Intel Arc A580 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark data splits decisively between these two parts. The Intel Arc A580 wins the only shared head-to-head test, Geekbench OpenCL, with a score of 91,657 against 52,998 for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile. That is a 72.9% advantage, and it is the sole direct comparison recorded in the database.

Beyond that single shared workload, the record shows how different their benchmark portfolios are. The Arc A580 also posts a Geekbench Vulkan score of 79,381 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2,229. The NVIDIA part has no Vulkan or Steel Nomad entries; instead, its own database profile contains Passmark tests across several DirectX versions, a G2D score, a G3D score, and a GPU compute score. In Passmark G3D, the RTX 3050 A Mobile reaches 11,664, while its Passmark GPU compute result is 4,419, and its DirectX 9 score is 152 against 94 for DirectX 11 and 61 for DirectX 10. None of those Passmark results have a counterpart from the Intel side, so the win tally stands at 1 for the Arc A580 and 0 for the NVIDIA part.

The aggregate scores reinforce that split. The Intel Arc A580 has an average benchmark score of 57,756, which places it in the 87th percentile of all GPUs. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile averages 8,746, sitting in the 44th percentile. The nearest rivals listed for the Intel part are all desktop-class cards: the AMD Radeon RX 5600 OEM at 58,085 (0.6% lower), the Intel Arc A570M at 58,239 (0.8% lower), the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT at 58,392 (1.1% lower), and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE at 57,367 (0.7% higher). The NVIDIA part instead sits alongside much older or lower-tier parts: the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 v2 at 8,743 (0.0% delta), the NVIDIA Quadro P2200 at 8,686 (0.7% lower), the AMD Radeon R9 M265X at 8,851 (1.2% higher), and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 at 8,863 (1.3% higher).

The practical interpretation is straightforward. The Arc A580 is positioned as a mid-range desktop GPU that lands near the top of the database percentile rankings. The RTX 3050 A Mobile is a low-power mobile part whose average score puts it in the lower half of all recorded GPUs. Where each one wins depends entirely on the workload: the Intel part wins the compute-heavy OpenCL test decisively, while the NVIDIA part has no recorded test where it beats the Arc A580.

The Verdict

The data points to different buyers for each product. The Intel Arc A580 delivers roughly 6.6 times the average benchmark score of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile (57,756 versus 8,746). Its percentile rank of 87 against 44 means the Intel desktop card sits well above the median GPU, while the NVIDIA mobile part sits just below it. Anyone choosing between these two for raw compute throughput should favor the Arc A580, since it wins the only head-to-head test by a wide margin.

The RTX 3050 A Mobile, however, is a different class of product entirely. Its 45 W TDP and integrated form factor (IGP) place it in thin-and-light laptops, not desktop towers. The Arc A580 consumes 175 W, uses dual-slot cooling, and requires two 8-pin power connectors. That power envelope difference is not a performance metric, but it explains why the two parts appear in different systems. The NVIDIA part also carries a Tensor core count of 56, a feature the Intel part does not list, which may matter for certain AI-adjacent workloads, though no benchmark in the database measures that directly.

For a desktop user prioritizing raw graphics throughput, the recorded data selects the Arc A580 without ambiguity. For a mobile user needing a discrete GPU in a low-power chassis, the RTX 3050 A Mobile is the only one of the two that fits that form factor. The production status also differs: the Arc A580 is listed as Active, while the RTX 3050 A Mobile is End-of-life. That suggests the Intel part remains a current offering, whereas the NVIDIA part has been superseded.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The single recorded head-to-head result is Geekbench OpenCL. The Intel Arc A580 scores 91,657, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile scores 52,998. The delta is 72.9% in favor of Intel. That is a large gap, roughly 73% more compute throughput on an open-standard GPU compute workload.

To put that in context, the Arc A580's nearest rivals in the database are all within about 1% of its average score. The RX 5600 OEM is 0.6% lower, the Arc A570M is 0.8% lower, the RX 6950 XT is 1.1% lower, and the RX 9070 GRE is 0.7% higher. The RTX 3050 A Mobile, by contrast, has nearest rivals that are essentially identical to it: the GTX 460 v2 is 0.0% different, the Quadro P2200 is 0.7% lower, the R9 M265X is 1.2% higher, and the Pro WX 5100 is 1.3% higher. The OpenCL head-to-head result therefore shows not just a win for Intel, but a win by a margin far larger than the typical spread among either card's closest competitors.

The Arc A580's other scores, Vulkan at 79,381 and Steel Nomad at 2,229, have no analogous entries for the RTX 3050 A Mobile. The NVIDIA part's Passmark results, by contrast, show a wide variation across DirectX versions: 152 in DirectX 9, 94 in DirectX 11, 61 in DirectX 10, and 55 in DirectX 12. Its G2D score of 526 and G3D score of 11,664 indicate that the part is far stronger in rasterized 3D workloads than in compute (4,419 in GPU compute) or older API tests. None of those numbers can be directly compared to the Intel part because the database does not record matching tests for both.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The Intel Arc A580 averages 57,756 across all recorded benchmarks, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile averages 8,746.

Q: How large is the OpenCL performance gap between the two?

A: In the only head-to-head test, Geekbench OpenCL, the Arc A580 scores 91,657 against 52,998 for the RTX 3050 A Mobile, a 72.9% lead for Intel.

Q: Which GPU ranks higher among all GPUs in the database?

A: The Arc A580 is in the 87th percentile, while the RTX 3050 A Mobile is in the 44th percentile.

Q: What are the closest rivals for each card based on average score?

A: For the Arc A580, the nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon RX 5600 OEM (58,085, 0.6% lower), the Intel Arc A570M (58,239, 0.8% lower), the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT (58,392, 1.1% lower), and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (57,367, 0.7% higher). For the RTX 3050 A Mobile, the nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 v2 (8,743, 0.0%), the NVIDIA Quadro P2200 (8,686, 0.7% lower), the AMD Radeon R9 M265X (8,851, 1.2% higher), and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 (8,863, 1.3% higher).

Q: Does the RTX 3050 A Mobile have any benchmark where it beats the Arc A580?

A: No. The database records zero wins for the NVIDIA part and one win for the Intel part.

Q: What is the production status of each GPU?

A: The Intel Arc A580 is listed as Active, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile is listed as End-of-life.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from fundamentally different silicon. The Intel Arc A580 uses the DG2-512 chip built on the Xe-HPG architecture, manufactured on a 6 nm process at TSMC. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile uses the GA106 chip on the Ampere architecture, manufactured on an 8 nm process at Samsung. The Intel chip packs 21,700 million transistors on a 406 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 53.4 million per square millimeter. The NVIDIA chip has 12,000 million transistors on a 276 mm² die, for a density of 43.5 million per square millimeter.

The Intel part is a desktop card with a dual-slot cooler and two 8-pin power connectors, requiring a 450 W suggested power supply. The NVIDIA part is an integrated graphics processor (IGP) meant for laptops, with no power connectors and a 45 W TDP. The bus interfaces differ as well: the Arc A580 uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the RTX 3050 A Mobile uses PCIe 4.0 x8.

Display outputs also separate the two. The Arc A580 offers one HDMI 2.1 port and three DisplayPort 2.0 outputs. The RTX 3050 A Mobile has display outputs listed as "Portable Device Dependent," meaning they vary by laptop design.

Both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so the API feature set is matched. The Intel part includes 24 ray tracing cores, while the NVIDIA part includes 14 RT cores and 56 tensor cores. The Intel part has no tensor core count listed in the database. The Intel part also has a successor listed (Battlemage), while the NVIDIA part has no successor listed. The predecessor for the Arc A580 is Xe Graphics, and for the RTX 3050 A Mobile it is GeForce 20 Mobile.

Specification Differences

The memory configurations diverge sharply. The Intel Arc A580 has 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, yielding 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The NVIDIA part has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, yielding 192.0 GB/s. That is a 2.67x bandwidth advantage for Intel. Memory clocks also differ: the Arc A580 runs at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective), while the RTX 3050 A Mobile runs at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective).

Compute resources are far larger on the Intel side. The Arc A580 has 3,072 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output units. The RTX 3050 A Mobile has 1,792 shading units, 56 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The Intel part's pixel rate is 192.0 GPixel/s versus 42.98 GPixel/s for NVIDIA. Texture rate is 384.0 GTexel/s versus 75.21 GTexel/s. FP32 throughput is 12.29 TFLOPS versus 4.813 TFLOPS. FP16 throughput is 24.58 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio) for Intel, while NVIDIA achieves 4.813 TFLOPS at a 1:1 ratio.

Clock speeds reinforce the performance gap. The Arc A580 has a base clock of 1700 MHz and a boost clock of 2000 MHz. The RTX 3050 A Mobile has a base clock of 1065 MHz and a boost of 1343 MHz. The NVIDIA part's lower clocks are consistent with its 45 W mobile power budget.

Power draw is the largest practical difference. The Arc A580 consumes 175 W, while the RTX 3050 A Mobile consumes 45 W. The slot width is dual-slot for Intel and IGP for NVIDIA. The release dates are also distinct: the Arc A580 launched on October 9, 2023, while the RTX 3050 A Mobile launched on December 31, 2023. Neither part has a launch MSRP recorded in the database.