151 graphics cards in the benchmark: 75× AMD Radeon, 75× Nvidia Geforce and 1× Intel Arc in 3DMark Fire Strike

Almost a year ago, we presented you with a graphics card ranking of 130 models. Since then we have not been idle, the work on the revision and expansion to 150 graphics cards is now complete. Even before we merge all the data into one complete work, we would like to give you a foretaste. The occasion is not necessarily spectacular, but it is remarkable: for the first time since 1998, a dedicated Intel graphics card has faced the superiority of AMD and Nvidia. We have therefore spontaneously expanded the originally planned division of 75 Geforce graphics cards vs. 75 Radeon graphics cards to 151 models. Number 151 is the Intel Arc A380, which the PCGH test lab honors at times and which has already cleared a major hurdle:

150 + 1 graphics cards in the benchmark test

If you haven’t read the previous article, you are invited to do so – it’s worth it. We use the same, untouched system to test 151 graphics cards. Since 151 graphics cards do not test each other overnight, work began in early 2021 with a deliberately “final” benchmark list that does not completely overwhelm even older graphics cards – at least the former high-end. So don’t be surprised that we still rely on an overclocked Intel Core i9-10900K, despite the significantly faster processors on the market. This was the most potent option at the time and allowed the vast majority of graphics cards to develop. In the face of even more powerful graphics cards, above all Geforce RTX 4090 and Radeon RX 7900 XT, the update to 151 graphics cards is the finale with this benchmark list. In 2023 we will repeat the game based on a PCI Express 5 substructure, if possible with a 6 GHz processor.

But back to the present. 75 Radeon graphics cards since 2009, 75 Geforce graphics cards since 2010 and one Arc graphics card of the year 2022 have passed 3DMark Fire Strike to give you the ultimate overview of performance and development. The Fire Strike (without “Ultra” or “Extreme”) runs under DirectX 11 in Full HD and scales excellently with graphics performance within the scope of what is displayed. The following benchmark with 151 graphics cards reveals the scores and placements that result:

Of course, one of the great attractions of such comprehensive benchmarks is that you can compare your own discarded graphics cards with subsequent and other models. Since the flood of graphics cards is huge, we’ve highlighted the only Intel model in color – in case that’s the only reason you clicked on this article. This is expressly only a random sample, the performance of the Arc A380 (Alchemist aka Xe-HPG) varies enormously depending on the application/game. In this case, a DirectX 11 application, the Intel graphics card ends up in the midfield and thus ahead of the roughly targeted competition in the form of the AMD Radeon RX 6400.

The results underscore an observation relating to current GPU architectures: if high throughput is required with low pixel counts, RDNA 2 aka Radeon RX 6000 comes into its own. In these cases, the AMD architecture can store most of the data in the Infinity L3 cache and the very high clocked arithmetic units do the rest. Nvidia’s Ampere aka Geforce RTX 3000 ticks differently. Here, more or “heavier” pixels mean relatively better performance. With a few, simple pixels, the shader pipeline runs empty. This applies to all RTX 30 chips, but the strength in high resolutions is particularly noticeable in the Geforce RTX 3080 (Ti) and RTX 3090 (Ti) models, which have high transfer rates.