Intel
Intel’s highest-end graphics card lineup is approaching its retail launch, and that means we’re getting more answers to crucial market questions of prices, launch dates, performance, and availability. Today, Intel answered more of those A700-series GPU questions, and they’re paired with claims that every card in the Arc A700 series punches back at Nvidia’s 18-month-old RTX 3060.
After announcing a $329 price for its A770 GPU earlier this week, Intel clarified it would launch three A700 series products on October 12: The aforementioned Arc A770 for $329, which sports 8GB of GDDR6 memory; an additional Arc A770 Limited Edition for $349, which jumps up to 16GB of GDDR6 at slightly higher memory bandwidth and otherwise sports otherwise identical specs; and the slightly weaker A750 Limited Edition for $289.
Intel
If you missed the memo on that sub-$300 GPU when it was announced, the A750 LE is essentially a binned version of the A770’s chipset with 87.5 percent of the shading units and ray tracing (RT) units turned on, along with an ever-so-slightly downclocked boost clock (2.05 GHz, compared to 2.1 GHz on both A770 models).
Intel previously confirmed that new purchases of Arc A700 series GPUs made by January 2023 would come with a bundle of downloadable games and software, including this year’s remake of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Gotham Knights, and more.
Ahead of independent benchmarks, GPUs have a confusing “performance-per-dollar” metric
Intel
In a conference call with the press, Intel representatives declined to clarify initial shipment counts for its first three A700-series GPUs, other than to suggest low stock for the larger-memory A770 LE: “I suspect we’re going to sell out of that one very quickly,” Intel Graphics Fellow Tom Petersen told Ars. He was reluctant to clarify whether he expected early sellouts of Intel’s A700 GPUs, “We don’t know if we’re going to have a supply problem or a demand problem. I hope we have a demand problem.” He then confirmed that Intel plans to produce its own in-house GPU models over time, instead of cutting off “LE” production while demand might still exist.
Unfortunately, Intel compounded the GPUs’ availability question by not confirming which add-in board (AIB) partners would be part of the A700 series’ October rollout. Petersen kicked that can down the road by suggesting those third-party GPU manufacturers will make their own announcements, then mentioned an interest in expanding its list of Arc-powered AIBs.
