Intel confirms that the Arc A770 is the company's Arc A-Series flagship
Published: 18th July 2022 | Source: Ryan Shrout - Intel | Author: Mark Campbell
No, Intel doesn't plan to release an Arc A780 graphics card
Intel's head of Graphics Marketing, Ryan Shrout, has confirmed that the company has no plans to launch an Arc A780 graphics card, revealing that such a GPU was never planned.
Previously, Intel's Arc A780 graphics card was rumoured to be Intel's Arc A-series flagship, with that rumour gaining traction when Intel revealed their "Limited Edition" Arc desktop graphics card. Now, we know that that limited edition graphics card was an Arc A770.
Now we know that Intel's "Limited Edition" Arc GPU designs are Intel's reference design GPU models, offering users dual-fan heatsinks, and RGB lighting. These GPU models should be considered as equivalents to Intel's Founders Edition GPU models or AMD's "Made by AMD" RX 6000 series graphics cards.
What does this mean for Intel?
Officially, Intel has teased that their Arc A770/750 graphics cards can deliver RTX 3060 series performance levels, besting Nvidia's mid-range offering in some popular games. That said, early reviews of these graphics cards reported driver issues, signalling that Intel's GPU software is not as mature as AMD's or Nvidia's.
Right now, it looks like Intel will not be able to deliver an Arc A-series graphics card that can best Nvidia's RTX 3070/RTX 3070 Ti, and that places Intel in a poor position. Nvidia's RTX 3070 is not their strongest graphics card, and with Nvidia's RTX 40 series on the horizon, the gap between Intel and Nvidia will only get wider. Intel still has a lot of catching up to do before they can call themselves a real competitor to AMD and Nvidia within the GPU market.
Intel are likely to launch their Arc A-series of graphics cards within the next few months. Unfortunately for them, market conditions are not great for a mid-range GPU launch. Graphics cards are currently overstocked at retailers, and consumers have little reason to buy from Intel instead of AMD or Nvidia. Unless Intel has very low pricing for its graphics cards, it is hard to see Intel's Arc A-series selling well outside of the OEM/SI market.
You can join the discussion on Intel's Arc A780 never being planned on the OC3D Forums .