Friday, September 30th 2022

Acer Announces Entry Into Discrete GPU Market with Intel Arc A770

PC hardware specialist Acer today on Twitter announced its official entry into the discrete GPU market with its own-brand Intel Arc GPUs. The company will be pulling its gaming-oriented Predator branding for the launch of its very own Intel Arc A770, the Predator BiFrost. Despite going in with the newest discrete GPU manufacturer, Acer's attempt at taking on the thin-margin discrete GPU field marks an interesting entry - at least from a design standpoint. The new Arc A770 BiFrost features an asymmetrical dual-fan setup peppered with RGB lighting and industrial detailing throughout in what seems to be a semi-blower-type design. The card's design is somewhat reminiscent of NVIDIA's take on its Founder Editions, with a number of visible screws that help break up the visual continuity. It also sports a dual 8-pin power delivery circuit - beefier than Intel's own take on the Arc A770, which we've just unboxed.

Best-known for its pre-constructed desktops, laptops, and monitors, Acer is now seemingly looking to dip its toes into the discrete GPU market. Unfortunately, Acer's announcement is bereft of details; there's only a render of the card and no actual specifications on whether the company will be offering the 8 GB version Arc A770, its 16 GB cousin, or both. It's also unknown whether the company is planning on extending its reach towards other Arc models or even other manufacturers such as AMD and NVIDIA, but it does make sense that it's forging ahead with a single manufacturer first.
GPUs are some of the more complex electronics assemblies available on personal computers, and the company is sure to test its waters first instead of fully diving into the manufacturing space. We'd still expect the company to take the ASUS/Gigabyte road of offering cards from various manufacturers instead of just one - its Predator branding could certainly support that effort. It seems that some companies are stepping up to fill the GPU space further, even as others - like GPU-darling EVGA - throw their proverbial towels.
Sources: Acer, via Tom's Hardware
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40 Comments on Acer Announces Entry Into Discrete GPU Market with Intel Arc A770

#26
LabRat 891
maxflyIt almost looks like they're trying to create a push/pull with the open fan pushing into the covered/exhaust?
Hmmm
Thought the same thing.

While 'blower' fans do develop a lot more static pressure v. 'axial' fans, they do not move nearly as much raw volume.
I'm thinking the blower is for 'overcoming resistance' of the dense fin stack, and the axial is the 'volume mover'. The axial would be pushing low(er)-pressure(ized) axial-motviated air into the 'low(est) pressure zone' created by the blower.
Low Pressure hot air is also low density, meaning less heat-capacity. Merely 'densifying' the blower's airstream may have a non-negligible positive effect on cooling.

Regardless, these cards are quite intriguing without apparent 'extreme design' choices (like nvidia's hyperdense PCBs and very complex geometry coolers. ...Looking forward to teardowns and reviews, even if they're not the best performers.
Posted on Reply
#27
AusWolf
EVGA quits the business, Acer enters with Intel dGPUs. If someone said to me 5 years ago that this was going to happen, I would have rolled on the floor laughing.
Posted on Reply
#28
xBruce88x
I wonder if they thought, hey most other expansion cards are short. Let's put a blower there in case another card is next to the gpu. We'll put a more silent but cool looking fan in back. Make the rear fan stay on low rpm and have the blower only ramp up when the card gets hot
Posted on Reply
#29
Bzuco
Acer Arc Alchemist
A____A___A gaming :D
Posted on Reply
#31
erocker
*
The cooler looks good! But, wrong. Either way, it's intersesting I want to see a review!
Posted on Reply
#32
Jimmy_
like............ummm............looks interesting but a bit doubtful
Posted on Reply
#33
lexluthermiester
erockerThe cooler looks good! But, wrong. Either way, it's intersesting I want to see a review!
I don't wish to sound rude, but you didn't use the reply function, who are you responding to?
Posted on Reply
#34
Ruru
S.T.A.R.S.
_JP_A blower and an axial??
I guess Acer just thought something like:
"What has nobody ever thought of combining to look cool but have dubious performance gains?"

So you now have none of the cooling advantage and all of the noise!

Wait, that was too negative.

Now you can have both "Whoosh" and "Low pitch whining" in your gaming rig for the ultimate factory floor feeling!
I can see that fan implemention being actually pretty clever. The axial fan cools the heatsink and the radial fan pushes the heat out of the case.
Posted on Reply
#35
InVasMani
Looks like a mixture of a bit more sound in exchange for more heat exhausted outside the case. At least that's impression I get, but never underestimate bad designs it could be a even louder screamer and more people hating blower fans because they don't know how to optimize a proper fan curve.
Posted on Reply
#36
fluxc0d3r
I am a big fan of Acer Predator, their ram offers both good price and excellent performance.

I'm sure they got Chinese company BIWIN to build their GPU's using quality Samsung memory.
Posted on Reply
#37
GunShot
fluxc0d3rI am a big fan of Acer Predator, their ram offers both good price and excellent performance.

I'm sure they got Chinese company BIWIN to build their GPU's using quality Samsung memory.
Samsung and quality in the same sentence? Uhm... :kookoo:
Posted on Reply
#38
Count von Schwalbe
Nocturnus Moderatus
GunShotSamsung and quality in the same sentence? Uhm... :kookoo:
Samsung is S Korea. Cheap PCB with good memory.
Posted on Reply
#39
erocker
*
lexluthermiesterI don't wish to sound rude, but you didn't use the reply function, who are you responding to?
The article.
Posted on Reply
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