Intel's Arc GPUs Arrive With Little Uptake From Third-Party Vendors

pcmag.com:

Intel’s Arc graphics cards are officially here, but with little support from third-party GPU vendors. 

Case in point: You’ll only find a few Arc models on sale compared to the plethora of products that rivals Nvidia and AMD have been selling through retailers. For example, Wednesday's launch of Nvidia's RTX 4090 in the US received support from at least six GPU vendors, including Gigabyte, MSI, and Asus.

Intel, on the other hand, launched the $329 Arc A770 and $289 A750 graphics cards on the same day. But aside from the company’s own manufactured models, ASRock was the only third-party vendor to officially offer Arc GPUs for sale in the US. 

It doesn’t help that both Intel and ASRock quickly ran out of supplies on Newegg, the sole e-commerce dealer for Arc graphics cards in the US. Intel has also been selling the Arc GPUs at Micro Center, but only at physical stores in six US cities.  

The lack of uptake from third-party GPU vendors adds to the struggles facing Intel's Arc line, which has faced several delays. The graphics cards were originally supposed to arrive last year. But Intel later pushed back the Arc desktop graphics card to Q2, then to Q3, and then eventually to early Q4 for the US market with Wednesday’s launch. 

For now, Intel tells PCMag its partners on the Arc graphics cards include Acer, ASRock, Gunnir, PC provider iBuyPower, along with China system integrators JTHS, MayN, MLOONG, and Pason. However, these partners are working on both add-in desktop cards and Arc GPUs meant to be sold in prebuilt desktop rigs.  

Gunnir is also a vendor that seems focused on the Chinese market. Meanwhile, Acer has debuted(Opens in a new window) a Predator Bifrost Arc A770 model. But it doesn’t appear to be on sale yet,