News Intel’s Arc Alchemist GPU Stars In a Very Brief Unboxing Video

sepuko

Distinguished
Dec 13, 2005
224
32
18,710
No one should expect dirt-cheap competitor to the 6900 or 3090, Intel are not stupid, they are going to aim at the largest volume market, the one of the 3060, 6700, 3050, 6600.
 

VforV

Respectable
BANNED
Oct 9, 2019
578
287
2,270
Well the GPU in the video (ES) does look cheap, like cheaply made... is this how the final reference model will also look, I wonder?
 

bigdragon

Distinguished
Oct 19, 2011
1,111
553
20,160
Well the GPU in the video (ES) does look cheap, like cheaply made... is this how the final reference model will also look, I wonder?
It doesn't have all the bling, logos, angles, and RGB like the usual AIB products. I like this engineering design. Clean. Simple. No frills. Those fans look awfully skinny, but that's probably normal. Performance is far more important than how it looks.

If this thing performs as well as a 3070 Ti, provides more VRAM, and comes in a lower price, then I'm interested. I've been beating the crap out of this 2080 Super with Blender and UE4. Anything with a reasonable cost that can boost performance is appealing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Krotow
Jan 3, 2022
67
13
35
If this thing performs as well as a 3070 Ti, provides more VRAM, and comes in a lower price, then I'm interested. I've been beating the crap out of this 2080 Super with Blender and UE4. Anything with a reasonable cost that can boost performance is appealing.
For how long? RDNA3 and RTX4000 are on their way. I only hope this Intel Arc launch doesn't push AMD's and NVIDIA's plans further down the 2023.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: VforV

Exploding PSU

Honorable
Jul 17, 2018
461
147
10,870
Whoa, it looks mighty fine to me. Like that angular, understated look. The back reminds me of several Sapphire cards that have short PCB but full length coolers
 

btmedic04

Distinguished
Mar 12, 2015
473
361
19,190
That shroud reminds me of the GTX 9xx series. Glad to see only 2 slots are required. Intel might look like they have a strong foundation, but the Cleveland Browns looked strong in the pre-season too and look what we ended up with. Will temper my enthusiasm until third party reviews are out
 

VforV

Respectable
BANNED
Oct 9, 2019
578
287
2,270
It doesn't have all the bling, logos, angles, and RGB like the usual AIB products. I like this engineering design. Clean. Simple. No frills. Those fans look awfully skinny, but that's probably normal. Performance is far more important than how it looks.

If this thing performs as well as a 3070 Ti, provides more VRAM, and comes in a lower price, then I'm interested. I've been beating the crap out of this 2080 Super with Blender and UE4. Anything with a reasonable cost that can boost performance is appealing.
I'm not talking about that, I don't care about RGB, logos, etc, but it looks like cheap plastic and I'm worried the quality of the materials and the cooler is also cheap, which means worse cooling and noise than it should have... even longevity.

Whatever one may think about RDNA2 and Ampere, both of these reference GPUs made by AMD and nvidia themselves are top quality, better than RDNA1 and Turing, respectively. You can feel and see the quality of these products by looking at them and even more in person holding them in your hand. I can clearly see the difference vs Arc which does not look and feel to be that way - it looks cheap and flimsy, like the cheapest tier GPU you can get, I don't know why others can't see this...

I'm talking about the reference Arc card made by Intel here, probably the AIB ones will look more quality and premium, but my worries are with the reference model. I hope only the ES looks like this...
 
  • Like
Reactions: jacob249358

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator
I'm not talking about that, I don't care about RGB, logos, etc, but it looks like cheap plastic and I'm worried the quality of the materials and the cooler is also cheap, which means worse cooling and noise than it should have... even longevity.
Plastic doesn't contribute to cooling beyond guiding air where the designers want it to go, so any "quality of plastic" is fine as long as it doesn't fall apart from aging and heat exposure. There aren't too many "quality grades" for copper and aluminum, so material quality isn't materially relevant there either. The cooling performance is far more about how you use the materials you have than the materials themselves.

The design looks perfectly fine to me except for one major flaw: there is no point in having a vented IO bracket when fins run parallel to the IO plate and block nearly all airflow from the card's own fans from going out through there.
 
Pretty much look like reference card. I like absence of any bling - would suit well in my opaque PC case. If real life Ark will have advertised RTX 3070 performance, 8 GB or more VRAM and good enough cooling for price up to 800€, I'm ready to take it.