The intel arc a370m is Intel's first discrete GPU for laptops. It uses the same architecture as their high-end Arc Alchemist GPU, but with lower power limits and fewer execution units (96 EUs) than the previous generation Iris Xe iGPU. It can also be used with mobile CPUs like the 12th generation i5 and i7 G-series, which makes it popular in consumer laptops.
The new iGPU has some impressive features, including Hyper Encode and AI-Enabled Editing. It's also capable of handling a wide range of media formats, including the newly-adopted AV1 standard for 4K video.
In synthetic benchmarks, the iGPU does well enough to keep up with Nvidia's GTX 1060 in some games. However, the real-world performance varies wildly depending on the game and graphics settings used. As Forbes reports, the iGPU performs better than a comparable Nvidia card in some tests and worse in others.
It's also worth noting that the iGPU's performance is highly dependent on platform drivers and software. That's not an unusual observation, but it means the iGPU's performance may fluctuate significantly between different notebooks.
For example, in their review of the Dell XPS 15, Forbes compares the reference laptop's iGPU with an RTX 3050-equipped model from last year and finds that the latter is more powerful. In a test using Handbrake to encode video with the AV1 setting, the reference laptop running an iGPU with the ARC A370M pulled in 31W while the RTX 3050-equipped model used 50W.