AMD Steam Machine GPU vs Intel Arc A380E x2 Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The recorded data does not include any completed benchmark runs for either the AMD Steam Machine GPU or the Intel Arc A380E x2, so the win counts stand at zero for both. The head-to-head benchmark table is empty. This means a direct, measured comparison of frame rates, ray tracing performance, or compute workloads cannot be drawn from the database at this time.

What the data does offer is a clear split in intended use cases based on physical design, output capabilities, and thermal constraints. The AMD Steam Machine GPU is a compact card: its dimensions are 156 mm in length, 152 mm in height, and 162 mm in width. It draws power solely from the motherboard slot, requiring no auxiliary power connectors. It provides one HDMI 2.1a output and one DisplayPort 2.1 output. This configuration points toward a small-form-factor console-style system, likely a fixed internal design where multiple display outputs and external power cabling are unnecessary.

The Intel Arc A380E x2 is a different physical beast. It is a single-slot card measuring 265 mm in length, 127 mm in height, and only 20 mm in width. It requires a single 6-pin power connector and lists a suggested power supply of 300 W. Its display output array consists of eight mini-DisplayPort 2.0 connectors. That many outputs strongly suggests a multi-display professional or surveillance-style installation, where driving numerous monitors from one card is the primary objective. The dual-GPU nature of the "x2" designation further reinforces that this is a specialized product for dense compute or display walls, not a typical gamer's single-card setup.

Therefore, the use-case split is not about who wins in gaming benchmarks, because no such numbers exist. Instead, the AMD card wins on compactness, low power draw from a single slot, and modern consumer display standards. The Intel card wins on sheer output quantity, with eight display pipes, and on its end-of-life status, meaning it occupies a legacy or niche deployment role.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs share a foundry and a process node. Both are built by TSMC on a 6 nm process. Beyond that, the architectures diverge completely.

The AMD Steam Machine GPU uses the Navi 33 chip, built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the codename "Hotpink Bonefish". It belongs to the Console GPU (Valve) generation. The chip integrates 13,300 million transistors on a die size of 204 mm², yielding a transistor density of 65.2 million transistors per square millimeter. The Intel Arc A380E x2 uses the DG2-128 chip, built on the Xe-HPG architecture, from the Alchemist (Arc 3) generation. That chip contains 7,200 million transistors on a 157 mm² die, for a density of 45.9 million transistors per square millimeter. The AMD chip is larger and denser, packing nearly twice the transistor count into a moderately larger area.

Clock behavior differs as well. The AMD GPU has a base clock of 1720 MHz, a boost clock of 2450 MHz, and a game clock of 2250 MHz. The Intel GPU runs at a flat 2000 MHz for both base and boost, with no separate game clock listed. The AMD memory clock is 2250 MHz with 18 Gbps effective data rate, while the Intel memory clock is 1937 MHz with 15.5 Gbps effective. These clock differences feed into the memory bandwidth gap: the AMD card delivers 288.0 GB/s over a 128-bit bus, whereas the Intel card delivers 186.0 GB/s over a 96-bit bus.

Compute resources also differ sharply. The AMD GPU has 1792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, 64 render output units, and 28 ray tracing cores. The Intel GPU has 1024 shading units, 64 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and 8 ray tracing cores. The AMD card has no tensor cores listed, and neither does the Intel card. Pixel rates reflect the ROP counts: AMD achieves 156.8 GPixel/s, Intel achieves 64.00 GPixel/s. Texture rates are 274.4 GTexel/s for AMD versus 128.0 GTexel/s for Intel. Floating point performance shows a clear split: AMD delivers 17.56 TFLOPS for both FP32 and FP16 at a 1:1 ratio, while Intel delivers 4.096 TFLOPS FP32 and 8.192 TFLOPS FP16 at a 2:1 ratio. The AMD card has a significant raw compute advantage, especially in FP32.

Power consumption flips the expected direction. The AMD GPU is rated at 110 W TDP, while the Intel GPU is rated at 130 W TDP. The Intel card consumes more power despite delivering far lower compute throughput, largely due to its dual-GPU configuration and higher base clock. The AMD card uses no external power connectors; the Intel card requires one 6-pin connector.

API support is identical for both: DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The bus interface differs, with the Intel card using PCIe 4.0 x8, while the AMD card's bus interface is not listed.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher FP32 compute throughput?

A: The AMD Steam Machine GPU delivers 17.56 TFLOPS in FP32, compared to 4.096 TFLOPS for the Intel Arc A380E x2. The AMD card offers more than four times the single-precision compute capacity.

Q: How do the memory subsystems compare?

A: The AMD card uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, yielding 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The Intel card uses 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 96-bit bus, yielding 186.0 GB/s. The AMD card has both more capacity and higher bandwidth.

Q: Do both cards support the same graphics APIs?

A: Yes. Both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. There is no API advantage for either card in the recorded data.

Q: What is the physical size difference?

A: The AMD card is 156 mm long, 152 mm high, and 162 mm wide. The Intel card is 265 mm long, 127 mm high, and 20 mm wide. The AMD card is much shorter but significantly wider, while the Intel card is longer but very thin at 20 mm.

Q: Which card has more display outputs?

A: The Intel Arc A380E x2 has eight mini-DisplayPort 2.0 outputs. The AMD Steam Machine GPU has one HDMI 2.1a output and one DisplayPort 2.1 output. The Intel card provides four times as many output connectors.

Q: What are the power requirements?

