Intel’s entry into the graphics processor market is very good news for users. NVIDIA and AMD have shared it exclusively for many years, and that only two companies have such preeminence should worry us. Where is an extinct brand as appreciated by enthusiasts as 3dfx was in its day, whose most relevant technologies and a good part of its engineers were assimilated by NVIDIA in the year 2000.
Greater competition forces all the actors involved to get their act together and dedicate more resources to innovation, and, furthermore, usually causes prices to fall. All. And, interestingly, its Predator graphics card with Intel Arc A770 GPU looks good. This is what we know about her.
Introducing the all new @intelgraphics #IntelArc A770 GPU, which we’ve christened #PredatorBiFrost. Paving the way for a new generation of awesome gaming! pic.twitter.com/MmN4rAszIt
— Predator Gaming (@PredatorGaming) September 30, 2022
Here’s what we know (so far) about Acer’s Predator BiFrost
Its GPU leaves no room for doubt: Acer’s first graphics card is a proposition for gaming enthusiasts that will possibly be priced competitively. Intel’s own reference model equipped with this same graphics processor, the Arc A770, has a starting price of $329 (approximately 335 euros), so possibly this Acer proposal will move in the same price segment.
According to Intel, its Arc A770 GPU performs better than NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060 graphics processor. We’ll see…
All from NVIDIA. At the moment we take this statement with all possible caution, but we hope to soon have the opportunity to test one of the new graphics cards with Intel GPUs to verify if they really are up to the task of the expectations they are generating.
In the photograph that we publish on the cover of this article we can see that, curiously, this Acer graphics card uses an asymmetrical design and results in which they stand out two fans of different diameter. The central one is of the turbine type, and it seems that it is responsible for expelling a good part of the hot air that has absorbed the thermal energy dissipated by the GPU and the components of the graphics solution that heat up the most, towards the outside of the PC case.
The other fan is housed at one end of the graphics card’s PCB, and is noticeably larger than the turbine type. We also know that this graphics card occupies two and a half slots, and that it uses two 8-pin power connectors, but there is something important that we do not know: we do not know if it will incorporate 8 GB of VRAM, 16 GB, or if both versions will be available. We will probably know more from October 12 because that day the first graphics cards with Intel Arc GPUs will hit stores.