Technologies

Intel Arc A750 LE Graphics Card Review: A Sub-$300 Speed Champ

But it doesn’t score quite as high on stability.

Intel came very (very) late to the party with its desktop graphics cards, so it’s not surprising that they feel like a bit of a work in progress compared to veterans like Nvidia and AMD.

From a price and specs perspective, the A750 competes with Nvidia’s budget GeForce RTX 3050, which also falls roughly into the $250 to $300 price band. Intel dropped the price from $300 to $250 in February, but the market doesn’t seem to have totally caught up with that yet.

Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition

$270 at Amazon

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Like

Good price for its performance
AV1 encoding support

Don’t Like

Experienced some instability
large for its performance class

The Arc line currently includes a sub-$150 8GB entry-level Arc A380 and upmarket A770, which comes in two flavors: an Intel Limited Edition, with 16GB VRAM, and one available through board partners such as ASRock and Acer. The latter cards have bulked-up specs, notably four additional Xe graphics cores and faster clock speeds. So for less memory-demanding 1080p gaming the 8GB A770 might provide a little lift over the A750 — but it may not be worth the extra cash, depending on what they’re going for at any moment.

I’m not convinced the 16GB version makes a lot of sense. If you need that much memory, say for video editing or 1440p-plus gaming, you’re going to want more powerful components.

Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition

	Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition
Memory	8GB GDDR6
Memory bandwidth (GBps)	512.0
Memory clock (GHz)	2.0
GPU clock (GHz, base/boost)	2.1/2.4
Memory data rate/Interface	16Gbps/256 bits
Render Slices/RT cores	4/28
Texture mapping units	224
Tensor Cores	448
Process	6nm
TGP/min PSU	225/600W
Max thermal (degrees)	194F/90C
Bus	PCIe 4.0×16
Size	2 slots; 11.1 inches long (282mm)
Connections	3 x DP 1.4, 1 x HDMI 2.0
Current list price	$249
Ship date	October, 2022

You can get surprisingly reasonable 1440p performance out of the A750, especially if you’re aggressive with XeSS (Xe SuperSampling), the company’s upscaling technology a la Nvidia’s DLSS or AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution.

Keep in mind that if you’re upgrading an old system you may not get claimed (or as tested) performance. And by «old» I mean pre-2020 or earlier than Intel’s 10th-gen and AMD’s Zen 3 desktop CPUs. That’s because best performance requires resizable BAR support, which lets the CPU store its game-related data in the GPU’s VRAM rather than system RAM so the GPU doesn’t have to traverse the system bus to retrieve it. But the same RBAR performance caveat applies to most recent GPUs.

Back view of the Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition sitting atop a swirling aqua and white background showing the dual fans — The A750 LE is a full-length card.

Lori Grunin/CNET

The visible design aspects are pretty typical for a GPU: two fans on one side, vents on top and bottom and out the end. It’s heavy for its class, but there’s a lot of metal and thick, sturdy plastic. You can add a waterblock, though I could only find a couple compatible ones, one of which costs as much as the card. And removing the backplate can potentially get ugly, since it’s glued rather than screwed on. (I didn’t disassemble mine, but TechPowerUp has a nice teardown of it.)

Close up of the end bracket of the A750 LE lying down against a swirling aqua and white surface showing 3 DisplayPort and one HDMI connector — The A750 takes up two slots.

Lori Grunin/CNET

Performance

I’ve compared the A750 to the RTX 3060, since the EVGA RTX 3050 I reviewed is no longer produced — the company left the business in September 2022. The Asus Dual RTX 3060 OC is more expensive by about $100, but isn’t always the faster card. And even where the A750 lags it, for 1080p gaming it doesn’t do so by much. The RTX 3060’s 12GB of VRAM helps when you bump up resolution or do graphics work, but the newer architecture of the A750 means it acquits itself better than the two-year-old 3060 on operations like ray tracing. And because it’s not an old entry GPU, it supports AV1 encoding (for better streaming performance), while other low-end — Nvidia and AMD’s entry- and midlevel GPUs are still based on last-gen architecture.

