Our first Intel Arc A370M benchmarks are in and the results are comparable to the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti at best and slower than the GeForce MX250 at worst

After falling hard with the already forgotten discrete Iris Xe Max GPU, Intel is ready to try again with the more consumer-oriented discrete Arc series. One of the first laptops to sport an Arc GPU is the Asus Zenbook Flip OLED Q539 and its Arc A370M that's already widely available on store shelves. Naturally, we purchased one as fast as humanly possible to see exactly what kind of performance users can expect from an Arc GPU. Our results below are from a retail unit running on stock retail drivers — no smoke and mirrors from any Intel-provided developer units or pre-release drivers here.

Based on our early numbers, the Arc A370M can range wildly in terms of performance depending on the game. In Final Fantasy XV, for example, the Intel GPU is able to stand neck-to-neck with the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti commonly found on older entry-level multimedia laptops. In X-Plane or GTA V, however, our Arc A370M system can perform up to 50 percent slower. Overall results are still much faster than any integrated Iris Xe or Ryzen 5000 Zen 3 solution as one would expect.

Interestingly, 3DMark results claim that the Arc A370M can offer a similar level of performance to the venerable mobile GTX 1060. In practice, however, a GTX 1060 laptop will almost always run games significantly faster when under GPU-bound scenarios.

The somewhat tame performance of the Arc A370M can be forgiven if it exhibits superior performance-per-watt against the competition, but this doesn't appear to be the case. Running Witcher 3 on an external monitor would draw about 31 W from the Arc A370M GPU compared to 50 W with the much faster GeForce RTX 3050 Ti in the Asus Zenbook Pro 15 OLED UM535Q. Though not bad, it's nothing to write home about especially when the comparable GeForce MX550 exists.

Intel Arc will indubitably improve over time as we continue to test more models and newer drivers to broaden our data points. Nonetheless, if your intentions are mostly for gaming, then a GeForce MX550 or older GeForce GTX 1050/1060 laptop can offer more consistent levels of performance across a wider variety of games at this point in time. Expect our full review on the Zenbook Flip OLED Q539 in the coming days as well as more gaming benchmarks with the Arc A370M to follow.