Intel Arc A380 Upgrade as Add In card for AV1 encoding?

[Chaos Network]

Well its that time folks, ive been posting on here for help and suggestions for years now and im FINALLY ready to pull the trigger on some upgrades for the old gal. I know this is the GPU section but im still going to walk through the whole plan on my upgrade here and my reasonings for my picks. Below is a screenshot of my current config.

 

 

To start i mainly do gaming, streaming, & video editing with this computer.

This 3600x has treated me DAMN good over the years but its beginning to show its age and I could use a couple extra cores and higher clocks. My pick is a 5800x ($175 on amazon) with a new cooler for it as I dont think my 120mm aio i have had since ryzen first gen came out.

 

I plan to stick with this ram setup, its 4x8gb running at 3200, now 2 of the 2x8gb sticks are 3600, so if i messed with it enough i could probably get it all running at 3600.

 

I plan to throw an Intel Arc A380 in as a "supplemental" GPU strictly for AV1 video encoding so i notice less of a hit when im recording and streaming than i do with NVENC. That said I CANT find one. Amazon & newegg are all sold out, ebay is all obnoxiously overpriced, jawa has 1 but its a 4gb version and i feel that if im spending money on an add in gpu i should really get the better version of whatever card ive picked which ive found to be the 6gb version.

 

All of that said I cant find a 4gb a380 online anywhere, as far as i can tell they are ONLY available in 6gb. Are any of you able to sanity check me on this, because if true, im just going to snag the one on jawa. If not true are you able to point me in the direction of where i might be able to find an a380 thats in stock and not crazy overpriced?

[GuiltySpark_]

8 minutes ago, Chaos Network said:

5800x

Poor choice in 2025, imo. If you're going to spend on that platform, at least a 5700x3D to make it worthwhile. 

 

9 minutes ago, Chaos Network said:

I plan to throw an Intel Arc A380 in as a "supplemental" GPU strictly for AV1 video encoding

What services do you plan to use that accept AV1? I assume you mean for streaming.

 

10 minutes ago, Chaos Network said:

i could probably get it all running at 3600.

Unlikely to make much of a difference, don't stress over it. 

 

9 minutes ago, Chaos Network said:

so i notice less of a hit when im recording and streaming than i do with NVENC

Are you playing at 1080p? NVENC shouldn't be all that detrimental at that low of a resolution with a 2080Ti.

[Chaos Network]

20 minutes ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

Poor choice in 2025, imo. If you're going to spend on that platform, at least a 5700x3D to make it worthwhile. 

Chose that because upon my research the 5700x3d is just a worse binned 5800x with more 3d vcache and that wont benefit me that much. price is also a factor. dont really want to upgrade to 7th or 9th gen just because i have like a top tier am4 mobo and want to have it last as long as possible

 

20 minutes ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

What services do you plan to use that accept AV1? I assume you mean for streaming.

Youtube, and OBS is working with twitch to get them to accept av1 as well based on my research

 

20 minutes ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

Unlikely to make much of a difference, don't stress over it. 

thats basically what i figured

 

20 minutes ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

Are you playing at 1080p? NVENC shouldn't be all that detrimental at that low of a resolution with a 2080Ti.

playing and streaming at 1080p. when im just recording i notice like 1-5 fps difference, but when im streaming its closer to 20-30 and honestly i struggle to hit the refresh rate of my monitor (144) with this card even just playing modern titles (cod, rivals, helldivers). I do think its a heat issue as i am almost always like pegged at 80c whenever a game is running, so im also ordering some thermal paste and pads to try to breathe some fresh life into the card.

[GuiltySpark_]

2 minutes ago, Chaos Network said:

Chose that because upon my research the 5700x3d is just a worse binned 5800x with more 3d vcache and that wont benefit me that much.

