A long-forgotten Intel Arc GPU just made another reappearance, and this time around, it might actually be for real. Intel’s Arc A580 popped up on Geizhals, an Austrian price comparison site, and it’s even available in two different models. While the Arc A580 doesn’t have what it takes to compete with some of the best graphics cards, it could turn out to be a solid budget-friendly option if priced appropriately.
The Intel Arc A580 was announced what feels like forever ago. Intel mentioned it several times prior to the launch of its A770 and A750, and it was included in the marketing materials for the Arc A770, Arc A750, and Arc 380. It always seemed like a good middle ground between those three GPUs, bridging the gap between the top of the lineup and the entry-level A380. But it never materialized, and Intel hasn’t said a word about it since.
It wasn’t a stretch to assume that the card was quietly canceled, and yet, here it is. The ASRock Arc A580 Challenger OC was spotted by frequent Twitter leaker momomo_us and later shared by VideoCardz, and a second model by Sparkle has also popped up, with a signature blue shroud. The GPUs vary a little in design, with the Sparkle card appearing to be a lot more compact than the ASRock, which appears to have a triple slot design.
Both manufacturers made the GPUs closely resemble their respective Arc A750 counterparts. Each features a dual-fan cooler and dual 8-pin power connectors. The ASRock is said to have a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface with support for a single HDMI 2.1 and three DisplayPort 2.1 connections.
The Arc A580 will feature 3,072 shader cores, or 24 Xe-cores, and is reported to be running on the ACM-G10 GPU. The card will sport 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM across a 256-bit bus and a maximum clock speed of 2GHz.
Intel doesn’t appear to be readying its own version of the Arc A580, so the ASRock and the Sparkle might be the only the models we’ll ever see of it, unless other manufacturers have something up their sleeves. Intel’s strategy for launching and marketing this card has been weird, to say the least, and we don’t actually have an official confirmation that it’s coming, or when. However, seeing these finished GPUs tells us that it’s coming up sooner rather than later.
Will the Arc A580 stand any chance of success in late 2023, when both AMD and Nvidia have long since moved to the next generation of GPUs? It could, but only if Intel (and its partners) will stick to the initial plan and price the card aggressively. It’ll be closer in performance to the Arc A750 than the Arc A380, and the former is already hovering in the $200 to $240 price range. Given the fierce competition from cards like the RTX 3060 and the RX 6600, Intel should aim for a $150 to $170 price tag in order to offer impressive value for the money.
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