Intel Arc A730M Tested in Games, Gaming Performance Differs from Synthetic

Intel Arc A730M “Alchemist” discrete GPU made headlines yesterday, when a notebook featuring it achieved a 3DMark TimeSpy score of 10,138 points, which would put its performance in the same league as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. The same source has taken the time to play some games, and come up with performance numbers that would put the A730M in a category lower than the RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.

The set of games tested is rather small—F1 2020, Metro Exodus, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, but the three are fairly “mature” games (have been around for a while). The A730M is able to score 70 FPS at 1080p, and 55 FPS at 1440p in Metro Exodus. With F1 2020, we’re shown 123 FPS (average) at 1080p, and 95 FPS avg at 1440p. In Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the A730M yields 38 FPS at 1080p, and 32 FPS at 1440p. These numbers roughly translate to the A730M being slightly faster than the desktop GeForce RTX 3050, and slower than the desktop RTX 3060, or in the league of the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU. Intel is already handing out stable versions of Arc Alchemist graphics drivers, and the three are fairly old games, so this might not be a case of bad optimization.