M in this test while the latter now trails 20% behind the average GTX 1650 Mobile.

Given the entry-level specifications, the performance of the Arc A350M is probably on expected lines. The leads over the Radeon 680M do not seem to be too high with a 1080p benchmark such as Fire Strike, but it is possible some driver fine-tuning can further eke out performance from this card. 

Significant gains over the Iris Xe Max and Nvidia MX450 but no match for the MX570

The gains seem pretty significant compared to the Iris Xe Max, which is a good thing. The Iris Xe Max was plagued by several performance deficits and poor driver support, which led to an abysmal show in many tested games. Hopefully, those issues are addressed with the new cards.

The Arc A350M could also turn out to be a viable alternative to the Nvidia GeForce MX450, which is a commonly found discrete GPU in most entry-level laptops.

Laptops based on the Nvidia GeForce MX570 should be arriving in the coming months. But if the scores from a pre-sample are anything to go by, the Arc A350M has some catching-up to do.

Just to re-iterate these are still quite early numbers, and we might see some of the deltas narrowing with improved drivers and official developer support.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2022 03 > First Intel Arc A350M leaks: Good leads over Radeon 680M, Nvidia MX450 and close to GTX 1650 Max-Q, but Intel's entry-level GPU lags behind MX570
Vaidyanathan Subramaniam, 2022-04- 5 (Update: 2022-06-22)