Intel Arc Pro A30M vs NVIDIA T600 Mobile Comparison

The NVIDIA T600 Mobile and Intel Arc Pro A30M are both end-of-life professional mobile GPUs aimed at compact workstations, yet they represent fundamentally different design philosophies and performance profiles. The benchmark data shows a clear, albeit narrow, victory for the NVIDIA T600 Mobile in the single available head-to-head test, while the specifications reveal significant architectural divergence that dictates their respective strengths in different workloads.

Where Each One Wins

Based on the available benchmark data, the NVIDIA T600 Mobile is the outright winner in the only directly comparable test. In Geekbench OpenCL, the T600 Mobile scores 35,486 against the Arc Pro A30M's 31,894, a decisive 11.3% advantage. This places the T600 Mobile in the 77th percentile of all GPUs, while the Arc Pro A30M sits just one percentile lower at 76. The T600 Mobile's average benchmark score of 32,849 is also higher than the Arc Pro A30M's 31,894.

The Intel Arc Pro A30M, however, wins on raw compute potential. Its FP32 throughput of 4.096 TFLOPS is 62% higher than the T600 Mobile's 2.527 TFLOPS, and its texture rate of 128.0 GTexel/s is 62% higher than the T600 Mobile's 78.96 GTexel/s. This suggests the Arc Pro A30M would excel in workloads that are highly parallel and texture-bound, such as modern 3D rendering or compute shaders, provided software optimization leverages its architecture. The T600 Mobile, conversely, wins on practical, out-of-the-box driver performance in the Geekbench test, indicating a more mature and optimized software stack for general-purpose compute tasks. In essence, the T600 Mobile wins the benchmark we have; the Arc Pro A30M wins on paper for theoretical peak throughput.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA T600 Mobile has a higher average benchmark score of 32,849, compared to the Intel Arc Pro A30M's 31,894.

Q: What is the performance difference in the Geekbench OpenCL test?

A: The NVIDIA T600 Mobile scores 35,486, which is 11.3% higher than the Intel Arc Pro A30M's score of 31,894 in that specific test.

Q: Which GPU has more shading units?

A: The Intel Arc Pro A30M has 1,024 shading units, which is 128 more than the NVIDIA T600 Mobile's 896.

Q: Does the Intel Arc Pro A30M support hardware ray tracing?

A: Yes, the Intel Arc Pro A30M includes 8 dedicated ray tracing cores, while the NVIDIA T600 Mobile has none listed.

Q: What are the memory bandwidth specifications for each GPU?

A: The NVIDIA T600 Mobile has a 128-bit memory bus with 192.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the Intel Arc Pro A30M has a 64-bit bus with 128.0 GB/s bandwidth. Both have 4 GB of GDDR6 memory.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in terms of process node technology?

A: The Intel Arc Pro A30M uses a more advanced 6 nm process from TSMC, while the NVIDIA T600 Mobile uses a 12 nm process, also from TSMC.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark comparison available is the Geekbench OpenCL test, and it is a clear win for the NVIDIA T600 Mobile. The T600 Mobile posted a score of 35,486, while the Intel Arc Pro A30M managed 31,894. This results in a delta of 11.3% in favor of the NVIDIA part. This is a substantial margin in a synthetic compute test, suggesting that the T600 Mobile's driver optimization and memory subsystem provide a tangible real-world advantage in OpenCL-based applications, despite the Arc Pro A30M's superior theoretical compute figures.

The average benchmark scores corroborate this result. The T600 Mobile's average score of 32,849 places it 0.8% above the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME and 0.9% above the AMD FirePro S9300 X2. In contrast, the Arc Pro A30M's average score of 31,894 puts it 0.7% above the NVIDIA TITAN RTX and 1.1% above the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell. While both GPUs are positioned in the same performance tier, the T600 Mobile holds a consistent edge in the metrics that were captured. The data shows that the T600 Mobile is not just faster in a single test; its overall average is higher, indicating a more consistent performance profile across the board.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ significantly in their core configurations and memory subsystems. The NVIDIA T600 Mobile is built around the TU117 chip with 896 shading units, 56 texture mapping units (TMUs), and 32 raster operation units (ROPs). The Intel Arc Pro A30M, using the DG2-128 chip, has a higher count of 1,024 shading units and 64 TMUs, but retains the same 32 ROPs.

Memory configuration is another key differentiator. Both cards feature 4 GB of GDDR6 memory, but the T600 Mobile uses a wider 128-bit bus interface, resulting in a bandwidth of 192.0 GB/s. The Arc Pro A30M, in contrast, uses a narrower 64-bit bus, cutting its bandwidth to 128.0 GB/s. This is a critical difference, as the T600 Mobile's higher bandwidth can be a significant advantage in memory-intensive tasks like high-resolution texture streaming or large data set processing.

Clock speeds also differ markedly. The NVIDIA T600 Mobile has a base clock of 780 MHz and a boost clock of 1410 MHz, while the Intel Arc Pro A30M operates at a much higher 1500 MHz base and 2000 MHz boost. This higher clock speed contributes directly to the Arc Pro A30M's superior pixel rate of 64.00 GPixel/s (versus 45.12 GPixel/s) and texture rate of 128.0 GTexel/s (versus 78.96 GTexel/s). The T600 Mobile also has a lower TDP of 40 W, compared to the Arc Pro A30M's 50 W.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs is stark, reflecting different design priorities and eras. The NVIDIA T600 Mobile is based on the Turing architecture, specifically the TU117 chip, manufactured on a 12 nm process at TSMC. Turing was a mature design focused on power efficiency and professional features. The chip contains 4,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die. It supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and OpenGL 4.6, but notably lacks dedicated ray tracing and tensor cores.

The Intel Arc Pro A30M, on the other hand, is built on the Xe-HPG architecture (specifically the DG2-128 chip), which is Intel's first foray into discrete gaming and professional GPUs. It is manufactured on a more advanced 6 nm process at TSMC, packing 7,200 million transistors into a smaller 157 mm² die. This results in a much higher transistor density of 45.9M per mm², versus the T600 Mobile's 23.5M per mm². The Xe-HPG architecture is a modern design that includes 8 ray tracing cores and supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), making it feature-rich for contemporary workloads.

The bus interface also differs: the T600 Mobile uses PCIe 3.0 x16, while the Arc Pro A30M uses the newer PCIe 4.0 x8. While the x8 link has fewer lanes, PCIe 4.0's higher bandwidth per lane makes the total bandwidth comparable. The generation gap is also evident in the release dates, with the T600 Mobile arriving in April 2021 and the Arc Pro A30M in August 2022. In summary, the T600 Mobile is a refined, efficient Turing design, while the Arc Pro A30M is a high-clock, feature-packed Alchemist part, with each architecture's strengths and weaknesses clearly visible in the performance and specification data.