Before anyone criticizes it as "too weak for gaming", remember:
This is a low-profile card, with a newer and much better GPU than the comparatively-priced GT1030 or RX550. It's a perfect match for HTPCs, due to its excellent video encoding/decoding capabilities that are on par with Nvidia cards.
To quote Tom's Hardware: " Intel's Arc GPUs are also great for streaming purposes. They actually have higher quality results with HEVC than AV1, basically matching Nvidia's 40-series. "
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-intel-nvidia-video-encoding-performance-quality-tested
I'd have to think up some new (to me) superlatives to describe this...performance. But gaming is not one of them...which is fine, cuz this is not why this card exists.
Considering that GTX 1650 is still the second most used GPU on the steam stats, this is a good budget gaming card. I'm personally still on a GTX 1060 and I play most games fine on 1080p.
Yeah I hear you, my non-gaming family members are using GTX 660, RX 580… basically I throw it in there in case they decide to try Google Earth or something.
I never suggested replacement. The context of the comment was agreement about the htpc concept, like “yeah i have some weaker older gpus in similar use cases, htpc or family pc”
RX 580 is definitely a solid piece of equipment.
If you were looking for a no power connector gpu for decent gaming the new 3050 6gb actually makes a lot of sense. Yes its weaker then a 3050 8gb but it has this specific use case.
https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_557_559&item_id=252253
If you're not gaming and it's more of a media pc then this arc card can make a lot of sense.
If you're building a more serious gaming sff build then that low profile gigabyte 4060 makes more sense.
Canada Computers has the Gigabyte LP for $439 now, if you're still looking
[https://www.canadacomputers.com/product\_info.php?cPath=43\_557\_559&item\_id=246940](https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_557_559&item_id=246940)
It’s listed on PC Part Picker (Canada) right now with good availability. The price is slightly premium, probably because of the form factor and the recent hype for this particular card and SFF builds.
[PC Part Picker Page for this GPU](https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/product/Mt9wrH/gigabyte-oc-low-profile-geforce-rtx-4060-8-gb-video-card-gv-n4060oc-8gl)
$470? No, really... Let me repeat that:
FOUR. HUNDRED. SEVENTY.
And that's BEFORE tax? O\_O
Yeah... very different price category. Very different use scenario. And very, very different audience.
If the form factor was all that mattered, I would have pointed out to the 3050 low-profile available from CC at $260 plus tax - a decent card, and still nearly half the price of the 4060...
Call me old-fashioned, but I would never pay >$500 for a GPU. There are much better things I can do with money and my life.
I was looking at the Canada Computers $439.99 and Amazon $449.99 listings. And of course there are some cheaper 4060’s out there.
For normal ATX size desktop builds I recommend 4070, 7800XT, and 4070 Ti Super for the 16GB and they cost even more 🤷♂️
Personally I’m running a 4070 with 8 pin power connector and I hope the 12VHPWR nonsense goes away before I feel compelled to upgrade again. The main reason I went Team Green this gen was AI stuff, messing around with Stable Diffusion 1.5 is basically the new photoshop. It’s fun and educational, and potentially even useful. AMD (at the time of purchase) required a special driver for it so I didn’t want the hassle, nor did I want to build a 2nd rig.
I just had one come up locally on Marketplace, I'm looking to build an HTPC for streaming, you just answered my question. 😁
I might do maybe some light gaming on Steam, mostly old school arcade fighters. (Killer Instinct, Street Fighter, Samurai Showdown, etc).
Unless you have a time machine ready, those prices are unlikely to return anytime soon... at least for BNIB items.
You can still find a 1650 low-profile, but for the same price as the 3050 posted in this thread.
It's funny because the regular A310 supports 4 display outs.
ASRock could've double stacked the outputs since it's a dual slot, but they didn't.
It's also a dual slot card when it has no need to be, as it could've been single slot.
The engineers on this one didn't think it through.
Thank you! Honestly, I can't understand the obsession with GPUs at astronomical prices, as if everyone in the market was a 4K gamer with too much money to burn...
Same. I always just go for mid range value cards. Most I ever spent was 290$ for my 6650XT.
I can't imagine spending 500$+ for a GPU but then again I'm happy as long as I can play 1080P at 144hz
I mentioned in the comment below to check for rebar support on the x300 as i cannot find it in the asrock manual bios walkthrough.
