@me_again @johnebaker

Hi Andy, John.

As I said on the other thread, I'm only suspicious of the retractions and backtrack that both the Magix site and the Intel site has made on the video creators side of things for these cards. That is not to say earlier claims may not have been true when first published but maybe the tech and relative drivers have changed the picture somewhat depending on the rest of the hardware it is coupled to and subsequent programs. Inside the huge Intel website I have found the following document. That document took a while to load on my machine but possibly that was down to coming from another page on the intel website. If it doesn't load straight away please be patient.

Anyway, if you scroll down a way you will start to come across these comparison charts.

There are only three references to video encoding and two are about HEVC. The image above only deals with AV1 and compares it to other graphics cards not capable of hardware video encoding. Further down it it relates only to it's use with HEVC comparing an Arc A380 transcoding in Handbrake compared to Nvidia GTX 1650/1630. Only Handbrake, DaVinci Resolve and Cyberlink Power director are quoted in tests. Where Magix and Adobe vanished to I have no idea.

These seem very specific points to cover for comparisons. I think the problem is that anything capable of running resizeable bar and has inboard video encoding could, depending on the strength of components do as well or better. I think that value for money the A770 may be ahead in some situations against nvidia but where within a given project and against what card is harder to say.

Maybe this page of the Intel website is the most honest and relevant to any system build.

These two videos may help or hinder your decision making.

Take into account his personal machine is using a 4090.

Ray.

@me_again

Andy, I'd write to Magix Support and ask the question. I'm sure they've tested the ARC cards.

We need a trailblazer. Like VCRs, CD players and electric cars, we need an early adopter! You da man!!

@AAProds

Hi Al.

It was certainly a thing with VPX 14 on the Magix website but such support is now lacking in the latest Magix publicity.

Also for MMS 2023.

I can't currently find anything on the current Magix website similar. I find that funny for a company that likes to tell us of any innovations or advantages.

Ray.

@CubeAce

Ray, a case of backpedalling, retracting, or the latest buzz-phrase, "walking back" their earlier position! 😆

Greetings,

@johnebaker Good quesstion John. He says he has articles and he'll send me the links later today after work.

@CubeAce Ray, statistics have always done my head in and, phew, those vids are full of them. Interesting though.

@AAProds thanks for your confidence Al. I've already emailed Magix support but I'm not expecting too much in reply; I don't think they'll want to commit one way or another, but they should have more satistics (aargh) relevant to their products.

I found this site https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/discrete-gpus/arc/creator.html which has a quote from Magix but interestingly only gives comparisons for Cyberlink and DaVinci, On the "See supported applications" button they do mention VPX14 which leads me to that this page is from when ARC was announced in 2022 which is when they had problems with drivers (I read that in a post by John somewhere as I was looking through yesterday).

If son #2 comes up with anything interesting I'll let you know.

AndyW

ps - of course all this is irrelevant if the ARC or the Nvidia won't physically fit in my computer case whixh is smaller that my previous computer case.

@me_again

Hi Andy.

Did you take a gander at the two Intel web pages I linked to?

If you have an ATX case then I don't think you will fit an Arc 770.

Also yesterday nvidia released news of their new cards. Cheaper than their old series.

I assume because of less rejects on the dies.

Ray.

@CubeAce

Greetings Ray, I did look at them and failed to notice the recent dates, probably because I have trouble following all the words - sounds daft I know, especially after 40+ years of using technical manuals in my job before retiring.

The case is a Bitfenix Nova TG

Interesting about the new Nvidia card being cheaper, maybe there is something they're concerned about with the Intel Arc cards. It's been interesting to note over the past few months that every time Intel release new "Intel Arc & Iris® Xe Graphics" drivers, Nvidia follow suit within days. Or am I reading too much into that?

AndyW

@me_again

Hi Andy

. . . . Bitfenix Nova TG . . . .

By comparison the intel ARC A770 is 50mm (2 in) longer than your RTX 2060.

John EB

@me_again

Hi Andy.

It may have more to do with the Fabs Andy. All production eventually becomes more efficient the more they work at a specific die size. Less problems on dies mean more chips with less problems that don't have to be downgraded, hobbled to cut out offending parts that don't work.

Speaking of which, Intel look to be going down to the 2nm scale soon on their processors with TMC. The pace of product development never seems to slacken.

The Intel® Driver & Support Assistant tried to install an older version of their graphics driver on my system yesterday that then told me I already had a newer driver installed. Then the Intel® Driver & Support Assistant told me everything was up to date.

I love tech ☢☣⚠!

Ray.

@CubeAce

If you have an ATX case then I don't think you will fit an Arc 770.

Ray, doesn't "ATX" only define the size of the motherboard? A mid tower case should be able to take a 3-fan GPU; depends on the actual case and what you put on the front. I opted for a 2-fan GPU because I'm using a front cooler and wanted plenty of room left over.

@CubeAce

Hi Ray

. . . .  Intel look to be going down to the 2nm scale . . . .

