Intel Arc A380E vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 AD103 Comparison

FAQ

Q: What are the core architectural differences between the Intel Arc A380E and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 AD103?

A: The Arc A380E uses Intel’s Xe-HPG architecture on a 6 nm TSMC process with 7,200 million transistors on a 157 mm² die. The RTX 4070 AD103 uses NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace architecture on a 5 nm TSMC process with 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die. The Intel chip has 1,024 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, while the NVIDIA chip has 5,888 shading units, 184 TMUs, and 64 ROPs.

Q: How do the memory subsystems compare?

A: The Arc A380E has 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 96-bit bus delivering 186.0 GB/s bandwidth at 15.5 Gbps effective. The RTX 4070 AD103 has 12 GB of GDDR6X on a 192-bit bus delivering 504.2 GB/s bandwidth at 21 Gbps effective. The NVIDIA card offers double the memory capacity and roughly 2.7 times the bandwidth.

Q: What are the compute throughput differences?

A: The Arc A380E delivers 4.096 TFLOPS FP32 and 8.192 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1 ratio). The RTX 4070 AD103 delivers 29.15 TFLOPS FP32 and 29.15 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1 ratio). The NVIDIA card is approximately 7.1 times faster in FP32 and about 3.6 times faster in FP16.

Q: Which card has higher clock speeds?

A: The Arc A380E runs at a fixed 2000 MHz for both base and boost. The RTX 4070 AD103 has a 1920 MHz base clock and a 2475 MHz boost clock, giving it a 475 MHz higher boost frequency.

Q: What are the power and physical requirements?

A: The Arc A380E has a 75 W TDP, requires no power connectors, and needs a 250 W suggested PSU. It is a single-slot card measuring 254 mm long, 127 mm high, and 20 mm wide. The RTX 4070 AD103 has a 200 W TDP, requires one 16-pin connector, and needs a 550 W suggested PSU. It is a dual-slot card measuring 240 mm long, 110 mm high, and 40 mm wide.

Q: What display outputs and API support do they offer?

A: The Arc A380E provides 4x DisplayPort 2.0 outputs. The RTX 4070 AD103 provides 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. Both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

Architecture Differences

The Intel Arc A380E and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 AD103 represent fundamentally different design philosophies. The Arc A380E is built on Intel’s Xe-HPG architecture, part of the Alchemist generation (Arc 3). It uses a 6 nm process at TSMC, with 7,200 million transistors packed into a 157 mm² die. This yields a transistor density of 45.9 million per square millimeter. The chip, designated DG2-128, is a compact entry-level design with modest resources.

The RTX 4070 AD103 is built on NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace architecture, part of the GeForce 40-series. It uses a 5 nm process at TSMC, with 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die. This yields a transistor density of 121.1 million per square millimeter, more than 2.6 times denser than the Intel chip. The AD103 chip is significantly larger and more complex, targeting higher performance tiers.

Ray tracing capabilities differ substantially. The Arc A380E has 8 dedicated ray tracing cores, while the RTX 4070 AD103 has 46. The NVIDIA card also includes 184 tensor cores, whereas the Arc A380E has no tensor core specification. This indicates NVIDIA’s focus on AI-accelerated workloads and DLSS-style features, while Intel’s design is more basic in this regard.

The memory architecture also diverges. The Arc A380E uses 6 GB of GDDR6 with a 96-bit bus, while the RTX 4070 AD103 uses 12 GB of GDDR6X with a 192-bit bus. The GDDR6X memory type on the NVIDIA card operates at a higher effective speed of 21 Gbps versus 15.5 Gbps on the Intel card. This contributes to the NVIDIA card’s 504.2 GB/s bandwidth versus 186.0 GB/s on the Intel card.

Clock behavior differs as well. The Arc A380E has a fixed 2000 MHz for both base and boost clocks, indicating a power-constrained design that does not dynamically scale. The RTX 4070 AD103 has a 1920 MHz base clock that boosts to 2475 MHz, allowing it to scale performance under load.

The physical designs reflect their thermal and power targets. The Arc A380E is a single-slot card with no power connectors and a 75 W TDP, ideal for compact systems. The RTX 4070 AD103 is a dual-slot card with a 16-pin connector and a 200 W TDP, requiring more substantial cooling and power delivery.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data shows no direct head-to-head benchmark scores for these two GPUs, and both have an average benchmark score of zero in the database. However, the specification differences provide clear performance indicators.

The RTX 4070 AD103 dominates in raw compute throughput. It delivers 29.15 TFLOPS FP32 versus 4.096 TFLOPS on the Arc A380E, a 7.1 times advantage. For FP16, the NVIDIA card delivers 29.15 TFLOPS versus 8.192 TFLOPS, a 3.6 times advantage. This gap is consistent with the shading unit count: 5,888 versus 1,024, a 5.75 times difference.

Texture and pixel processing show similar disparities. The RTX 4070 AD103 achieves 455.4 GTexel/s versus 128.0 GTexel/s on the Intel card, a 3.6 times advantage. Pixel rate is 158.4 GPixel/s versus 64.00 GPixel/s, a 2.5 times advantage. These figures indicate the NVIDIA card processes geometry and rasterization tasks substantially faster.

