$700 Gaming PC Benchmarks - Arc A750 or RX 6650 XT?

$700 Gaming PC Benchmarks - Arc A750 or RX 6650 XT?

► LINKS
--== THE $700 BUILD ==--
CORE COMPONENTS (CPU/Motherboard/Memory)
CPU - Ryzen 5 5600 6c/12t ($133, includes cooler)
[CPU UPGRADES]
Ryzen 5 5600X 6c/12t ($160, includes cooler)
Ryzen 5800X3D 8c/16t ($323)
MEMORY -
CASE -
PSU:

$200 RANGE GPU
Intel Arc A750 (500W PSU recommended), Arc A580, or Radeon RX 6650 XT (500W PSU)

CORE COMPONENT UPGRADES (CPU/Motherboard/Memory)
Intel LGA 1700 - lowest price ~$390
CPU Options:
MOTHERBOARD:
MEMORY:

AM5 - lowest price ~$510
CPU Options:
MOTHERBOARD:
MEMORY:

GPU UPGRADES:
$500 range -
Radeon RX 7800 XT (700W PSU recommended) or RTX 4070
$300 range -
Radeon RX 6700 XT (650W PSU) or Intel Arc A770 16GB (550W PSU)

MORE SSDs:

OTHER PARTS YOU MIGHT NEED
CPU Cooler:
Gaming Monitors:
2560x1440 144Hz+ Gaming Monitors in the $200-$300 range
Ultrawide - $325 (was $430-$450) - GIGABYTE M34WQ 34" 144Hz

► TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Hardware - Build of the Month Testing
1:27 My $700 Build, General Notes, Temps
3:20 Arc A750 vs Radeon RX 6650 XT - Spec Comparison, Power Draw, Test Hardware
4:06 3DMark Time Spy Extreme
4:45 3DMark Port Royal
4:57 Far Cry 6
5:30 Shadow of the Tomb Raider
6:16 Cyberpunk 2077
6:51 Dirt 5
7:11 Doom Eternal (side by side)
8:16 Starfield (side by side)
8:56 Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (side by side)
9:41 Overall Gaming Benchmark Results
11:08 Conclusion and Closing Thoughts

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Paul's Hardware
P.O. Box 4325
Diamond Bar, CA 91765

► Edited by Joe Aguilar - ShaostylePostProductions

[watersMO]

Arc's performance journey since pre-launch has been truly amazing. Hats off to the driver team.

[---pzyh]

Further evidence Paul understands the PC building audience better than any other tech media member

[b.]

Hey Paul. As someone who truly does like MSFS2020, I sincerely appreciate you including it within your test-suite. Although I'm not look to upgrade my current rig (5700xt) I'm still glad to see it included. Keep up the good work.

[dandaly]

TY for including MSFS in the game suite!

[dragonknight]

I've used the A750 and like it. They are really getting better all the time at a breakneck pace to boot. But at the end of the day, I like AMD and am running an Asrock Challenger 6650XT, I nabbed it for $220 from Microcenter last week. Great card, no doubt. Honestly, you can't go wrong with either one so go for the cheapest option when buying. Happy Turky Day to you and yours Paul and Joe, try not to explode afterwards, eh? We need you 😂❤

[CubbyTech]

Thanks for the review. Building my next 10-year gaming rig, going w/ 7600x CPU (for now), and likely 6700 XT as it's as much as I'm comfortable spending. Team Red all the way.

[SilverKnight]

I own an Arc a750. The drivers have improved a great deal even in the month and a half that I've had it--but yeah, the drivers and optimizations have a loooong way to go. Some games, especially older ones, play at FPS rates far below what something in the Arc's weight class should be able to achieve. The raw potential power of the a750 still makes it a compelling buy for me, and I'm hoping/expecting that there will be even more improvements in the future. For the moment, though, the 6650XT is a much safer bet, since its a more stable product.

But I will say, if you like to tinker, you're okay with waiting a bit for the software to catch up to the hardware, and you want to support a third party to stick it to Nvidia (and scare AMD into actually pricing their products competitively), then the a750 is a great buy.

Oh, and AV1 encoding on the cheap. AV1 is nice. nice.

[Dakka_Dave]

Yes, thank you. This was helpful. I'm building my first PC for gaming, streaming, and simple editing. I don't have a huge budget, and was already looking at the exact combo with the 6650xt, and both the upgrades you mentioned. I'm sold. With current prices my build comes out to $750. Thanks again, Paul. Already a big fan so I was stoked you had a video about my combo.

[Spartan]

I have a 6650 xt so I'll vote that lol. But I do like Arc and hope they succeed.

[plbum]

Why not enable all options of both cards? This way to see what the bells and whistles of both cards have to offer. Test the cards how you would set them up. As if this was your only card and you want to get the best proformas out of the card. Something different to the same old basic benchmarks.

[ignaciojaramillo]

Great video! I have the 6650 XT paired with Intel's Core i3 12100F, strictly for 1080p, non-ray tracing gaming and it performs like a champion. This combo will give you no issues with Horizon Zero Dawn, as was mentioned on the video (120 fps avg according to Radeon's Adrenaline).

[alanharris]

Thanks for using MSFS2020 in your tests! I’m starting to put a build together for 4K resolution aiming for a steady 60Hz at ultra in MSFS2020 hopefully without using frame gen

[varsoth]

I've bought my a750 a week ago, since it's price started climbing in my country. It was still about 40 to 60$ cheaper than the fx7600, and I really wanted the hardware encoder for productivity reasons. I also have quite an aging system with AM4 and PCI3, so having 16 physical lanes mattered a lot too. I'm really happy with the card, especially that it's performance in older games wouldn't really bother me on linux anyway because of DXVK being the default method here. I do have to confirm that coil whine seems to affect all of them, my a750 almost gave me a heart attack in some games until I nervously scrambled to turn vsync on. I'm not sure if it behaves like that with every third party version, as I have the Intel "Limited edition" too.

[edue_mrb]

Huh, thanks for testing Flight Simulator. That's a game I like!

[toothytube]

Weird coincidence, I just purchased one of these PowerColor Hellhound RX 6650xt GPU's for my Ryzen 5 5600 "budget build" that already included the Lexar NM790 SSD that sponsored your video. I also noticed that I went with both of your "top-two" upgrades, going with 32GB of T-Force Vulcan 3600 RAM and a Vetroo V5 air cooler. I also upgraded that ThermalTake GXU PSU to the semi-modular 750W ThermalTake Smart BM3 PSU, because it was on sale for only $5 more & I much prefer the semi-modular flat cable layout.

[josejuanandrade]

Paul, thanks for testing Microsoft Flight Simulator. It's a game i like! 👍

[GolfJulietBravo]

Been playing with the idea of building a new system around my existing 3060ti with the thought of upgrading the GPU within the next year. Thanks Paul! Always looking out for us "bang for your buck" practical folk! Really appreciate it 🤘

[primaltempest]

Let's not forget, this is Intel's 1st gen graphics card vs RDNA 2nd gen and that the Intel drivers are still being worked on. I think Intel is going to be a huge competitor in the GPU space.

[OG_Gamers_Live]

I've been long term testing the ASrock phantom gaming Arc a770 oc card even pulled out my 3090 T.I and ran the Arc in its place for a month. Currently running the Arc a770 in an old (6th gen) intel build its a great card that punch's well above its class even giving the 4060 T.I a run for its money and beating it in everything except ray tracing. And I don't have a need for ray tracing

[Jasontyo]

love to see a '$20" tower cooler like an ak120 thrown in