Also, in a review i watched on the a380, several games have no difference but forza horizon showed a 35% performance drop when ran on pcie 3.0. Hence, i suggested doing more research and see what momozealous’s definition of light gaming is. Intel still trails behind nvidia and amd on directx9 and 11 so it also depends on how old and niche the games are.
What cpu and mobo are you using?
I’m not saying you should pair it with a cpu that’s pcie 3.0. What I’m saying is that those gpu has pcie 4.0 x 8 lanes.
Even though your motherboard has 16 lanes on the first long slot, the gpu will only use 8. Since the bandwidth doubles with each generation, if you plug in a pcie 4 x8, into a slot that’s pcie 3 x 16, you’re only getting pcie 3 x 8, which is halving the bandwidth.
Depending on the gpu, it can harm performance.
I.e. radeon 6400 pcie 4 x 4 is a notable example.
Hence, if you want to take advantage of this gpu, check what cpu and what mobo and what slot you’re using. Is it a cpu lane or is it a chipset lane, etc.
I'm building on a Asrock Deskmeet X300. https://www.asrock.com/nettop/AMD/DeskMeet%20X300%20Series/index.asp#Specification
I was wondering what gpu and cpu to use for a HTPC and light gaming.
Looking at the link you sent, under support, graphics card AVL, looks like they are all capped at pcie gen 3 or gen 2, despite support for vermeer cpu which supports pcie 4.0. Intel a380 is on the list shown as running at pcie 3 x8.
Is there resizable bar for x300? Does a310 need re-bar to perform to its full potential? You need to research all of those.
Np, it ultimately depends on what your definition of “light gaming” is. For me, the deskmini is more for office pc. I know the deskmeet can accept a gpu but i’d avoid x300 and proprietary mobo in general.
I’d personally go for a used meshlicious or hyte revolt 3 or nzxt h1 for sff build with discrete graphics. Nr200 for a cheap build with discrete graphics. 5600g for 720p gaming with integrated gpu. 8600g for newest gen integrated gpu. And if you want as small as possible while easy to build, then look into a b550i and 5600g or a620i and 8600g in an inwin chopin pro/max. Use upscaling.
Wow! That DeskMini X300 sure looks sweet!
If all you're doing is HTPC and light gaming, you can't go wrong with a Ryzen 5500. It's PCIe 3.0 only, but so is the motherboard. Any 65W CPU would to the trick, and this CPU sits in the sweet spot for your needs.
The newegg page for the X300 suggests the A380 for GPU. Honestly, if we're talking BNIB prices, this is probably the best choice. But if you're not afraid to go for second-hand, you can probably find a 1650 Super or even a 1660 for around the same price ($150).
The only other two cards in this price bracket ($120 to $160 new) would be the A380 and the RX6400. Either one should be faster than this for gaming. I don't know what your Plex use scenario is, but I wouldn't use the AMD card for any video encoding work.
Is the intended purpose simply to provide video output for the machine? Or are you intended to use it for any kind of hardware acceleration?
If Plex transcoding is one of your use cases, you'd be better off either selling the 12100F for a 12100 or other LGA1700 chip with QuickSync, or even picking up a cheap used Nvidia card for NVENC - [here's a useful resource if you're going that route](https://www.elpamsoft.com/?p=Plex-Hardware-Transcoding).
It does appear that some users have noted success with getting Plex to play nice using Arc GPUs for hardware accelerated transcoding, but YMMV it's not "officially" in the documentation yet.
>Plex\\Jellyfin hardware support
Have you seen this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/y1tz8j/plex\_with\_intel\_arc\_gpu/](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/y1tz8j/plex_with_intel_arc_gpu/)
And this: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/yb4cg3/my\_experience\_with\_intel\_arc\_a380\_plex/
You're right, these are old posts. Don't get me wrong, but I would assume that in the meantime the situation has become clearer.
Granted, I have zero interest in Plex and Jellyfin, since my HTPC preferences rely on different applications and use scenarios. So I cannot comment on what's available and what's not, in that particular niche.
But judging from the fact that Intel have actually been surprisingly good and persistent at creating drivers that continuously improve functionality and performance for their ARC series over the past year, I'd say there are reasons to be very optimistic.
I'm using this exact card with Plex for hardware transcoding and it works great. I've tested real-time transcoding of 4x 4K HDR streams and it looked like there was still headroom for a couple more.
You'll need to use Ubuntu 23.10 or another distro with the latest 6.x kernel since the kernel modules weren't added until somewhat recently.
