It's been a long time coming but Intel may finally be breaking into the US market with its Arc graphics cards. The ASRock Arc A380 is now available for backorder on retailer Newegg's website with an expected ETA date of August 22.
The A380 was officially launched back in June, however, it was limited to China only and a single model of card: Gunnir's Photon. Since then Intel's Alchemist GPU generation has stalled in reaching further shores, with no definitive date for its arrival.
However, it now appears that ASRock's Challenger Arc A380 will turn up before the end of the month.
The ASRock Challenger Arc A380 is listed for $140 at Newegg (well spotted, momomo_us), placing it around the price of AMD's Radeon RX 6400. Nvidia's GTX 1650 is a little more expensive on the site, but generally, you're looking at a price that should be a match for the MSRP of that card, too.
Unfortunately, the A380 is not a match for either of those cards right now. Intel provided us with its official A380 benchmarks, ripped from its reviewer's guide, and it's slower than both of those aforementioned cards most of the time. In a few instances, the A380 does top the RX 6400, but they are few. It's important to remember the context of these benchmarks, as well—Intel's Arc GPUs can be hit or miss depending on the game and API.
Though with Newegg only asking $140 for the ASRock A380, it's not an abhorrent offer next to inflated prices for the ageing GTX 1650. While the AMD RX 6400 is a better, more recent graphics card at the same price, at least the A380 is somewhat comparatively priced at the low-end. It's also another entry-level graphics card in a somewhat uninspired market for budget GPUs today and could have some knock-on impact on the prices of AMD and Nvidia's offerings.
