The Cards

Here they are, the Arc "Alchemist" A770 Limited Edition and Arc A750! Both cards are nearly identical in appearance when powered down, but the A770 is a whole different beast when installed (which we'll show you in our main review). It has an elaborate set of addressable RGB LEDs, with as many as 90 diodes lining the top, the backplate, the brand sign, and the fan intakes.


You can tell the A770 apart with a little rubber grommet next to the power connectors, which has that proprietary USB 2.0 connection to your motherboard. You need that connection for Arc Control software to interface with the RGB setup. This is a primitive way of controlling RGB on video cards, NVIDIA and AMD use I2C links from the GPU to an RGB controller on the card; and expose this device via the drivers to any custom software the AIB wants to bundle. Both cards come with an identical set of power connectors—a combination of 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe. This configuration is good for up to 300 W of power.


Display connectors on both cards include sets of three DisplayPort 2.0 and one HDMI 2.1. The card supports up to two 8K @ 60 Hz with HDR displays; or up to four 4K @ 120 Hz with HDR displays.


While the GPU natively supports an HDMI 2.0b connection, the reference-design card uses a PCON (protocol converter) chip to convert one of the DisplayPorts to an HDMI 2.1. This PCON is optional for custom-design cards, and AIBs can opt not to use it (wire out the native HDMI 2.0b). HDMI 2.1 is needed for fancy resolutions like 8K + HDR (10 bpc color), or 4K with a high refresh-rate.


The cards are 26.7 cm long, 10 cm tall. Both are strictly 2-slot cards. Intel has shown off their disassembly shots.


The A770 Limited Edition weighs 1.087 kg, while the A750 is a touch lighter at 1.062 kg. The weight difference is from the RGB lighting setup on the A770.


The card features an industry-standard PCI-Express 4.0 x16 bus interface. Intel is pretty vocal that you need PCI resizable-BAR enabled for this card to perform as advertised, and that you should avoid buying Arc "Alchemist" graphics cards altogether if your system lacks resizable-BAR.

Disassembled

We decided not to disassemble the cards for this article. We still haven't finished our performance testing, and want to keep our cards virgin until the final few hours before we can post the performance reviews. This is a brand new architecture, we're in uncharted territory, so we'd rather be in a position to re-test anything we want till the very last moment. We'd also want to be ready if there are any big software-level gotchas and Intel sends out new drivers or even new BIOS. Disassembling the cards would affect our ability to do this, because different thermals will affect the cards' boosting behavior. But fret not, Intel already disassembled the A770 Limited Edition in its marketing, here's what to expect: