Intel is pushing ahead with its planned launch for the Intel Arc A7 desktop graphics cards, confirming pricing for the Arc A750 and A770 Limited Edition (LE), having already confirmed the price and release date for the regular A770.
While the latter card sits in the middle at $329, the LE variant – which sports an upgraded 16GB of VRAM, compared to the regular model’s 8GB – will cost $349, while the A750 comes in at a very budget-friendly $289 MSRP. There’s an LE version of the A750 as well, but the differences appear to only be cosmetic. (Pricing and availability for these cards outside the US is yet to be confirmed.)
Intel is comparing the A770 to Nvidia’s RTX 3060 Ti, and the A750 to the RTX 3060, and performance comparisons look great so far – especially considering that the Arc cards are significantly cheaper than similar offerings from both Nvidia and AMD – but of course, we’ll reserve judgment until we can test them ourselves.
The Limited Edition models are essentially the same thing as Nvidia’s ‘Founders Edition’ cards – manufactured and sold by Intel directly, with a sleek twin-fan design. The A770 LE will have RGB lighting, but the A750 apparently won’t, which is likely a move to keep the price down. It’s unclear whether the LE cards will actually be ‘limited’ per se; Intel hasn’t stated that they’ll only be making a set number of these GPUs.
Analysis: Intel’s pricing is so aggressive that Nvidia should be reconsidering
Intel’s certainly getting bold about Arc now, scheduling the launch of these cards on the same day (October 12) as Nvidia’s $1,599 flagship RTX 4090. That’s already set to be a busy day, with the Amazon Prime Early Access sale, Microsoft Surface reveal event, and Google Cloud event all taking place on the same day.
After Pat Gelsinger’s cheeky comments regarding the steep pricing of Nvidia’s new cards, and Team Green’s insistence that GPU prices aren’t going down any time soon, it looks like Intel is ready to go for the throat – and I couldn’t be happier about it, personally.
Competition breeds innovation, as they say, so Intel could be about to give the GPU market a much-needed kick up the backside when it comes to delivering competent gaming performance at a highly competitive price – assuming, of course, that the Arc cards do meet our expectations.
Nvidia is clearly planning on keeping its prices fairly high; we don’t know what lower-end cards it might have in store right now, like the RTX 4060, but it seems likely that we’re going to see generation price increases. Considering that these Arc cards are already cheaper than their RTX 3000-series equivalents, Nvidia is going to need to respond with price cuts if it wants to remain relevant in the budget space.
The war for the best graphics card will probably never end, but with Intel stepping into the fray, I reckon that the best budget GPU arena is about to get very interesting indeed. It’s almost shocking, given the terrible time Arc has had in development; I myself have been highly critical of it, but it finally looks like Team Blue is ready to do battle, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
