SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 TITAN OC Edition Review

Introduction

With this SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 TITAN OC Edition review, we've experienced the full Intel Arc Graphics line-up: the entry-level Intel Arc A580, the mainstream Intel Arc A750, and the top-of-the-line Intel Arc A770. With a price point of $319.99 USD, like the Arc A750, it sits in the mainstream GPU bracket. This is where you find GPUs like the GeForce RTX 3060, RTX 4060, and the Radeon RX 7600. However, as the only model with 16GB of GDDR6 memory on a generous 256-bit memory bus - the Intel Arc A770 stands out.

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For under $400, getting a 16GB card is an attractive option if you're looking for some level of future-proofing. The good news is that regardless of VRAM capacity, you have a faster GPU than the GeForce RTX 3060. But, with the arrival of the GeForce RTX 4060 and Radeon RX 7600, both with 8GB of VRAM on a 128-bit bus, arguing in favor of the Intel Arc A770 isn't as simple as you'd think.

Regarding 1080p gaming across a broad range of titles, older and newer, it falls behind the latest mainstream offerings from NVIDIA and AMD. However, if you're pushing 1440p gaming or playing one of the few VRAM-intensive titles released in 2023 with high to ultra settings - with or without ray-tracing -then the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 TITAN OC Edition starts to look pretty good. That said, the broad adoption of NVIDIA DLSS makes Team Green products easy to recommend.

Even though Arc was rocky at launch, Intel's drivers have come a long way. They're not at the level of NVIDIA or AMD regarding stability, but thanks to continuous improvements and a commitment from Intel to release timely updates and day-one drivers for major releases - overall performance has dramatically improved.

With rumors (and word from the engineers at Intel) pointing to second-generation Arc Battlemage GPUs launching later this year and Arc graphics being a part of the new Meteor Lake CPU line-up, there's also peace of mind that Intel won't be abandoning its discrete graphics card ambitions anytime soon. But that's another discussion; let's look at the bright, blue, and stylish SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 TITAN OC Edition.

SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 TITAN OC Edition

	Today	Yesterday	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$199.99	$199.99	$209.99	$209.99	Buy
	$319.99	$319.99	$319.99	$299.99	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 4/26/2024 at 10:21 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Intel Alchemist Enters the Race

Below is a summary of the Intel Arc technology, applicable to all models.

The debut of the Intel Arc A750 and Intel Arc A770 graphics cards for desktops in 2022 marked Intel's arrival into the discrete GPU space. Not only that, but the appearance of new architecture from Intel designed for gaming, creation, and AI applications called Xe HPG - with that last bit standing for High-Performance Graphics. Like NVIDIA and AMD, Intel has spent the time and resources to develop its own Xe HPG graphics architecture with an approach that features some genuinely new ideas that deliver scalability from laptops up to high-end desktops.

Compared to the single measure of NVIDIA's CUDA Cores and AMD's Compute Units, Intel's Xe HPG architecture breaks down its technological blocks into 'Render Slices' - with each one containing four Xe Cores, four Ray Tracing Units, and the general building blocks of what make up a modern-day GPU. As brand-new architecture, Xe HPG has been built from the ground up with DirectX 12 Ultimate in mind, meaning that all Arc-based GPUs can handle the challenging task of real-time ray-tracing and use DX12 features like Variable Rate Shading and other bits of rendering technology.

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Xe HPG architecture is built for AI, with dedicated AI hardware ala NVIDIA's Tensor Cores in the GeForce RTX range. Each Xe Core (there are four of these in each 'Render Slice') features hardware built for traditional rasterization tasks but also Intel Xe Matrix Extensions (Intel XMX) Engines capable of handling machine-learning tasks. This directly ties into Intel's XeSS rendering, which, like DLSS, uses AI to upscale. However, it isn't exclusive to Intel Arc GPU hardware; it is AI-based and benefits from Intel's accelerated machine learning via the Intel Arc series, but it is designed to work on all GPUs.

As mentioned above, each 'Render Slice' also features dedicated ray-tracing hardware. Beyond this, there's a unique Thread Sorting Unit designed to help with efficiency and be able to do other tasks simultaneously to improve RT and other performance.

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A shared cache can also be used for any compute workload, shading task, or in-game texture-related thing. For creators, the Xe media engine offers hardware-accelerated AV1 encoding with support for encoding and decoding up to 8K with VP9, AVC, HEVC, or AV1.

As a brand-new piece of architecture, Intel has designed Xe HPG for modern-day gaming and graphics card usage. From playing visually stunning titles with ray-tracing, competitive shooters like Counter-Strike 2, or simply watching or even streaming content - it's all here, including support for DisplayPort 2.0.