I'm not sure what research you're doing but 5700x3D/5800x3D (effectively the same) are a considerable jump from a 3600 in games. My old system has a 5800x (bought new in 2020) and its still on my desk here. I wouldn't suggest that to anyone at this point in time. Only the x3D parts really make any sense this late in the platforms life cycle. 

 

5 minutes ago, Chaos Network said:

pegged at 80c whenever a game is running

Start paying attention to clockspeed along with temp, its likely throttling and could be a major contributor to performance.

 

[Chaos Network]

3 minutes ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

I'm not sure what research you're doing but 5700x3D/5800x3D (effectively the same) are a considerable jump from a 3600 in games. My old system has a 5800x (bought new in 2020) and its still on my desk here. I wouldn't suggest that to anyone at this point in time. Only the x3D parts really make any sense this late in the platforms life cycle. 

 

Start paying attention to clockspeed along with temp, its likely throttling and could be a major contributor to performance.

 

is that bit of performance really worth the $100 price difference?

[Bitter]

You can get a 5700X3D from 'overseas' for around $150 to $140 shipped, still. I have one, it was nearly brand new, with a few minutes of PBO tuning it hits and holds 4.1Ghz all core with good temps. I forget how many watts but it wasn't a lot, well under the 160W my 2700X does for the same clock speed and with considerably less fuss. Even runs DDR 3600 with 16-18-18 timings easily too. For the price to performance ratio it's a hard CPU to beat even if it is on a dead platform. A moderate performance 120MM AIO could keep the 5700X3D cooled no problem as could a Wraith Prism cooler.

 

My advice for RAM would be to either get it all the same speed or just run 2 sticks. Ryzen seems to be happiest with 2 sticks when it comes to getting it running at higher speeds but if you need max capacity it seems like you need to trade down speed for size. 3200 vs 3600 won't be a huge difference in performance for most things anyway.

[SorryBella]

3 hours ago, Chaos Network said:

as well based on my research

their dedicated fork that is only given to closed beta tester for Twitch "enhanced streaming" program and theyre still not planning to release it outside of that. From how you described it i really do think you should check if your streaming setting is on x264 (which is software, and thus straight to CPU), or youre on H.264 NVENC (which is hardware, using the built in NVENC encoder).

[Chaos Network]

5 hours ago, SorryBella said:

their dedicated fork that is only given to closed beta tester for Twitch "enhanced streaming" program and theyre still not planning to release it outside of that. From how you described it i really do think you should check if your streaming setting is on x264 (which is software, and thus straight to CPU), or youre on H.264 NVENC (which is hardware, using the built in NVENC encoder).

I have access to the "enhanced streaming" and i am on h264 nvenc in obs.

and yes i know twitch is capped at around 6k bits, i multistream to youtube using the aitum multistreaming plugin for obs. That plugin is set so the video is only encoded once then streamed to both platforms, so the only hit im getting from that is the extra strain on my internet.

[Chaos Network]

6 hours ago, Bitter said:

ou can get a 5700X3D from 'overseas' for around $150 to $140 shipped, still. I have one, it was nearly brand new, with a few minutes of PBO tuning it hits and holds 4.1Ghz all core with good temps.

my 3600x runs 4.5 on all cores with this 120mm aio, and thats literally just turning the bios "game switch" to 11. MSI Meg X570 Ace. literally took me 10 seconds to do and its stable, never had an issue with it. As of time of writing, i scored a 5800x on an ebay auction for $90 about 3 hours ago. fully tested as functioning according to the listing, with about 500,000 purchases and a crazy high seller rating. worst case i have ebay buyer protections.

[Brian McKee]

5900x is available on ebay for around 180-200 usd, cheaper if you're willing to risk it on a bent pin. It's probably what I'd go for if you're not going for an x3d chip. Also I'd just get 2 16gb sticks of DDR4, it's cheap and will be much faster to use dual channel.

 

Also yes an a380 would be a good option for an add in card for hardware encoding, even if not doing AV1. Intel's hardware encoding is second to none.