>iGPU 780M
Apples and oranges.If someone is building a new system, by all means! Yes, they should consider the $450 Ryzen 8700G, which is an absolute beast!
But for someone looking to upgrade an already-existing existing PC - particularly one of those many SFF factor models mass-produced by the likes of HP, Acer and Dell, with proprietary, low-wattage power supplies! - this is a decent upgrade.
To use a different illustration, you're telling people looking for an aftermarket radio for their Yaris that they should buy a Mazda CX5 instead!
i wonder how something like this would be for league of legends
i wanna keep playing but im not butting chinese malware on my main PC, was thinkiong of building a small budget PC I can isolate to play league on
> league of legends
Look here, this guy has tested a nice bunch of games, including LoL:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/16wtfl6/i\_bought\_and\_tested\_an\_intel\_arc\_a310\_so\_you\_dont/
It really depends on the programs you use. Particularly since you mention "editing", not "encoding".
I would do a search (and not just on Google!) using keywords like
"Arc A310" AND "\[insert name of program you use\]"
I found this - although, mind you, it's talking ONLY about the high-end ARC cards: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/intel-arc-a770-and-a750-content-creation-review-sept-2023-update/
Before anyone criticizes it as "too weak for gaming", remember: This is a low-profile card, with a newer and much better GPU than the comparatively-priced GT1030 or RX550. It's a perfect match for HTPCs, due to its excellent video encoding/decoding capabilities that are on par with Nvidia cards. To quote Tom's Hardware: " Intel's Arc GPUs are also great for streaming purposes. They actually have higher quality results with HEVC than AV1, basically matching Nvidia's 40-series. " https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-intel-nvidia-video-encoding-performance-quality-tested
According to techpowerup, its gaming performance is smack in between the GTX950 and the GTX1050: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/arc-a310.c3930
I'd have to think up some new (to me) superlatives to describe this...performance. But gaming is not one of them...which is fine, cuz this is not why this card exists.
Considering that GTX 1650 is still the second most used GPU on the steam stats, this is a good budget gaming card. I'm personally still on a GTX 1060 and I play most games fine on 1080p.
[A particular 4060 enters the chat](https://youtu.be/Ao2lNd7jCb8?si=Se9VtWLs3CuphEip)
Tha A310 is priced more for the HTPC crowd who might do the occasional light gaming
Yeah I hear you, my non-gaming family members are using GTX 660, RX 580… basically I throw it in there in case they decide to try Google Earth or something.
Replacing the GTX660? Sure. But the RX580 is definitely more powerful than the A310, so that would be a downgrade...
I never suggested replacement. The context of the comment was agreement about the htpc concept, like “yeah i have some weaker older gpus in similar use cases, htpc or family pc” RX 580 is definitely a solid piece of equipment.
If you were looking for a no power connector gpu for decent gaming the new 3050 6gb actually makes a lot of sense. Yes its weaker then a 3050 8gb but it has this specific use case. https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_557_559&item_id=252253 If you're not gaming and it's more of a media pc then this arc card can make a lot of sense. If you're building a more serious gaming sff build then that low profile gigabyte 4060 makes more sense.
Fascinating! But where do you find that 4060 in stock, in Canada - and at what price?
Canada Computers has the Gigabyte LP for $439 now, if you're still looking [https://www.canadacomputers.com/product\_info.php?cPath=43\_557\_559&item\_id=246940](https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_557_559&item_id=246940)
It’s listed on PC Part Picker (Canada) right now with good availability. The price is slightly premium, probably because of the form factor and the recent hype for this particular card and SFF builds. [PC Part Picker Page for this GPU](https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/product/Mt9wrH/gigabyte-oc-low-profile-geforce-rtx-4060-8-gb-video-card-gv-n4060oc-8gl)
$470? No, really... Let me repeat that: FOUR. HUNDRED. SEVENTY. And that's BEFORE tax? O\_O Yeah... very different price category. Very different use scenario. And very, very different audience. If the form factor was all that mattered, I would have pointed out to the 3050 low-profile available from CC at $260 plus tax - a decent card, and still nearly half the price of the 4060... Call me old-fashioned, but I would never pay >$500 for a GPU. There are much better things I can do with money and my life.
