The PC gaming market depends on users having access to reasonably priced hardware. NVIDIA’s monopoly, with over 80% of the market, has resulted in prices that are higher than the average user is willing to pay. That’s why new entrants to the pie like Intel are always welcome.
Intel ARC A750 price drop? No, rather not.
Over the past few hours, you may have seen the news all over the internet that Intel has dropped the price of its Intel ARC A750 graphics card with 8GB of memory to US$249. However, there is no mention by the blue mark of the same movement for the European market.
The reason? Although we can find it in some online stores, Pat Gelsinger never officially launched this model for the old continent, rather we have to settle for a secret import.
Now you might be wondering what really bothers us. Well, for lack of vision from Intel, if the ARC A750 were below 300 dollars in Europe, it would be one of the best options to mount on a PC to play for its price. The problem is that we cannot find said graphics card in our country at this price, which makes it an unviable option for many and, therefore, a missed opportunity for Intel to be considered, at least in Europe, as a viable option at NVIDIA and AMD.
In the event of a price drop for Europe, chances are we would have seen Intel’s ARC A750 for a $280 price tag, making it a better option than NVIDIA’s RTX 3050. Therefore, we consider this a missed opportunity.
Why Intel’s Limited GPU Distribution?
More than anything, we’re surprised that Intel’s gaming graphics chip division is going to a mammoth effort to fix the bugs it accumulated at launch. The next step will be the graphics driver that will significantly improve the performance of old games, based on DX9 and DX 10, in addition to increasing the compatibility of ARC Alchemist with the huge catalog of titles for PC. Although they had a failed launch, the fact that they were saved from the Sword of Damocles recently disintegrated some divisions of the company.
So, contrary to what some competitive fanatics are saying, closing the division doesn’t seem like something planned in the near future. However, the big problem they have is the fact that they ended up with a much larger chip than they should have when considering its specs, build node and performance . This means a much higher cost for Intel, which must force its ARC Alchemist to be sold at a much lower price than expected, as well as limited distribution.
In other words, in the US Intel sells its gaming graphics cards at a loss in order to gain market share and we all know you can lose money up to a point. What
The next logical step?
A move like the one AMD made in the mid-2000s with the R600, with a better-made version of the chip, using fewer transistors and a smaller size.
The strategy? Waiting for NVIDIA to place its RTX 4060 well above the price of the current generation and thus continue the trend started by the RTX 40. At that time the ARC Alchemist 2.0 may have its place on the market, even if we hope this time that the Let’s see with an official launch in Europe and with much better pilots than during the release of a few months ago. The important thing is the effort and when things are done well, consumers forget the old setbacks and more in a market as dynamic as this one.