A while ago, Intel published an Arc Quick Start Guide listing requirements such as the Resizable BAR for the GPU series on desktop platforms. Resizable BAR was listed as almost a necessity to run the entry-level Arc A380 to competitive performance levels.
A Resizable BAR makes the graphics frame buffer accessible to the CPU at once. While it is becoming a popular feature for recent desktop PCs, several older devices are still not equipped with such.
The Arc Quick Start Guide stated Resizable BAR as a requirement. Intel says it is necessary for ‘optimal performance in all applications.’ However, it is not explained how the GPUs would work without it.
AMD platforms were also unofficially supported as the document lists Smart Access Memory enabled systems as compatible. Surprisingly, it appears that when the A380 GPU is run with an AMD CPU, performance levels are still decent when the resizable bar is enabled.
In performance tests published by Computerbase, the tech outlet reports that they could run an Intel Arc A380 graphics card on an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU on a B550 motherboard with Resizable-BAR enabled.
The website checked the performance differences between the tech on & off to know if it was actually working, and to their surprise, it was. The performance was also on par with Intel’s Core i5-12500, and the minor differences could be due to the older Zen 3 architecture going up against, the newer Alder Lake design.
The Ryzen 5 5600X results don’t quite match the Core i5-12500. Still, at an average of 1 percent in average FPS, the differences are marginal and more CPU related, than attributable to platform switching.
And that automatically means that Resizable BAR on the Arc A380 apparently works in connection with a Ryzen processor, although according to Intel, it shouldn’t actually work.
The final confirmation comes when rBAR is switched off manually on the Ryzen 5 5600X, the performance collapses completely, just like on the Intel CPU.
Dota 2 is one game that simply crashes without rBAR. The main menu is still easy to access, but once a game has started, the game crashes without a murmur. With rBAR, on the other hand, it works perfectly. When run with the Core i5-12500, the game has no problems without Resizable BAR.
It is unclear why Intel currently claims that rBAR will not work in combination with the Arc A380 on an AMD system. There weren’t any other problems or no more than with an Intel system.
This isn’t that shocking, as CPU performance anyways has little to do with the GPU performance. Most AMD cards nowadays have rBAR support, so using an Arc GPU on an AMD platform shouldn’t be a problem with rBAR.
The following CPUs support Resizable BAR.
| Intel | |
| 11th Gen S-series | i9-11xxx, i7-11xxx, i5-11xxx |
| 10th Gen series | i9-10xxx, i7-10xxx, i5-10xxx, i3-10xxx |
| AMD | |
| Ryzen 5000 series | Ryzen 9 59xx, Ryzen 7 58xx, Ryzen 5 56xx |
| Ryzen 3000 series | Ryzen 9 39xx, Ryzen 7 38xx, Ryzen 7 37xx, Ryzen 5 36xx, Ryzen 5 35xx, Ryzen 3 33xx, Ryzen 3 31xx |
About Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, in Silicon Valley. It is the world’s largest semiconductor chip manufacturer on the basis of revenue, and is the developer of the x86 series of microprocessors – the processors found in most personal computers (PCs).
Incorporated in Delaware, Intel ranked No. 46 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
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