Sparkle Intel Arc A310 ECO, 4GB GDDR6, 50W TBP, Low-Profile, Single Fan, Single Slot, HDMI x1, Mini DisplayPort x2, SA310L-4G

I purchased this as a dedicated hardware transcoding GPU for a rack mount server, it requires no external power, fits in a 2U case, comes with both full size and low profile brackets, but swapping them requires a little creativity as the plastic shroud covers the upper screw. Installation is easy as no external power needs to be connected. Out of the box, the cards firmware contains a bug that causes the fan to constantly spin up for a few seconds, this is fixed by installing the Intel GPU drivers under Windows which also upgrades the firmware during install. After that, it runs quietly and fulfils that role perfectly and runs cool, the fan is barely noticeable, even at full chat.While it was in a windows environment, I ran 3D Mark, being a 4GB card it’s clearly going to struggle, so had to drop to the basic benchmarking test, 3D Mark predicted FPS results on 1080 High:Fortnight 180+Battle Field V 55+Apex Legends 110+GTA V 145+,Red Dead Redemption 2 35+Obviously those are just guide numbers, but for a basic card at 1080p, it looks like Arc has some decent performance potential. It handles transcoding multiple streams with ease, unlike NVIDIA, no artificial session limit on transcodes, the only concern is 4GB VRAM, but that is more than enough for over a dozen H264/H265 transcodes from 1080 down to whatever. If you need more, then choose a card with extra VRAM.Is it good value? That depends on your needs. For gaming at 1080, I would pay a little more and go Arc 570/580, at 1080 they are significantly more capable. If you just need to add a low power, quiet GPU for transcoding duties with AV1 support for the future, it’s the cheapest and arguably best option, also ideal if you stream and want to hardware encode in real time without hitting your main GPU’s resources.

Needed a GPU for my Jellyfin server, this one does the job absolutely fine for a few clients. Great value for money, decoding done properly at a low price-point. Looks great, fits nice in my mid-tower server and the speed is great. Temps are nice, unless you run it to the max & depends on your environment but for me it sits very nice

One star deducted for its lack of Blu-ray and 4K hardware playback, aka it will not play a disk with Cyberlink Software. If this is not an issue for you then it's streaming of HD and UHD content on a older generation machine's is flawless. Comes with 2x mini DP out and one HDMI, I found the HDMI to be a bit temperamental.Ever wanted to get more mileage from am older generation i5 for some light gaming and streaming 1080p HD and 4K video? This has you covered 💯. Don't expect miracles, but I was impressed with it's performance at this price pointUse it for your plex server!Use it to stream your family HD and UHD videos.Use it to finally play Half-life 2 😉.Small/ slim profile allows it to fit into a slim PC. Comes attached with the larger bracket. Slimline case one is included but it's tricky to remove the top screw as the cover/ cooling mounting is obstructive.

As many people would guess this I did not get for gaming but for encoding/decoding and transcoding for a jellyfin setup! And i have to say since i have an x series cpu with no igpu this takes a huuge load off my cpu, it is constantly processing 3 1080p feeds from cameras as well as can easily transcode 4k streams to my tv and devices even at the same time!Easy to install great packaging really, has a half height side you can install if required for low profile casesDraws about 45W or so most of the time, and some people mentioned it being loud? Well no issues with that for me in a 4U chassis almost cant even hear it. My cpu fan is louder than this tiny fan.Works wonderfully with jellyfin and can transcode to av1! Space savings here we go! Specific linux kernel required for drivers but the intel drivers are stable as it can be, no crashes or hiccups yet!

These cards are exceptional, offering outstanding performance for applications like Unraid and Plex, as well as for various desktop tasks. They possess the power to handle demanding workloads while maintaining an efficient balance, ensuring they don't consume excessive energy or generate significant heat. This makes them an ideal choice for users seeking high capability without sacrificing thermal management.

So I used this for my Plex server on Truenas Scale, and the fan is constantly revving, I took it out and updated it via Windows to the latest firmware and still, the fan noise persists. I decided to return it as the noise is too much when working next to the server.

As other reviews have mentioned, this card seems to have a broken firmware/VBIOS which results in the fans constantly revving up and down, making a very annoying noise. I've experienced this on Windows 11 with the latest drivers as of February 2025. Nothing you can change in the Intel Graphics Software, including custom fan curves, seems to make any difference to this behaviour.I purchased this card for testing purposes with AV1 encoding so it's not a deal-breaker for me, but if I had it in a machine which was switched on all the time I would absolutely be returning it.

For the price, it works very well for video transcoding in Jellyfin on Linux.