Specs and Test System

Specifications

Regarding the first-gen Intel Arc line-up, the Intel Arc A770 sits on the top thanks to double the VRAM capacity and an additional 'Render Slice' adding to the available Xe-cores, Ray Tracing Units, and XMX Engines. It's not a monumental leap forward; all three Arc GPUs are relatively close regarding performance and overall specs. There are notable differences, of course, but it's nowhere near comparing the GeForce RTX 4060 to the GeForce RTX 4080. The Intel Arc A750 and the Intel Arc A770 share the same Total Board Power rating of 225W - even though you've got double the VRAM and more numbers.

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Having 16GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with a speed of 17.5 Gbps and a total memory bandwidth of 560 GB/s is great news for those looking at GPUs with extra VRAM for content creation or even AI workloads. Or running poor PC ports of popular games at launch before they're patched to run on most PCs. The closest competitor, regarding price and VRAM, is the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB, which can be picked up for under $300.

As a custom OC model from Taiwanese company SPARKLE, the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition boosts the clock speed up to 2300 MHz (which is 100MHz higher than the overclocked SPARKLE Intel Arc A750 TITAN OC Edition we reviewed last year).

• GPU: Intel Arc A770 Graphics
• Model: SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition
• Interface: PCI Express 4.0
• Microarchitecture: Xe HPG
• Render Slices: 8
• Xe-cores: 32
• Ray Tracing Units: 32
• Intel Xe Matrix Extensions (Intel XMX) Engines: 512
• Xe Vector Engines: 512
• Graphics Clock: 2300 MHz
• Memory: 16GB GDDR6
• Memory Speed: 17.5 Gbps
• Memory Interface: 256-bit
• Total Memory Bandwidth: 560 GB/s
• Display Connections: 3 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI
• TBP: 225W
• Recommended PSU: 650W
• What's in the Box: SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition, GPU Bracket, Guide, PC Game Redemption Offer

Kosta's Test System

• Motherboard: MSI MPG X670E Carbon Wi-Fi
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
• Cooler: Corsair iCUE H100i RGB PRO XT Liquid CPU Cooler
• RAM: 64GB (2x32GB) Corsair DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5 DRAM 5200MHz
• SSD: Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSD 4TB, Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus Plus M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSD 8TB
• Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 850W
• Case: Thermaltake Core P3 Tempered Glass Snow
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 64-bit

Physical Design and Cooling

As a GPU maker, SPARKLE has been in the industry for as long as there have been discrete graphics cards. However, it left the GPU space in 2013 after releasing its final GeForce GTX 700 series card. With SPARKLE returning to the GPU space, it has chosen to develop and produce Intel Arc products exclusively, and after checking out a few models in recent months, it's safe to say that the company knows what it's doing. From cooling to additional features to the overall physical design and style - the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition looks brilliant in Intel Arc blue.

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We called the Arc A750 TITAN OC from SPARKLE one of the best-looking GPUs of 2023, and it still rings true. The build quality is uniformly excellent and sturdy, from the metal backplate to the triple-fan cooling system. With a 2.5-slot thickness, it's not a small GPU by any stretch, and SPARKLE includes a stylish blue metallic GPU brace in the package. Even if it's chunky, it's well-designed, from the fin stacks to the fans to the light blue PCB and dual 8-pin power connectors.

The TITAN OC's visual design combines the shroud's matte blue with the black-colored fans and the white accent denoting each fan ring. There is an RGB lighting strip on the side, which looks cool and doubles as a way to monitor the GPU's overall temperature. If everything is cool and quiet, the light strip remains white while becoming more orange as it heats up.

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It's an efficient design, perhaps even overkill, as the GPU temperature rarely broke the 60-degree Celsius barrier during our stress tests - which is impressive when you factor in Intel's reference Arc GPUs, which run hotter, reaching 70 degrees or so. Still, cool and quiet is what you want, and the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition has the thermal performance to back up its style.

Benchmarks - 15 Game Averages

The Games and Tests

PC gaming is a complicated and varied space, from indie games to major blockbuster releases and titles that push hardware and technology to their limit with the adoption of effects like real-time ray-tracing.

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This is all a way of saying that the 15 in-game benchmarks we've chosen (and run at 1080p and 1440p) represent a wide range of styles, not only in terms of genres, like first-person shooters and racing games but also in the API technology (DirectX 11, 12) and cutting-edge features like ray tracing and upscaling technology.

Results include DLSS, XeSS, and FSR 2, where possible, as these technologies are the sorts of things, especially in 1440p and 4K, which you'd turn on. Six of the 15 game benchmarks also feature ray tracing. Also, each title is set to ultra-equivalent quality settings to push GPU hardware and minimize CPU bottlenecks at higher resolutions.