Memory bandwidth is another major differentiator. The RTX 4070 AD103’s 504.2 GB/s is 2.7 times the Arc A380E’s 186.0 GB/s. Combined with 12 GB versus 6 GB capacity, the NVIDIA card can handle larger textures and higher resolutions without memory bottlenecks.

The RTX 4070 AD103 also has a higher boost clock at 2475 MHz versus 2000 MHz on the Arc A380E. While the Intel card has a higher base clock (2000 MHz versus 1920 MHz), the NVIDIA card’s boost behavior gives it a 475 MHz advantage under load.

In ray tracing, the NVIDIA card has 46 RT cores versus 8 on the Intel card. This 5.75 times difference in dedicated hardware suggests significantly faster ray-traced performance, though no benchmark scores are available to quantify the real-world impact.

The RTX 4070 AD103’s 184 tensor cores provide additional compute capability for AI workloads, while the Arc A380E has none. This gives the NVIDIA card an advantage in applications that leverage tensor operations, such as DLSS or AI-based rendering techniques.

Power efficiency is the one area where the Arc A380E shows relative strength. Its 75 W TDP is 2.7 times lower than the RTX 4070 AD103’s 200 W TDP. However, the performance per watt favors the NVIDIA card when considering the magnitude of its compute advantage.

The Verdict

The data clearly indicates that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 AD103 is the stronger performer in nearly every measurable specification. Its FP32 throughput is 7.1 times higher, its texture rate is 3.6 times higher, and its pixel rate is 2.5 times higher. Memory bandwidth is 2.7 times greater, and memory capacity is double. Ray tracing hardware is 5.75 times more abundant, and tensor cores are present only on the NVIDIA card.

The Intel Arc A380E is designed for different priorities. Its 75 W TDP requires no external power connectors and only a 250 W suggested PSU, while the RTX 4070 AD103 needs a 16-pin connector and a 550 W suggested PSU. The Arc A380E is also single-slot, making it suitable for space-constrained systems, though it is slightly longer at 254 mm versus 240 mm for the NVIDIA card.

The Arc A380E offers 4x DisplayPort 2.0 outputs, which is a more modern display interface than the RTX 4070 AD103’s combination of 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. This gives the Intel card an advantage for multi-display setups using the latest DisplayPort standard.

Both cards are end-of-life products. The Arc A380E was released on 2024-03-31 and has the Xe Graphics as its predecessor and Battlemage as its successor. The RTX 4070 AD103 was released on 2024-02-29, with GeForce 30 as its predecessor and GeForce 50 as its successor. The RTX 4070 AD103 has a launch MSRP of 599 USD.

Users seeking maximum performance for gaming, rendering, or compute workloads should select the RTX 4070 AD103 based on its overwhelming specification advantages. Users prioritizing low power consumption, compact single-slot designs, or modern DisplayPort 2.0 outputs may consider the Arc A380E, provided their performance requirements are modest.

Specification Differences

The following fields differ between the Intel Arc A380E and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 AD103:

• Chip: DG2-128 versus AD103
• Architecture: Xe-HPG versus Ada Lovelace
• Generation: Alchemist (Arc 3) versus GeForce 40
• Process Node: 6 nm versus 5 nm
• Transistors: 7,200 million versus 45,900 million
• Die Size: 157 mm² versus 379 mm²
• Transistor Density: 45.9M / mm² versus 121.1M / mm²
• Base Clock: 2000 MHz versus 1920 MHz
• Boost Clock: 2000 MHz versus 2475 MHz
• Memory Clock: 1937 MHz 15.5 Gbps effective versus 1313 MHz 21 Gbps effective
• Memory Size: 6 GB versus 12 GB
• Memory Type: GDDR6 versus GDDR6X
• Memory Bus Width: 96 bit versus 192 bit
• Memory Bandwidth: 186.0 GB/s versus 504.2 GB/s
• Shading Units: 1024 versus 5888
• TMUs: 64 versus 184
• ROPs: 32 versus 64
• RT Cores: 8 versus 46
• Tensor Cores: None versus 184
• Pixel Rate: 64.00 GPixel/s versus 158.4 GPixel/s
• Texture Rate: 128.0 GTexel/s versus 455.4 GTexel/s
• FP32: 4.096 TFLOPS versus 29.15 TFLOPS
• FP16: 8.192 TFLOPS (2:1) versus 29.15 TFLOPS (1:1)
• TDP: 75 W versus 200 W
• Slot Width: Single-slot versus Dual-slot
• Power Connectors: None versus 1x 16-pin
• Suggested PSU: 250 W versus 550 W
• Bus Interface: PCIe 4.0 x8 versus PCIe 4.0 x16
• Display Outputs: 4x DisplayPort 2.0 versus 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
• Dimensions: 254 mm x 127 mm x 20 mm versus 240 mm x 110 mm x 40 mm
• Release Date: 2024-03-31 versus 2024-02-29
• Predecessor: Xe Graphics versus GeForce 30
• Successor: Battlemage versus GeForce 50
• Launch MSRP: None versus 599 USD