After previously announcing the price and release date for the standard A770, Intel is moving forward with its planned launch of the Intel Arc A7 desktop graphics cards by confirming pricing for the Arc A750 and A770 Limited Edition (LE).
The LE variant, which has an improved 16GB of VRAM instead of the ordinary model’s 8GB, will cost $349, while the A750 is priced at a fairly reasonable $289 MSRP. The latter card is in the middle at $329. The A750 also comes in an LE variant, however the differences seem to be minimal. (The cost and accessibility of these cards outside the US have not yet been determined.)
Performance comparisons between the A770 and the RTX 3060 Ti and A750 and the RTX 3060 look excellent so far, especially when you consider that the Arc cards are significantly less expensive than comparable offerings from both Nvidia and AMD. Of course, we’ll reserve final judgement until we have a chance to test them out for ourselves.
The Limited Edition variants, which are produced and marketed directly by Intel and have a stylish twin-fan design, are virtually the same as Nvidia’s “Founders Edition” cards. In order to keep the price low, it appears that the A750 will not include RGB illumination but the A770 LE will. Since Intel hasn’t specified that they’ll be producing a specific quantity of these GPUs, it’s unclear whether the LE cards will genuinely be “limited” in the traditional sense.
Analysis: Nvidia ought to think twice about investing in Intel because of its aggressive pricing.
By announcing the availability of these cards on the same day (October 12) as Nvidia’s flagship RTX 4090 for $1,599, Intel is undoubtedly becoming more daring with Arc. With the Microsoft Surface unveiling, the Google Cloud event, and the Amazon Prime Early Access sale all occurring on the same day, that day is already anticipated to be busy.
After Pat Gelsinger’s sarcastic remarks about how expensive Nvidia’s new cards are and Team Green’s conviction that GPU costs won’t be declining anytime soon, it appears that Intel is prepared to go for the throat, and I personally couldn’t be happier about it.
According to the adage that “competition fosters innovation,” Intel may soon offer the GPU market a much-needed kick in the rear when it comes to providing adequate gaming performance at a highly competitive price. Of course, this is presuming that the Arc cards live up to our expectations.
We don’t know what lower-end cards Nvidia might have in stock at the moment, like the RTX 4060, but it seems likely that we’ll see generation pricing rises. Nvidia is definitely trying to keep its prices rather high. Given that these Arc cards are already less expensive than their RTX 3000-series rivals, Nvidia will need to react by lowering its prices if it wants to continue competing in the low-cost market.
Although the battle for the greatest graphics card is likely to go on forever, I believe that the best budget GPU market is set to get very fascinating indeed now that Intel has entered the game. Given the terrible development experience Arc has had—I, too, have been very critical of it—almost it’s astonishing that Team Blue now appears to be prepared for war. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
