Intel Arc A750 Price Cut—Now Starts at $250

[btarunr]

Intel cut the baseline prices of its Arc A750 performance-segment graphics card. The card now starts at USD $249, down from its launch price of $289 for the first-party reference-design card. Among the handful custom-design board partners for the A750 are Acer, Gunnir, and ASRock. The A750 targets maxed-out AAA gaming at 1080p, although the card is capable of higher resolutions with the Intel XeSS performance enhancement.

Based on the 6 nm ACM-G10 silicon, the A750 is endowed with 3,584 unified shaders across 28 Xe Cores or 448 EUs, 224 TMUs, 112 ROPs, and 8 GB of 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory across the chip's full 256-bit wide memory interface (512 GB/s memory bandwidth). The card has a typical board power of 225 W, draws it from a combination of 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power connectors; and has modern display outputs that include HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 2.1. The Arc "Alchemist" family of GPUs meets the full DirectX 12 Ultimate feature-set, including real-time ray tracing. They also have regular driver updates with day-zero optimization for big game releases.



Many Thanks to TumbleGeorge for the tip.

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[Dristun]

Finally makes it competitive against rx6600. A770 also needs to go down to $299. AMD's game bundle for NA is stronger though, now that Intel has run out of CoD:MW2 and Ghostbusters codes.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

It's matching the RX 6600 non-XT.
Considering it's a relatively faster GPU at 1440p and up, the value proposition seems fine.

 

[bonehead123]

It's matching the RX 6600 non-XT.
Considering it's a relatively faster GPU at 1440p and up, the value proposition seems fine.

Spec-wise & on paper maybe, but their drivers still suk, so it will remain a no-buy for a lot of folks....

However, if they drop it to $199 AND fix the drivers, they can expect a much moar rapid acceptance, and perhaps grabbin a little market share from the other 2 money grubbers at the low-mid range

 

[wNotyarD]

"They also have regular driver updates with day-zero optimization for big game releases."

Do they really?

 

[Assimilator]

A770 also needs to go down to $299.

This.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Spec-wise & on paper maybe, but their drivers still suk, so it will remain a no-buy for a lot of folks....

However, if they drop it to $199 AND fix the drivers, they can expect a much moar rapid acceptance, and perhaps grabbin a little market share from the other 2 money grubbers at the low-mid range

I'm not sure their drivers suck. I've seen very positive reports lately.

Intel already has a clear advantage on raytracing performance over the 6600 and it's actually close to a 3060 Ti / RTX 2080.
Perhaps it's not realistic to expect Intel to start selling their 400mm^2 GPUs for $200, undercutting the closest competition by 25% in price despite showing better performance and features.

 

[Assimilator]

I'm not sure their drivers suck. I've seen very positive reports lately.

Yes. Very positive reports for the handful of current-generation games and benchmarks the drivers are optimised for. As soon as you step off that particular beaten path, everything goes out the window.

 

[Aretak]

I'm not sure their drivers suck. I've seen very positive reports lately.

Intel already has a clear advantage on raytracing performance over the 6600 and it's actually close to a 3060 Ti / RTX 2080.
Perhaps it's not realistic to expect Intel to start selling their 400mm^2 GPUs for $200, undercutting the closest competition by 25% in price despite showing better performance and features.

Their drivers are still an absolute train wreck when it comes to anything except the latest DX12/Vulkan releases. There are plenty of older games which still don't work at all on Arc yet. The selective implementation of DXVK to fix certain popular problem titles like CS:GO isn't some catch-all magic bullet, and wouldn't be even if they were using it for all games and not just certain hand-picked titles (everything else is still with the same D3D9On12 wrapper and its awful performance). In an absolute best case scenario that'd only bring it on par with Linux for gaming, though in reality DXVK has even more issues on Windows than it does on Linux. I don't encounter many gamers willing to even consider the idea of switching to Linux, so why would you want to turn your Windows system into a similar experience?

