Intel's Arc A310 GPU finally goes on sale in the US - but the price doesn't make any sense

Intel's Arc A310 graphics card is not a new product, but it is new to the US market, with a major retailer just having listed the GPU for sale.

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Sadly, the price takes a lot of the shine off Sparkle's Arc A310 (Image Credit: Sparkle)

Originally, this was a product made and sold to PC manufacturers, and mostly outfits over in China, but now, the Arc A310 is in stock and available from Newegg in the US.

The model is the Sparkle Arc A310 Elf and it's a modest spec sitting at the bottom of the Alchemist line-up, with only 6 Xe-Cores and 4GB of VRAM (64-bit bus).

Still, this could be an interesting entry-level proposition for those wanting a basic GPU to handle media encoding or some very casual gaming perhaps (at a push), all with a low power consumption. (It's also a tiny card, which could appeal with certain space-constricted rigs, too).

Unfortunately, any temptation to snag a Sparkle A310 is rather drained by the price tag that has been pinned on the graphics card. Newegg is selling this for $110, in fact, which is a somewhat steep ask for the spec on offer, particularly when you compare it to what else is around that price bracket.

For example, Sparkle's A380, the Arc A3 offering which is the same compact size, offers beefier performance (and 6GB VRAM) for $140.

More to the point, you can get an ASRock Challenger Arc A380 for $120 on Newegg at the time of writing, which is only $10 more than the Sparkle A310. So, that makes the new A310 look pretty shabby value for money.

Surely given the pricing structure around Intel's A3 products right now, the A310 should be under $100. Still, there's time yet, and perhaps we'll see price cuts come into play from Newegg - that's certainly been true of other Intel Arc offerings in recent times.

We've witnessed some major price cuts for even higher-end models in the Alchemist line-up, such as the Arc A750 being knocked down to $200 not so long ago. As time rolls on, Intel's GPUs are also looking better value propositions due to the drivers being honed and offering some pretty big performance leaps in some cases.

The latest graphics driver release is a good example of this, with Intel managing to carve out some huge gains for some DX11 titles, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which is closing on twice as quick (90% faster) compared to the previous driver at Full HD resolution. Indeed, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is over twice as fast now (benefiting from a 119% uplift) again at 1080p.