My biggest gripe about the A750’s performance, though, isn’t about frame rates, it’s about the driver and related software. Some conflict with my network card — an Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 — made my system report it as having failed in Event Viewer, despite all indications to the contrary. It was still operational, though. But I never would have seen those event reports had I not been trying to track down the cause of freezes/BSODs. Removing the card and uninstalling the driver restored stability. Could be correlation, not causation, but I haven’t seen a BSOD in a long time.

Intel also configures its Arc Control Utility’s default well below the card’s stated maximum power consumption — 190 watts vs. 228 watts — which makes sense. For one thing, I saw only about a 4% frame-rate increase bumping it to 215 watts. But it also runs hot once you start playing with the overclocking settings, easily hitting its 90C maximum (and slightly above), and definitely hot enough to start exhibiting display glitches.

Overclocking anything runs the risk of system instability, but Arc Control doesn’t make it easy (or less tedious) to iterate through the possibilities.

These kinds of issues are normal for early generations of GPU technologies, and Arc is just a baby, which makes it a hard call against veteran competitors. But if you want something fast for less than $300, the Arc A750 is an attractive proposition. Just keep in mind you may have to change some GPU diapers.

Relative performance of comparable GPUs

Shadow of the Tomb Raider gaming test (1080p)

Intel Arc A750 LE

111

Asus Dual RTX 3060 OC

120

Note:

Longer bars indicate better performance (FPS)

Custom PC	Microsoft Windows 11 Pro (22H2); 3.2GHz Intel Core i9-12900K; 32GB DDR5-4800; 2x Corsair MP600 Pro SSD; Corsair HX1200 80 Plus Platinum PSU, MSI MPG Z690 Force Wi-Fi motherboard, Corsair 4000D Airflow midtower case

Technologies

This 3-in-1 Charger Is a Must-Have for Travelers, and It Just Hit a Record-Low of $95

Snag it for $45 off and charge your iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch at the same time.

If you’re a frequent traveler, then you know that outlets are a precious commodity in places like airports and coffee shops. So why waste one on a single device when you can charge up to three at once? Right now, you can grab this seriously sleek Ugreen Magflow three-in-one foldable charger for just $95 at Amazon. That’s a $45 discount and the all-time lowest price we’ve seen. Just don’t wait too long, as this deal could expire at any time.

At just 7.4 ounces, this compact charging station is designed to be taken on the go. But despite its size, it still supports 25-watt MagSafe charging for iPhones, as well as 5-watt wireless charging for AirPods and Apple Watches. The charging stand also tilts up to double as a stand, and it’s equipped with 16 magnets to keep your phone aligned and securely in place. Plus, it’s got built-in protections against overheating, overcharging, short-circuiting and more to prevent damage to your devices.

Why this deal matters

This folding Ugreen charger is great for juicing up your devices on the go, and it’s never been more affordable. Plus, Ugreen makes some of the best MagSafe chargers on the market right now, so don’t miss your chance to grab one at a record-low price.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Jan. 13, #1669

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Jan. 13, No. 1,669.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle is a little tricky, and it might make you hungry. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has two vowels.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with G.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with O.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to a spicy Cajun stew popular in New Orleans.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is GUMBO.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Jan. 12, No. 1,668 was TRIAL.

Recent Wordle answers

Jan. 8, No. 1,664: BLAST

Jan. 9, No. 1,665: EIGHT

Jan. 10, No. 1,666: MANIC

Jan. 11, No. 1,667: QUARK

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

What’s the best Wordle starting word?

Don’t be afraid to use our tip sheet ranking all the letters in the alphabet by frequency of uses. In short, you want starter words that lean heavy on E, A and R, and don’t contain Z, J and Q.

Some solid starter words to try:

ADIEU

TRAIN

STARE

NOISE

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Jan. 13 #681

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Jan. 13, No. 681.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

It took me a while to figure out the theme for today’s NYT Strands puzzle, but once I did, I thought it was a fun one. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: You need to chill

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Brrrr!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

GONE, ABLE, TABLE, FOOD, TEEN, LEAF, GOOF, GOOD, SAFE

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers: