Intel Arc A730M vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile Comparison

Intel’s Arc A730M and NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile occupy very different corners of the laptop GPU market, and the benchmark data reflects that chasm. The RTX 4090 Mobile is the faster part by a wide margin in every shared test, while the Arc A730M holds its own only in the context of its own architectural class. Below, the numbers from the FACT PACK tell the story.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The two GPUs share only two benchmark results in the dataset, and NVIDIA wins both decisively. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4090 Mobile scores 180,831 against the Arc A730M’s 70,352. That is a delta of -61.1% for Intel, meaning the NVIDIA part delivers roughly 2.6 times the raw compute throughput in this API. The Vulkan test is even more lopsided: NVIDIA scores 170,774, Intel scores 64,693, a -62.1% gap. For context, the Arc A730M’s Vulkan result is barely above half of the RTX 4090 Mobile’s OpenCL score, which itself is lower than its Vulkan score.

These aren’t marginal differences. The RTX 4090 Mobile’s OpenCL score exceeds the Arc A730M’s by 110,479 points, and its Vulkan lead is 106,081 points. In percentage terms, the NVIDIA part is roughly 157% faster in OpenCL and 164% faster in Vulkan. The data shows no test where Intel wins; the wins tally is 0 for the Arc A730M and 2 for the RTX 4090 Mobile.

Looking at the average benchmark scores, the picture gets more nuanced. The Arc A730M averages 45,592 across all its benchmarks, while the RTX 4090 Mobile averages 43,667. That puts Intel ahead by about 4.4% in aggregate — but this is misleading. The Arc A730M’s average is buoyed by its Geekbench scores, while the RTX 4090 Mobile’s average is dragged down by a set of Passmark tests (DirectX 9, 10, 11, 12, G2D, G3D, and compute) that return low raw numbers. The RTX 4090 Mobile’s Passmark G3D score of 27,212 and its compute score of 12,347 are substantial, but its DirectX 10 score of 173, DirectX 11 score of 262, and DirectX 12 score of 107 are outliers that lower the mean.

Both GPUs land at the 84th percentile among all GPUs, which is a striking parity given the performance gap. This reflects the fact that the percentile is based on average scores across different benchmark suites, not the head-to-head tests. The nearest rivals for each part reinforce this: the Arc A730M sits within 1% of the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT, NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile, and NVIDIA RTX A2000. The RTX 4090 Mobile is within 0.9% of the NVIDIA Quadro M6000, RTX 5050 Mobile, Quadro M6000 24 GB, and RTX A6000. In other words, the Arc A730M is competitive with mid-range workstation and mobile parts, while the RTX 4090 Mobile trades blows with high-end workstation cards.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The Intel Arc A730M averages 45,592 across its benchmarks, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile averages 43,667. That puts Intel ahead by roughly 1,925 points, or about 4.4%.

Q: How much faster is the RTX 4090 Mobile in Geekbench Vulkan?

A: The RTX 4090 Mobile scores 170,774, versus 64,693 for the Arc A730M. That is a delta of -62.1% for Intel, meaning NVIDIA is approximately 164% faster in this test.

Q: Do both GPUs support the same DirectX version?

A: Yes. Both the Arc A730M and the RTX 4090 Mobile support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), along with OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4.

Q: What is the RTX 4090 Mobile’s percentile ranking?

A: The RTX 4090 Mobile sits at the 84th percentile among all GPUs, the same percentile as the Arc A730M, despite the large performance difference in shared tests.

Q: Which GPU has more RT cores?

A: The RTX 4090 Mobile has 76 RT cores, while the Arc A730M has 24. NVIDIA also has 304 tensor cores, a feature the Intel part lacks entirely.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth difference?

A: The RTX 4090 Mobile has 576.0 GB/s of bandwidth from its 16 GB GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, while the Arc A730M offers 336.0 GB/s from 12 GB GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous for raw performance: choose the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile if the workload is compute-heavy or graphics-intensive. It wins both shared benchmarks by over 60% and offers more than double the FP32 throughput (32.98 TFLOPS versus 12.60 TFLOPS). Its 16 GB memory buffer, 576.0 GB/s bandwidth, and 76 RT cores make it the superior part for demanding tasks like ray tracing or large dataset processing. The RTX 4090 Mobile also has 304 tensor cores, which the Arc A730M does not have, giving it a clear edge in AI or DLSS-type workloads.

The Intel Arc A730M is not without merit, but its strengths are narrower. Its average benchmark score is higher, and it matches the RTX 4090 Mobile’s 84th percentile ranking. It also draws less power — 80 W versus 120 W — and is listed as end-of-life, whereas the RTX 4090 Mobile is active. For a user prioritizing aggregate benchmark stability or lower power draw, the Arc A730M could be sufficient. But for anyone who needs the fastest possible laptop GPU, the RTX 4090 Mobile is the only choice based on the head-to-head data.

The RTX 4090 Mobile’s nearest rivals — the RTX A6000, Quadro M6000, and RTX 5050 Mobile — all score within 0.9% of it, which places it in a high-end tier. The Arc A730M’s rivals, including the RTX 5090 Mobile and Radeon Pro 5500 XT, are closer to mid-range territory. The verdict is simple: the RTX 4090 Mobile wins on performance, while the Arc A730M competes on efficiency and average scores. Pick NVIDIA for speed, Intel for balance.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ in nearly every meaningful specification. The Arc A730M uses the DG2-512 chip on a 6 nm TSMC process, while the RTX 4090 Mobile uses the AD103 chip on a 5 nm TSMC process. The RTX 4090 Mobile has 45,900 million transistors versus 21,700 million for Intel, and a higher transistor density of 121.1M per mm² against 53.4M per mm². Die size is similar — 406 mm² for Intel, 379 mm² for NVIDIA — but the transistor count difference is massive.

Memory is another major split. The RTX 4090 Mobile has 16 GB GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus with 576.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the Arc A730M has 12 GB GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus with 336.0 GB/s. Clock speeds also differ: the Arc A730M boosts to 2050 MHz from a 1100 MHz base, while the RTX 4090 Mobile boosts to 1695 MHz from a 1335 MHz base. The NVIDIA part’s memory runs at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective), whereas Intel’s runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective).

Compute resources favor NVIDIA overwhelmingly. The RTX 4090 Mobile has 9728 shading units, 304 TMUs, 112 ROPs, 76 RT cores, and 304 tensor cores. The Arc A730M has 3072 shading units, 192 TMUs, 96 ROPs, and 24 RT cores, with no tensor cores. Pixel rates are close — 189.8 GPixel/s for NVIDIA versus 196.8 GPixel/s for Intel — but texture rate favors NVIDIA at 515.3 GTexel/s versus 393.6 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 32.98 TFLOPS for NVIDIA and 12.60 TFLOPS for Intel; FP16 is 32.98 TFLOPS (1:1) for NVIDIA and 25.19 TFLOPS (2:1) for Intel. TDP is 80 W for Intel and 120 W for NVIDIA.

Architecture Differences

The architectural split is generational. Intel’s Arc A730M uses the Xe-HPG architecture from the Alchemist generation, built on a 6 nm process. NVIDIA’s RTX 4090 Mobile uses the Ada Lovelace architecture from the GeForce 40 Mobile generation, built on a 5 nm process. Both are manufactured by TSMC, but the node difference gives NVIDIA a density advantage — 121.1M transistors per mm² versus 53.4M.

The RTX 4090 Mobile has dedicated tensor cores (304) for AI acceleration, a feature absent from the Arc A730M. RT core counts differ as well: 76 versus 24. The NVIDIA part also has a larger memory bus (256-bit versus 192-bit) and faster memory clocks, which is why its bandwidth is 71% higher.

Both GPUs support the same API set — DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4 — so software compatibility is identical. However, the underlying execution resources are vastly different. The RTX 4090 Mobile’s 9728 shading units and 304 TMUs dwarf the Arc A730M’s 3072 and 192, respectively. The NVIDIA part also has a higher FP16 throughput at 1:1 ratio, while Intel’s FP16 is halved at 2:1.

The production status differs too: the Arc A730M is end-of-life, while the RTX 4090 Mobile is active. The RTX 4090 Mobile has a known release date of January 2, 2023, and a predecessor in the GeForce 30 Mobile series, while the Arc A730M has no listed release date or predecessor. Power delivery also differs — the RTX 4090 Mobile lists no power connectors, while the Arc A730M has none listed either, but the TDP gap (120 W versus 80 W) suggests NVIDIA’s part requires more robust cooling. Both are IGP slot width and use PCIe 4.0 x16.