A: The AMD card has a TDP of 110 W and requires no power connectors. The Intel card has a TDP of 130 W and requires a single 6-pin power connector, with a suggested power supply of 300 W.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every measurable specification except process node, foundry, and API list.

| Specification | AMD Steam Machine GPU | Intel Arc A380E x2 |

|---------------|----------------------|--------------------|

| Chip | Navi 33 | DG2-128 |

| Architecture | RDNA 3.0 | Xe-HPG |

| Generation | Console GPU (Valve) | Alchemist (Arc 3) |

| Transistors | 13,300 million | 7,200 million |

| Die Size | 204 mm² | 157 mm² |

| Transistor Density | 65.2M / mm² | 45.9M / mm² |

| Base Clock | 1720 MHz | 2000 MHz |

| Boost Clock | 2450 MHz | 2000 MHz |

| Game Clock | 2250 MHz | None |

| Memory Clock | 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective) | 1937 MHz (15.5 Gbps effective) |

| Memory Size | 8 GB | 6 GB |

| Memory Type | GDDR6 | GDDR6 |

| Bus Width | 128 bit | 96 bit |

| Bandwidth | 288.0 GB/s | 186.0 GB/s |

| Shading Units | 1792 | 1024 |

| TMUs | 112 | 64 |

| ROPs | 64 | 32 |

| RT Cores | 28 | 8 |

| Pixel Rate | 156.8 GPixel/s | 64.00 GPixel/s |

| Texture Rate | 274.4 GTexel/s | 128.0 GTexel/s |

| FP32 | 17.56 TFLOPS | 4.096 TFLOPS |

| FP16 | 17.56 TFLOPS (1:1) | 8.192 TFLOPS (2:1) |

| TDP | 110 W | 130 W |

| Slot Width | Not listed | Single-slot |

| Power Connectors | None | 1x 6-pin |

| Suggested PSU | Not listed | 300 W |

| Bus Interface | Not listed | PCIe 4.0 x8 |

| Display Outputs | 1x HDMI 2.1a, 1x DisplayPort 2.1 | 8x mini-DisplayPort 2.0 |

| Production Status | Active | End-of-life |

| Release Date | 2026-06-28 | 2024-03-31 |

| Predecessor | None | Xe Graphics |

| Successor | None | Battlemage |

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains no head-to-head benchmark entries for these two GPUs. The wins counter shows zero for both sides, and the benchmark array is empty. Consequently, there are no measured frame rates, no synthetic scores, and no performance deltas to report.

What can be analyzed instead are the theoretical throughput numbers recorded in the specifications. In FP32 compute, the AMD card holds a 17.56 TFLOPS to 4.096 TFLOPS advantage, which is a 4.29x difference. That gap is substantial enough to suggest a dominant lead in general compute workloads, physics simulations, and any task relying on single-precision shader math. The AMD card's FP16 output is also higher at 17.56 TFLOPS versus 8.192 TFLOPS, though the Intel card achieves its FP16 number via a 2:1 ratio, meaning it packs two FP16 operations per FP32 lane per cycle.

Memory bandwidth is another clear differentiator. The AMD card's 288.0 GB/s is 54.8% higher than the Intel card's 186.0 GB/s. This feeds directly into texture and pixel throughput: AMD's 274.4 GTexel/s is 2.14x the Intel card's 128.0 GTexel/s, and AMD's 156.8 GPixel/s is 2.45x the Intel card's 64.00 GPixel/s. These ratios indicate the AMD card should handle higher resolutions and more demanding texture-heavy scenes with significantly greater headroom, assuming game engines scale with these theoretical limits.

Ray tracing resources also favor the AMD card heavily. The AMD GPU has 28 RT cores versus 8 on the Intel GPU, a 3.5x difference. In ray-traced workloads, that resource gap would likely translate into a measurable performance lead, though no actual benchmark confirms this.

The Intel card does hold one advantage in the recorded data: its base clock is 2000 MHz versus 1720 MHz for the AMD card. That higher base clock does not compensate for the much smaller shader array and lower bandwidth, but it does indicate the Intel architecture runs at a higher sustained frequency. The Intel card also has a higher TDP at 130 W versus 110 W, so it consumes more power while delivering lower theoretical performance, which suggests lower efficiency per watt.

The Verdict

The data points to the AMD Steam Machine GPU as the stronger performer on every computable metric. It has more transistors, a larger die, higher FP32 and FP16 throughput, more shading units, more TMUs, more ROPs, more RT cores, more memory capacity, higher memory bandwidth, faster pixel and texture rates, and a lower TDP. Its production status is active, while the Intel Arc A380E x2 is end-of-life. The AMD card also has a later release date of 2026-06-28 compared to the Intel card's 2024-03-31.

The Intel Arc A380E x2 wins only on physical form factor dimensions and display output count. It is a single-slot card at 20 mm thickness, while the AMD card's width is 162 mm, which is likely a multi-slot cooler design. The Intel card provides eight mini-DisplayPort 2.0 outputs versus two for the AMD card. For a system requiring many simultaneous display connections from one card, the Intel product is the only option among these two.

The recorded data does not include any benchmarks, so the verdict rests on specification comparison. The AMD Steam Machine GPU is the clear choice for raw graphics compute, gaming, and ray tracing workloads. The Intel Arc A380E x2 is the specialist choice for multi-display professional installations, where its eight outputs and single-slot profile serve a specific niche. Given that the Intel card is end-of-life and the AMD card is active, any new deployment should favor the AMD product unless the display count is the deciding factor.