Also, it's just fun to max out a game's visual settings and see the results. Here's the breakdown of games, graphics settings, and what's being tested.

• Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Ultra High-quality settings, with the in-game benchmark tool used.
• Borderlands 3: Ultra quality settings, with the in-game benchmark tool used.
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II: Ultra quality setting, in-game multiplayer benchmark tool used. AMD FSR, Intel XeSS, and NVIDIA DLSS results are included.
• Cyberpunk 2077: Ultra quality setting, in-game benchmark tool used. AMD FSR, Intel XeSS, and NVIDIA DLSS results are included.
• Cyberpunk 2077 (RT): Ray tracing Ultra quality setting, in-game benchmark tool used. AMD FSR, Intel XeSS, and NVIDIA DLSS results are included.
• DOOM Eternal (RT): Ultra Nightmare quality setting with ray-tracing enabled, the opening of Mars Core campaign level used to benchmark. NVIDIA DLSS results are included.
• F1 22 (RT): Ultra High-quality setting with ray tracing, one lap of the Bahrain track benchmarked. AMD FSR and NVIDIA DLSS results are included.
• Forza Horizon 5 (RT): Extreme quality setting with ray tracing enabled, in-game benchmark tool used. AMD FSR, Intel XeSS, and NVIDIA DLSS results are included.
• Hitman (RT): Ultra-quality settings with ray-tracing, Dubai scene benchmarked. AMD FSR, Intel XeSS, and NVIDIA DLSS results are included.
• Horizon Zero Dawn: Ultimate quality setting, in-game benchmark used.
• Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (RT): Ultra quality setting with ray tracing enabled, the in-game benchmark tool used. NVIDIA DLSS results are included.
• Rainbow Six Extraction: Ultra quality settings and in-game benchmark tool used. NVIDIA DLSS results are included.
• Red Dead Redemption 2: Maximum quality settings, with in-game benchmark tool used. AMD FSR and NVIDIA DLSS results are included.
• The Division 2: Ultra quality settings with in-game benchmark tool used.
• Total War: Warhammer III: Ultra-quality settings with the in-game Battle Benchmark tool used.

15 Game Average FPS - 1080p Results

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Let's get straight to it: thanks to driver updates and overall improvements to the Arc Graphics platform, the 1080p performance of the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition is impressive 12.3% faster across our 15-game benchmark suite than the Intel Arc A750 and 5.8% faster than the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB. Compared to the more affordable Radeon RX 7600, it's 7.1% slower and 10.8% slower than the GeForce RTX 4060.

Having 16GB of VRAM capacity in and of itself doesn't boost in-game performance; it simply allows the GPU to keep up if a game starts using more than 8GB. Games often use up as much VRAM on a GPU as they can, and right now, for 1080p gaming, 8GB is still enough to get by. Performance does vary from game to game, and there are titles where Intel Arc performs extremely well - Cyberpunk 2077, DOOM Eternal, F1 22, and Hitman.

All of these examples are titles with ray-tracing, with the Intel Arc A770 keeping pace with the GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 4060 while outperforming the Radeon RX 7600. Titles where the Intel Arc A770 falls behind include Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Horizon Zero Dawn. With the 1% low average sitting above 60fps and the overall average being 91fps - the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition is a great 1080p offering.

15 Game Average FPS - 1440p Results

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Bumping up the resolution to 1440p and the performance drop-off for the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition sits at around 25% - which makes it a decent offering for the fastest-growing resolution in PC gaming. The GPU is 11.5% faster than the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB and 15.3% faster than the Intel Arc A750 across our 15-game benchmark suite at this resolution. The 1440p performance of the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition sits between the Radeon RX 7600 and the GeForce RTX 4060 - with the result being close enough to fall within the margin of error.

Ray-tracing is once again an area where the Intel Arc A770 performs extremely well. At 1440p using the demanding RT Ultra settings, it's faster than the GeForce RTX 4060 - a good example of what additional VRAM capacity can do when needed. Granted, native Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing is not playable without upscaling - but it's worth highlighting. The game now supports Intel XeSS, so that's a definite plus.

With impressive performance and 16GB of VRAM, the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition is a decent 1440p gaming option - regularly hitting over 60fps to deliver an overall average of 68fps.

