Acer makes plenty of gaming hardware, including laptops, desktops, monitors, and peripherals. Now it looks like it will enter the graphics card market with a little help from Intel's Arc A770 GPU. So far, all we've got is a tweet showing off the Predator BiFrost, but that's enough to pique our interest.
Introducing the all new @intelgraphics #IntelArc A770 GPU, which we've christened #PredatorBiFrost. Paving the way for a new generation of gaming awesome! pic.twitter.com/MmN4rAszItSeptember 30, 2022
The image shows a two-and-a-half-slot design with a pair of fans that appear to offer a mix of a blower design with an open-air approach. It also shows a dual 8-pin power connector, meaning it has plenty of juice to play with. Potentially even pushing the card harder than Intel's own limited edition version of the A770.
As this is an Intel Arc A770 GPU, we know that it is the top card in Intel's lineup, which means it has the full ACM-G10 silicon to play with. You're looking at 32 Xe-cores, 256-bit memory interface, 2,100MHz graphics clock, and 225W Total Board Power.
What isn't clear at this stage is how much VRAM the card lays claims to. We know that cards with 8GB of VRAM will be manufactured by board partners, although we should also see 16GB cards from them. So far, MSI, Gunnir, and now Asrock have been announced as official board partners.
This is, of course, assuming that Acer will make these cards available for DIY builders. There's a reasonable chance that these are OEM cards destined purely for its own Predator desktop systems and not available outside of that, but hey, we can dream.
If it were to release these, it would be an interesting time for Acer to enter the market, particularly as we've seen EVGA announce it will stop manufacturing graphics cards recently. That these Intel GPUs are significantly cheaper than the competition shouldn't go unnoticed either, which means that Acer et al. won't have the leeway to ramp up prices so much—not exactly a bad thing.
Intel is set to release its own Limited Edition take on the Arc Alchemist A770 for $349 on October 12th, the same day that Nvidia releases the GeForce RTX 4090. We don't have a date for the $329 8GB cards at this stage, though.
