Intel Alchemist: Gaming desktop graphics card Arc A380 starts at 150 euros

In China, Intel has officially presented the Arc A380, the first discrete graphics card for the desktop. Launch partner is Gunnir, who also presents an adapted custom design that offers slightly higher clock rates with a higher TDP. Prices start at 1,030 yuan, the equivalent of just under 150 euros.

As announced, China is making the start

Various Chinese media have been following the start of Intel's first discrete appearance with graphics cards in the desktop for years. The manufacturer had announced that the launch of the desktop versions, which had been postponed several times, would first take place in China.

Intel Arc A380 AMD Radeon RX 6400 Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Node TSMC N6 TSMC N6 Samsung 8 nm TSMC 12 nm Architecture Alchemist RDNA 2 Ampere Turing GPU DG2-128EU Navi 24 GA106 TU116 FP32 ALUs 1024 768 1280 1536 Memory 6GB GDDR6
@96-bit (192GB/s) 4GB GDDR6
@64-bit (144GB/s) 8GB GDDR6
@128- bit (224 GB/s) 6 GB GDDR6
@192-bit (288 GB/s) TDP/TBP 75 watts 53 watts 130 watts 120 watts

There, too, OEMs should primarily install the graphics cards for the time being, although Gunnir also presents a custom solution with a little more power. But Intel also names Acer, Asus, Gigabyte, HP, and MSI as partners who are expected to launch cards in China over the course of the summer.

The Intel Arc A380 is technically related to the Arc A370M, which was introduced in the notebook months ago and has so far only rarely been found on the market. 8 Xe cores clock at up to 2,000 MHz with a TDP of 75 watts but almost 500 MHz higher and there is 6 GB GDDR6 instead of 4 GB in the notebook – the memory interface is accordingly 96 instead of 64 bits wide.

The target is 1080p gaming with high performance, which Intel explains in a 10-minute video on Weibo with technical details.

Intel names Radeon RX 6400 as opponent

Intel has chosen the AMD Radeon RX 6400 as an opponent. As is well known, this suffers from the small 4 GB memory, Intel's own measurements promise around 25 percent higher performance per yuan – Intel does not provide a direct comparison of the FPS.

In the end What remains, however, is the driver question, which has been unresolved for weeks, months and even years, and which once again gave a rather inglorious picture.

It won't stay with the reference design. As one of the first partners, Gunnir is also presenting a custom solution with dual fans, thanks to the TDP increase to 92 watts, the card is to be provided with a clock speed of up to 2,450 MHz.

Larger discrete desktop graphics cards are to follow later in the summer/year. A first notebook already provided a foretaste, but the differences will be a little wider on the desktop. Only then will it be finally clear what Intel Arc can really do in the first generation.