Benchmarks - 3DMark FireStrike

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The 3DMark FireStrike results for the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition are interesting because they don't reflect the in-game results we captured. As we saw with the Intel Arc A750, they paint a picture of the card somewhat close to or equivalent to the GeForce RTX 3070 or GeForce RTX 4060 Ti. 3DMark FireStrike is a synthetic DirectX 11 benchmark covering 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions - and based on the results, the Intel Arc A770 16GB is on par with the RTX 3070 and RTX 4060 Ti.

For the actual in-game tests we carried out, the Intel Arc A770 is closer to the GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 4060, so maybe there's still room for Intel to improve the overall performance of the Arc line-up. With the Arc successor coming later this year (or potentially early 2025), perhaps we'll have to wait to see Intel's true discrete GPU potential. As it stands, 3DMark results for Arc require an asterisk.

Benchmarks - 3DMark TimeSpy and Port Royal

3DMark TimeSpy is a DirectX 12 synthetic benchmark, so it's more relevant for modern games. Intel designed the architecture for the Arc Alchemist GPUs specifically for DirectX 12 and modern APIs, with most of the additional gains since the line-up debut in late 2022 focused on improving how it handles older gaming tech. Even so, you're looking at a similar situation to the FireStrike tests - results in a completely different performance tier.

According to the 1440p and 4K 3DMark TimeSpy results, the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition is faster than the GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 4060 Ti. Again, this is not reflected in our in-game benchmark results. The only example where the Intel Arc A770 matches the GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 4060 Ti performance for 1440p gaming is with Red Dead Redemption II.

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3DMark Port Royal is a synthetic ray-tracing benchmark. Once again, the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition delivers an exceptional result - a score that sits in between the GeForce RTX 4060 and the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti. Of the different 3DMark benchmarks carried out, this result closely matches what we see in games with real-time ray tracing. Intel Arc graphics is surprisingly great for 1080p RT, with Intel already a step ahead of AMD and Radeon.

Benchmarks - 1080p Gaming

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Benchmarks - 1440p Gaming

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Benchmarks Summary, Ray-Tracing Performance, and XeSS

With the overall performance sitting in that region dominated by the GeForce RTX 3060 (the most popular GPU currently in circulation according to the latest Steam Data), it's safe to say that even with 16GB of VRAM, the Intel Arc A770 is not a card suited for high-end 4K gaming. Less demanding titles will run fine, or those where you lower settings considerably - thanks to the increased VRAM buffer. For the price, the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition is a great choice for 1080p or even 1440p gaming as long as you're comfortable making tweaks to maintain a steady 60+fps.

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As seen in games like Cyberpunk 2077, F1 22, and Hitman, the Intel Arc A770 can comfortably handle real-time ray-tracing - especially when you've got Intel XeSS, the company's DLSS, or FSR 2 equivalent. XeSS image quality, which uses AI hardware on Arc GPUs, is superior to AMD's FSR while not quite hitting the same heights as DLSS. The good news is that XeSS adoption is improving, and with the arrival of Meteor Lake, that trend will continue throughout 2024.

Unfortunately, being late to the discrete graphics card game means that Intel is still playing catch-up. Being a PC gamer not only means playing the latest releases like the annual Call of Duty drops or smash hits like Hogwarts Legacy. It also means easy access to decades of digital entertainment, where games from the 2010s still look and play great. Play a game that's a few years old, and you might find performance not being where it should be.

Temperature and Power Efficiency

For a mainstream GPU, the build quality of the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition is premium, from the quality of the components to how solid and quiet it can be when in use. During our stress test, the GPU temperature hovered around 60 degrees, with the out-of-the-box overclock intact. The thermal performance of SPARKLE's triple-fan design is impressive - though we're still looking at a mainstream GPU, so it's a tad overkill.

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One area where the Intel Arc A770 falls behind its direct competition, the GeForce RTX 3060, the RTX 4060, and the Radeon RX 7600, is overall efficiency. Pushing up to 225W, it's a juice guzzler compared to the RTX 4060 - worth noting.

Final Thoughts

Available for under $320, the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition presents an interesting choice if you're currently eyeing a line-up and pricing bracket that includes the GeForce RTX 3060, RTX 4060, and Radeon RX 7600. It sits on the higher-end of this group, but with 16GB of VRAM and impressive performance across a range of titles, including those with heavy doses of real-time ray tracing, there is a case to be made for picking this up.

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The Intel Arc platform still has a few quirks and room for growth. You'll need a CPU and motherboard with Resizable BAR support to unlock the GPU's full potential, and there are still titles and situations where the drivers and stability feel like it's still in beta. Performance in modern titles and recent releases is mostly fine, and with noticeably better performance than the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB (including RT), the future of Arc is promising. Plus, you've got the awesome SPARKLE design - the company easily makes the best-looking Arc GPUs.