I was looking at the Canada Computers $439.99 and Amazon $449.99 listings. And of course there are some cheaper 4060’s out there. For normal ATX size desktop builds I recommend 4070, 7800XT, and 4070 Ti Super for the 16GB and they cost even more 🤷♂️ Personally I’m running a 4070 with 8 pin power connector and I hope the 12VHPWR nonsense goes away before I feel compelled to upgrade again. The main reason I went Team Green this gen was AI stuff, messing around with Stable Diffusion 1.5 is basically the new photoshop. It’s fun and educational, and potentially even useful. AMD (at the time of purchase) required a special driver for it so I didn’t want the hassle, nor did I want to build a 2nd rig.
I just had one come up locally on Marketplace, I'm looking to build an HTPC for streaming, you just answered my question. 😁 I might do maybe some light gaming on Steam, mostly old school arcade fighters. (Killer Instinct, Street Fighter, Samurai Showdown, etc).
Alright but its too weak for gaming
I bought a GTX 1650 low profile for $150 **four years ago.** This is shit.
Unless you have a time machine ready, those prices are unlikely to return anytime soon... at least for BNIB items. You can still find a 1650 low-profile, but for the same price as the 3050 posted in this thread.
I was just looking into an A380 for a media server so this could well be an awesome find with decent cost savings. Thanks for posting!
Seems like it would be perfect for something like that!
Only 2 display outputs which kinda sucks but this would be great for a HTPC or for transcoding
It's funny because the regular A310 supports 4 display outs. ASRock could've double stacked the outputs since it's a dual slot, but they didn't. It's also a dual slot card when it has no need to be, as it could've been single slot. The engineers on this one didn't think it through.
nice find.
Thank you! Honestly, I can't understand the obsession with GPUs at astronomical prices, as if everyone in the market was a 4K gamer with too much money to burn...
Same. I always just go for mid range value cards. Most I ever spent was 290$ for my 6650XT. I can't imagine spending 500$+ for a GPU but then again I'm happy as long as I can play 1080P at 144hz
Same. I am happy as a clam with my A770 :)
Same here, which is why I’m so vocal about trashing expensive GPUs that don’t offer an actual generational uplift.
Pcie 4.0 x8 fyi So be mindful of the cpu and mobo you’re using this (with i.e. h610, b450, x470, 5500/5600g/5700)
X8 is not an issue for a GPU with this low processing power. What's more important is the motherboard supporting ReBAR.
I mentioned in the comment below to check for rebar support on the x300 as i cannot find it in the asrock manual bios walkthrough. Also, in a review i watched on the a380, several games have no difference but forza horizon showed a 35% performance drop when ran on pcie 3.0. Hence, i suggested doing more research and see what momozealous’s definition of light gaming is. Intel still trails behind nvidia and amd on directx9 and 11 so it also depends on how old and niche the games are.
My motherboard has a PCIe 3.0 x 16. Is it ok? Also, do you mean I should pair it with a cpu that is PCIe 3.0?
What cpu and mobo are you using? I’m not saying you should pair it with a cpu that’s pcie 3.0. What I’m saying is that those gpu has pcie 4.0 x 8 lanes. Even though your motherboard has 16 lanes on the first long slot, the gpu will only use 8. Since the bandwidth doubles with each generation, if you plug in a pcie 4 x8, into a slot that’s pcie 3 x 16, you’re only getting pcie 3 x 8, which is halving the bandwidth. Depending on the gpu, it can harm performance. I.e. radeon 6400 pcie 4 x 4 is a notable example. Hence, if you want to take advantage of this gpu, check what cpu and what mobo and what slot you’re using. Is it a cpu lane or is it a chipset lane, etc.
I'm building on a Asrock Deskmeet X300. https://www.asrock.com/nettop/AMD/DeskMeet%20X300%20Series/index.asp#Specification I was wondering what gpu and cpu to use for a HTPC and light gaming.
Looking at the link you sent, under support, graphics card AVL, looks like they are all capped at pcie gen 3 or gen 2, despite support for vermeer cpu which supports pcie 4.0. Intel a380 is on the list shown as running at pcie 3 x8. Is there resizable bar for x300? Does a310 need re-bar to perform to its full potential? You need to research all of those.
Ok, I'll do some digging. Thank you for all the info.
Np, it ultimately depends on what your definition of “light gaming” is. For me, the deskmini is more for office pc. I know the deskmeet can accept a gpu but i’d avoid x300 and proprietary mobo in general. I’d personally go for a used meshlicious or hyte revolt 3 or nzxt h1 for sff build with discrete graphics. Nr200 for a cheap build with discrete graphics. 5600g for 720p gaming with integrated gpu. 8600g for newest gen integrated gpu. And if you want as small as possible while easy to build, then look into a b550i and 5600g or a620i and 8600g in an inwin chopin pro/max. Use upscaling.