As for ray tracing, Arc's general performance is so low that it's basically irrelevant. You're not going to be doing much ray tracing on cards of this tier without destroying your image quality in some other way. And even then we're talking about the A770, not the A750 mentioned here. This is even less capable. As for "better features and performance", I assume you mean relative to AMD? Please, do go ahead an justify that comment. Arc gets battered outside of anything except its own lacklustre ray tracing performance, and Intel's drivers aren't even close to being close to as functional or feature-rich as AMD's, no matter what memes you might spout. As an Nvidia owner, no doubt, the primary hype men of Arc, hoping that one day it'll allow them to buy an Nvidia card as always, but for less money.

 

[sLowEnd]

I'm not sure their drivers suck. I've seen very positive reports lately.

Don't confuse "big improvements since launch" with "actually good now".
The launch drivers did not set a high bar at all.

LTT had a laundry list of issues with their month-long usage experience:

 

[lemonadesoda]

If Intel really want to sell the A750 rather than it being a proof of concept that they took to market - ie, that Intel can make a GPU, on their own architecture, and be performance competitive - then they really can't price it at the same performance/$ as nV and AMD. Intel just does not have brand value in GPU, has a history of dropping product lines, and has isnt known for outstanding best in class graphics drivers.

So is has to price far lower than their competitor's performance/$. It takes time to build trust in brand, and they seem to have forgotten that. You absolutely cannot equate CPU track record and brand loyalty in that market segment, and assume you can transfer it to a new GPU product line.

There is nothing amazing about A7xx. It's thirsty, not cutting edge performance, not industry-reliable drivers. It's good. But nothing special.

Drop those prices to $199 and $249 and maybe uninformed people will buy it on price, and informed people might buy it out of curiosity. At launch prices, even these new prices, I don't see it selling.

I really don't understand how Intel's ARC product managers think they can get away with pricing it so high before building that very important track record. It's kind of arrogant.

 

[sLowEnd]

If Intel really want to sell the A750 rather than it being a proof of concept that they took to market - ie, that Intel can make a GPU, on their own architecture, and be performance competitive - then they really can't price it at the same performance/$ as nV and AMD. Intel just does not have brand value in GPU, has a history of dropping product lines, and has isnt known for outstanding best in class graphics drivers.

So is has to price far lower than their competitor's performance/$. It takes time to build trust in brand, and they seem to have forgotten that. You absolutely cannot equate CPU track record and brand loyalty in that market segment, and assume you can transfer it to a new GPU product line.

There is nothing amazing about A7xx. It's thirsty, not cutting edge performance, not industry-reliable drivers. It's good. But nothing special.

Drop those prices to $199 and $249 and maybe uninformed people will buy it on price, and informed people might buy it out of curiosity. At launch prices, even these new prices, I don't see it selling.

I really don't understand how Intel's ARC product managers think they can get away with pricing it so high before building that very important track record. It's kind of arrogant.

I don't think it's necessarily all arrogance. The GPU die is pretty big (slightly larger than GA104, the RTX 3070's die), and the cards feature some things typically reserved for fancier SKUs like a vapor chamber cooler, fancy RGB lighting, and in the case of the A770, a very large amount of RAM for the price point.
If I had to venture a guess, Intel is barely making money on these Arc A700 cards, if at all.

 

[rruff]

Intel is barely making money on these Arc A700 cards, if at all.

They are not losing money per unit, but considering their past, current, and future investment.... ya, it will take years before the whole project is in the black.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

If Intel really want to sell the A750 rather than it being a proof of concept that they took to market - ie, that Intel can make a GPU, on their own architecture, and be performance competitive - then they really can't price it at the same performance/$ as nV and AMD. Intel just does not have brand value in GPU, has a history of dropping product lines, and has isnt known for outstanding best in class graphics drivers.

So is has to price far lower than their competitor's performance/$. It takes time to build trust in brand, and they seem to have forgotten that. You absolutely cannot equate CPU track record and brand loyalty in that market segment, and assume you can transfer it to a new GPU product line.

There is nothing amazing about A7xx. It's thirsty, not cutting edge performance, not industry-reliable drivers. It's good. But nothing special.

Drop those prices to $199 and $249 and maybe uninformed people will buy it on price, and informed people might buy it out of curiosity. At launch prices, even these new prices, I don't see it selling.

I really don't understand how Intel's ARC product managers think they can get away with pricing it so high before building that very important track record. It's kind of arrogant.

