Gigabyte Quietly Starts Shipping Intel Arc Graphics Cards
Gigabyte now uses GPUs from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia.
Gigabyte has quietly started to ship its Intel Arc graphics cards. Initially, GIgabyte will offer custom-designed Arc A310 and Arc A380 models for entry-level systems, though the manufacturer could eventually produce more advanced Arc A700-series products. The Intel Arc A380 and A770 16GB currently rank among the best graphics cards, based largely on their price to performance ratio and video features — you can also see how they stack up in our GPU benchmarks hierarchy. For now, Gigabyte’s Arc graphics cards appear to only be available in Russia and Kazakhstan.
Gigabyte currently has three graphics boards in its Intel Arc fleet: the Arc A310 WindForce 4GB with a dual-fan cooling system that will fit into compact PCs, the Arc A380 WindForce 6GB with the same dual-fan cooler, and the factory-overclocked Arc A380 Gaming OC 6GB with up to 2.45 GHz clocks and a huge triple-fan cooler that resembles those used on high-end graphics cards. Both Arc A380 boards feature an additional six-pin auxiliary PCIe power connector, potentially allowing overclocks beyond their original clocks.
Gigabyte’s Arc graphics cards cost between $141 and $193 without sales tax, depending on the model, which is more or less in line with prices for Intel’s Arc A380 in the USA(opens in new tab).
These three boards aren’t listed at Gigabyte’s official website yet, but they’re available in stores like Citilink, DNS, Rino, and a number of others in Russia and Kazakhstan. It’s pretty surprising that Gigabyte only sells its Intel Arc graphics boards in Russia and Kazakhstan, as these are relatively small but competitive markets.
Perhaps the company is waiting to roll-out Arc A750 and Arc A770 offerings before addressing more demanding markets. If Gigabyte is indeed serious about using Intel’s Arc GPUs, it should start selling Arc A750 and Arc A770 in the U.S. as currently such boards are only available from Intel, ASRock, and Acer here, so another supplier could find itself in a good position.
It’s also possible that Gigabyte doesn’t want to upset its current relationship with AMD and Nvidia to ensure it has enough GPU allocation from them. There’s also a question of how much demand there is for Intel’s Arc products and the margins on those cards.
In any case, now that Gigabyte’s shipping Intel Arc add-in-boards, the company officially becomes the only company to offer solutions from all three of the large GPU companies. That’s a big deal, for Gigabyte as well as Intel Arc.