During the launch of Intel’s Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics cards, reviewers noticed a strange pattern. Intel cards were drawing significantly more power at idle than comparable AMD and Nvidia graphics cards. Intel revealed in a blog post (opens in new tab) I killed two birds with one stone today. We are aware of higher than expected idle power consumption affecting Arc series graphics cards and have provided a fix at the same time. One possible problem for some users, however, is that applying the fix requires fiddling with her BIOS settings on the motherboard. This is not comfortable for all users.
Intel’s guide requires users to enter BIOS settings to change PCI-Express related power options. That means the user has to change her Active-state power management (ASPM) settings on the motherboard. This is a technology that allows PCIe devices to enter a lower power state when not in heavy use. After going through the BIOS, Intel instructs users to change the relevant settings within Windows Power Options as well.
First, the user needs to modify the BIOS to ensure that the OS can control PCIe power states.Native ASPM” setting To “Effectiveness”. Intel then says the user must enable it.”PCI Express Root Port ASPM” then selectL1 Substate” from subsequent options. Different manufacturers may use different terms to describe these settings, so be sure to read your motherboard manual when in doubt.
And that’s assuming your motherboard exposes the relevant settings. Two different Intel platforms (an old i9-9900K with an MSI MEG Z390 Ace motherboard and paired with Intel’s 12900K CPU After looking through the BIOS settings on my new Z690 system with MSI Z690-A DDR4 WiFi, there was no such option. can be found. The Z390 board was already using his latest BIOS, but when I checked his BIOS updated for the Z690 board, I found it. Flashing the BIOS thankfully exposed the options I needed, but the old board didn’t have the fix.
Mileage may vary by motherboard, its age and manufacturer. Some boards may have these settings active by default.
After fiddling with the BIOS, boot into Windows. You may still see unusually high idle power consumption on your Arc card. Now you need to go to Windows power settings. Just search for “”.Power“In the Windows search bar, select an option”Edit a power plan.“
While editing a preferred power plan, selectChange advanced power settingss” Optional.”PCI Express” settings, click the “+” button on the left to expand additional options, “Link state power managementset to “Maximum power savings.” Simple enough in theory, but how does it work in practice?
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After testing the idle power consumption of Intel’s Arc A750 and Arc A770 with and without Intel’s fixes, I can say that there was a significant difference in power consumption for either card. For the Arc A750, Intel’s fix reduced idle power consumption by over 50%. Average idle power consumption has been reduced to 15.5W compared to 37.3W with standard BIOS and Windows power settings.
As for the A770, oddly enough it showed the same average power consumption before and after the fix. We’ve rebooted (many times), swapped cards, sacrificed unused tubes of past heat… all in vain. Something to keep in mind. Perhaps future driver updates will help.
| Before BIOS change (Average) | After BIOS change (average) | |
| Ark A770 | 38.9 | 38.9 |
| Ark A750 | 37.3W | 15.5W |
Our own review of Intel’s Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics cards showed that Intel has delivered a capable product for the mainstream gaming cloud. However, the company did it with less power efficiency than comparable AMD and Nvidia designs. Averaging the eight-game benchmark, the Arc A770 performed 11% less than his Nvidia’s RTX 3060 Ti, and consumed about the same as his RTX 3070. Except in this era when electricity prices continue to rise and all consumers are grappling with a higher cost of living, increased electricity consumption leads to higher electricity bills. is more important than ever. The average difference of 22W with and without Intel’s patch may not seem like much, but it depends on the price of electricity in your region and whether you want your PC to be on all the time. Depending on who you are, you could save about $30 a year. .
Interestingly, Intel says its Arc graphics cards are designed to work with the latest technology available. This indicates that a user without ASPM enabled on his motherboard is lagging behind in terms of graphics card technology. This is an interesting statement. ASPM was introduced as part of the PCI Express 2.0 specification, so it’s not on the cutting edge of power saving features.
Intel’s statement also sounds somewhat hollow given that both AMD and Nvidia have managed to reduce the idle power consumption of their graphics cards that directly compete with Intel’s Arc 7 series – BIOS intervention on the part of the user is No. In fact, Nvidia’s latest powerhouse, the RTX 4090, draws just 4.5W on average when idle.
At the same time, Intel says it plans to include a fix for this high idle power consumption in later architectures. The nature of the fix and Intel’s own statement of his indicates that this is something the company cannot fix with drivers alone. Perhaps these are all elements of Arc Alchemist, Intel’s first discrete GPU architecture. We’ll see what happens in subsequent iterations.