Even at current prices, these have to be selling for losses, probably big losses. Consider how long it took them to get to a retail product, the size and complexity of the design, and the idea that these were probably intended to be high-end products 2 years ago. To make it even worse, these aren’t going to sell in high volume, and their reputation is going to depend on early adopters staying committed.

These remind me very much of Surface RT. Well-intentioned, and perhaps even a bit innovative, but fundamentally flawed due to hardware and software limitations, with the expectation that updated software would make it better over time. Well, it just won’t happen. By the time these get to a decent state—if that even is achievable, the industry will have already moved on. MS cut prices and took a huge loss on Surface RT. The question is, how long is Intel willing to play this game when the tech forecast is looking pretty gloomy. Heavily unprofitable products rarely survive these times.

 

[rruff]

Even at current prices, these have to be selling for losses, probably big losses. Consider how long it took them to get to a retail product, the size and complexity of the design, and the idea that these were probably intended to be high-end products 2 years ago. To make it even worse, these aren’t going to sell in high volume, and their reputation is going to depend on early adopters staying committed.

Seems likely that they planned on a long slog and significant investment. I doubt they will give up now, when they are having some success.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

New prices is very affordable. Crying against drivers is too fancy based. Yes there is something wrong with written for ready from start but this I attribute this to overdoing by the author of the news.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Fire sell seems a tad desperate for a proven meager item.

 

[Assimilator]

I don't think it's necessarily all arrogance. The GPU die is pretty big (slightly larger than GA104, the RTX 3070's die), and the cards feature some things typically reserved for fancier SKUs like a vapor chamber cooler, fancy RGB lighting, and in the case of the A770, a very large amount of RAM for the price point.
If I had to venture a guess, Intel is barely making money on these Arc A700 cards, if at all.

Of course it's arrogance. Basic, as in grade-school, economics tells you that if you're entering a highly competitive field with a new product, and that product isn't competitive, and you want it to succeed, then the only option you have is to introduce it at a price waaay below the competition. That gets you market share, which gets you the momentum to allow you to start slowly raising your prices and improving the next generation, and you continue this iterative process until your performance and pricing is competitive. This is what AMD did with Zen, and they were coming into market with a product that was competitive on performance!

Intel hasn't done that; they launched their new product at a price higher than its far superior competition. Only now, months after the launch and consumer interest has faded, are they cutting the price - and not to a level where it's a must-buy, but to where it arguably should have been on launch day. But now all the momentum they could've had with a cheap launch is gone, so the fact that they're cutting the price is mostly irrelevant. And why these missteps? Because Intel believes its GPUs are worth what they want to charge for them, while the market as a whole has made it clear this is incorrect.

If that isn't arrogance on Intel's part, I don't know what is.

 

[bonehead123]

Well, I'm sure glad I'm not patsyboy, stressin out about how to pay for my next jet/beachhouse/limo and all that, hehehehe

 

[watzupken]

I feel Intel should have priced this low to begin with. The GPUs are decent, but there are 2 problems,
1. Driver issue/ game optimisation at launch is bad. Fine wine is nice to have in my opinion, but people set a price expectation based on what they get when they buy it now, not what they think they will get in the future,

2. ARC got released pretty much about the same time as the launch of Ada Lovelace from Nvidia. It just got off to a very bad start. It is like you are expecting to race your classmate in a 100m sprint, only to find Usain Bolt being your competitor. Granted the RTX 4090 cost a lot more than the best that Intel has to offer, but the performance improvement over Ampere just put out any interest in the ARC GPUs. Intel is too late in the game.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Irony is some people bought it at release prices
Did retailers/ Intel refund the difference yet I'm thinking not.

 

[rruff]

Intel is too late in the game.

They fail to compete about the same way that AMD fails against Nvidia. AMD can still sell cards though, because they price them a little cheaper/FPS. So can Intel.

It's a decent first effort for gaming if the latest drivers deliver. And it's excellent for video processing, if you're into that.

 

[Ayhamb99]

Gamers Nexus retested the A770 and A750 with the new driver, seems like the performance increase claims made by Intel are in cases either correct or not so much, but the A750 and A770 are seeing some pretty big performance gains specially in Siege and CSGO where the launch day performance there was pretty bad