The latest I heard was 3nm, either way that is mind boggling when you realise just how small that is and how many transistors this is capable of per mm².

By comparison the RTX 2060 chip has 13.6 billion transistors on a die approx 20x22 mm, and that is using 12nm technology!

John EB

@johnebaker @CubeAce

Greetings John and Ray,

;;;; By comparison the intel ARC A770 is 50mm (2 in) longer than your RTX 2060

Thanks John, that'll be tight but should be OK

.... Intel® Driver & Support Assistant tried to install an older version

Ray, I don't use the driver assistant, not even have it installed, didn't see the point of it really. In fact I don't have any of the Inte apps installed. I just found them to be bloatware.

I have had a problem in the past with Windows installing an older driver - I wasn't the only one. When Googled many people had that problem. Even Intel has(had?) a page about it on their website. For 12 months it was driving me mad but the last few Intel updates seem to have held. Maybe Intel had a word with Microsoft.

AndyW

@me_again

Hi Andy.

Normally I have it disabled but now and again I activate it manually to remind me on drivers I may not have checked up on for a while like ReakTeK, just on the off chance they ever update anything.

Ray.

Greetings all,

As I said earlier, I emailed Magix Support to ask them about they'd carried out with Intel ARC hardware. This is the imain part of the reply:

"As you say, we don't usually give advice on hardware. What I can say is that we have done the best performance tests with INTEL cards, followed by NVIDIA cards. But in the end it is your decision."

I've never really been one to take a leap of faith when buying something but I'm now heading in that direction.

AndyW

@me_again

🤞🤞🤞

Interesting review:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/intel-arc-a770-and-a750-content-creation-review-sept-2023-update/

@me_again

Hi

The Puget Systems testing report is quite informative and closer to 'real world testing', ii would be interesting if they had detailed the projects content and what effects, if any, were applied.

I was disappointed with the ARC's Blender results, hoping for some better performance, however that is for another topic and forum.

John EB

For anyone interested, another article

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/creator/resources/magix-videoprox.html

In light of the earlier Pugit Systems review and the Magix reply to my email I think I'll try the Arc a770 IF I can find a 16gb version - not found one yet other than an import (dubious about that).

It's on the cards that I'll wait for the next generation ARCs especially as "her indoors" says we need a new living room carpet.

Or maybe the new Nvidia cards Ray mentioned.

But who knows ... 😇

AndyW

@me_again

Hi Andy

Interesting Intel article, one of the key elements, I picked out from the hardware specs of the system used is that the motherboard supports PCIe 5 which is up to double the speed of PCIe 4.

John EB

@me_again @johnebaker @AAProds

For me at least the whole business of upgrading is still a mind blowing minefield.

As I understand the PCIe standards, each generation is supposed to be able to double data transfer speeds. Normally in the past that has been done by doubling the amount of traffic on each PCIe lane. I've watched more YouTube videos than I care to think about but from a creators point the advantage of Intel CPUs over AMD is the way Intel has used its efficiency cores. You can be rendering one project while working on the next as the rendering gets turned over to the efficiency cores. At least in one or two editing programs. Magix and Vegas seldom come up in those types of videos.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that there will always at some point be an imbalance somewhere along a project now and then that will slow down the efficient playback or render of a project compared to another project.

I downloaded CineBench and ran the tests on my system with an i9-900k beat a system using an i7-1200 (I don't know if it was a K version or not) How can that happen?

I assume if I ran a different type of test I would see different results. The one thing I have noticed is that running some plugins that could be troublesome in the past now behave much better. Load and process quicker, such as Titler Pro7 or Boris Titler.

I can still make MEP / VPX use loads or ram or just plain stop working well.

Re-loading old projects and re-editing them seems to do wonders for a system slow down. I may as well start a new project afresh.I don't mean because an effect has changed or gone missing but just changing one video file out or sound track, even if they are both the same specs wise just seems to throw the whole project out. Even with the new GPU the experience has been worse than when I had the old card in. Before I altered the project it was flying along. Some new projects have also benefited as have one or two old projects that I have just changed effects on and not files.

The 2nm dies I heard about was from Linus Tech Tips and Tech notice. That surprised me as well. As for transistor counts, the numbers have become meaningless to me, Incomprehensible to imagine with each probably as cheap individually as grains of sand. To think that a transistor is now smaller than a neuron and can't be seen under a microscope with visible light is just, well.....

Ray.

@me_again

Hi Andy

. . . . It's on the cards that I'll wait for the next generation ARCs especially as "her indoors" says we need a new living room carpet. . . . Or maybe the new Nvidia cards Ray mentioned. . . . But who knows ...

See my comment here if my initial finding is correct and you are creating BD discs, it may be relevant.

HTH

John EB

@johnebaker @me_again

If you find the Pugit systems article interesting then you should probably watch this very long video (2 hours) on the subject of Pugit bench marks explained by the owner of Pugit.

To me it still seems to come down to 'results may vary'. By the time Battle Mage comes out who knows what the state of the market will be including the prices for those new cards?

Fun times.

Ray.