The base model from the chip maker’s Alchemist family is available for purchase in the United States through the popular online hardware store in a version from ASRock
It is doubtful whether the axis of progress of the first ever family of dedicated graphics processing products from Intel is progressing according to all its plans, when the network is loaded with examples of unstable performance that in many cases find it difficult to meet expectations, hardware and software problems, as well as repeated postponements of the planned availability dates – but with all Despite these challenges, it seems that the train has already left the station and is moving in the right direction, when it can now also be officially announced that consumers outside of China can purchase their own Arc card on the free market and at a relevant price.
A few weeks after a Chinese supplier called GUNNIR became the first to market Intel’s Arc A380 cards, for the lowest market segment, in China – now you can find in the Newegg store the ultra-compact ASRock Challenger model, with a single fan and a total length of 19 centimeters, available for purchase and shipping throughout North America for $140 before tax (which varies from country to country in Uncle Sam’s country and is therefore not traditionally displayed at the time of purchase), or NIS 457 when converted to the local currency.
ASRock’s card is based on Intel’s chopped ACM-G11 core, with 8 active processing clusters and 1,024 shading units alongside 6GB of GDDR6 memory at 15.5Gbps, an increased operating frequency of 2.25GHz, three modern DisplayPort 2.0 connections, an HDMI 2.0 connection b one as an add-on as well as a single 8Pin connector for power supply beyond what the PCI-Express rail itself provides, although originally the A380 models come with a 75 watt power envelope designed to operate properly even without external connections from the power supply.
First reviews for the Intel Arc A380 showed that it also finds itself behind AMD’s fresh basic Radeon RX 6400 in some tests, but at a price of $140, which is similar to the price at which the corresponding models from the red camp are offered, it is probably still a welcome addition to the competition in the market The basic of video cards – especially for creators and producers of video content, for whom Intel’s product offers significant advantages compared to the modest models of NVIDIA and AMD.
The main challenge for Intel’s first international model, as well as for the RX 6400 in question, comes from AMD’s Radeon RX 6500 XT, which was recently offered at a price of only 160 dollars on Amazon (including free shipping to Israel), when an addition of approx. -14 percent in price gives a jump of about 35 percent in performance in this case and is a definitely worthwhile option for many consumers – this is in addition to the fact that ASRock’s Arc A380 cannot currently be ordered directly to Israel, and therefore availability is still limited compared to the various models The different ones from the Radeon and GeForce brands that are available in online stores abroad as well as in Israel.
With all the asterisks and reservations, the addition of a little more competition to the home video card market is welcome from our point of view – and therefore we can only hope that more models from the Arc family will be added to the offer on Newegg (and on Amazon as well) soon, both from the Arc 3 series and from more advanced series which are supposed to challenge the rivals’ intermediate products both in terms of performance and prices.
What do you think about the A380 – is there a justification for its existence in the market? Tell us in the comments.