Intel Announces Arc Balanced Builds Program: CPU & GPU Combos Starting at $423, Systems at $899

wccftech.com:

Intel has announced its new Arc Balanced Builds program which will deliver customers the best price to performance value when buying a new PC.

So the plan for Arc Balanced Builds is simple and something that should be applauded. Intel is going to find the best performance and value curve based on a combination of CPUs and GPUs, delivering the most bang for buck to gamers without them having to figure out what's best for them. Not everyone wants a high-end CPU and GPU combo or a single fast GPU that's paired on systems with mid-to-low-end CPUs (and vice versa). That's what Intel's new program is trying to simplify.

For us reviewers, we have to work with multiple GPUs and CPUs. Most of our benchmarks, even for low-end GPUs, are done on a high-end CPU and we do it to remove all constraints and bottlenecks possible so that we can see the actual gaming performance. A gamer, however, may not need that kind of CPU horsepower to say run an Arc A380 or Arc A750 graphics card. We have seen gaming channels showing gamers more interesting combos such as pairing a high-end CPU with a low-end GPU or a high-end GPU with a low-end CPU.

Intel's Arc Bundled Builds is the combination of 15,000 data points, scaling multiple games, 9 GPUs, and two primary resolutions (1080p and 1440p since they are the most commonly used), all being a hefty 22 GB worth of data. Based on these findings, Intel has come up with a few tiers set for its Arc Balanced Builds program which include the following:

Intel also uses its competition's RTX 4090 for comparison and agrees to the fact that it requires a high-end CPU and even the top Core i9 is unable to remove all constraints from that monster of a chip. With that said, it's not always a bad choice to get a