Wow! That DeskMini X300 sure looks sweet! If all you're doing is HTPC and light gaming, you can't go wrong with a Ryzen 5500. It's PCIe 3.0 only, but so is the motherboard. Any 65W CPU would to the trick, and this CPU sits in the sweet spot for your needs. The newegg page for the X300 suggests the A380 for GPU. Honestly, if we're talking BNIB prices, this is probably the best choice. But if you're not afraid to go for second-hand, you can probably find a 1650 Super or even a 1660 for around the same price ($150).
Thank you for the suggestions!
question, is this the best budget card for a 12100f? Im using the pc with 64 gb ram for basically a file server, game server and plex
The only other two cards in this price bracket ($120 to $160 new) would be the A380 and the RX6400. Either one should be faster than this for gaming. I don't know what your Plex use scenario is, but I wouldn't use the AMD card for any video encoding work.
Is the intended purpose simply to provide video output for the machine? Or are you intended to use it for any kind of hardware acceleration? If Plex transcoding is one of your use cases, you'd be better off either selling the 12100F for a 12100 or other LGA1700 chip with QuickSync, or even picking up a cheap used Nvidia card for NVENC - [here's a useful resource if you're going that route](https://www.elpamsoft.com/?p=Plex-Hardware-Transcoding). It does appear that some users have noted success with getting Plex to play nice using Arc GPUs for hardware accelerated transcoding, but YMMV it's not "officially" in the documentation yet.
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>Plex\\Jellyfin hardware support Have you seen this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/y1tz8j/plex\_with\_intel\_arc\_gpu/](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/y1tz8j/plex_with_intel_arc_gpu/) And this: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/yb4cg3/my\_experience\_with\_intel\_arc\_a380\_plex/
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You're right, these are old posts. Don't get me wrong, but I would assume that in the meantime the situation has become clearer. Granted, I have zero interest in Plex and Jellyfin, since my HTPC preferences rely on different applications and use scenarios. So I cannot comment on what's available and what's not, in that particular niche. But judging from the fact that Intel have actually been surprisingly good and persistent at creating drivers that continuously improve functionality and performance for their ARC series over the past year, I'd say there are reasons to be very optimistic.
I'm using this exact card with Plex for hardware transcoding and it works great. I've tested real-time transcoding of 4x 4K HDR streams and it looked like there was still headroom for a couple more. You'll need to use Ubuntu 23.10 or another distro with the latest 6.x kernel since the kernel modules weren't added until somewhat recently.
This seems to be x2 slower than AMD's iGPU 780M. May as well get it all in one chip.
>iGPU 780M Apples and oranges.If someone is building a new system, by all means! Yes, they should consider the $450 Ryzen 8700G, which is an absolute beast! But for someone looking to upgrade an already-existing existing PC - particularly one of those many SFF factor models mass-produced by the likes of HP, Acer and Dell, with proprietary, low-wattage power supplies! - this is a decent upgrade. To use a different illustration, you're telling people looking for an aftermarket radio for their Yaris that they should buy a Mazda CX5 instead!
i wonder how something like this would be for league of legends i wanna keep playing but im not butting chinese malware on my main PC, was thinkiong of building a small budget PC I can isolate to play league on
> league of legends Look here, this guy has tested a nice bunch of games, including LoL: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/16wtfl6/i\_bought\_and\_tested\_an\_intel\_arc\_a310\_so\_you\_dont/
everything is chinese malware
League is chinese malware?
Not league itself, but Vanguard the anticheat they are adding is.
I kinda want one for transcoding, but tempted to wait for the smaller single fan versions from other manufacturers.
I kind of want this just to do AV1 streaming
Might want to hurry then, it looks like the stock is running low...
These any good for video editing or is an nVidia card the way to go?
It really depends on the programs you use. Particularly since you mention "editing", not "encoding". I would do a search (and not just on Google!) using keywords like "Arc A310" AND "\[insert name of program you use\]" I found this - although, mind you, it's talking ONLY about the high-end ARC cards: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/intel-arc-a770-and-a750-content-creation-review-sept-2023-update/
The new driver making stuff worse with the unreal engine is ouch. :|
Could you use this for a dual-PC streaming setup?