Intel launches Arc A580 GPU at a cheap price - but you'd still be foolish to buy it right now

Intel has finally unleashed its A580 graphics card, a model that was announced way back, but little has been heard about since (save for a minor leak or two).

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In all honesty, we felt this GPU had been canceled, especially when Intel said nothing about the graphics card at its recent Innovation show, which seemed like an ideal time to unveil it.

For whatever reason, though, Intel clearly wanted to wait until after the event to reveal the GPU, but at least we now have confirmation that it's going on sale.

Indeed, it's already listed at some major retailers, but stock isn't ready to be dispatched just yet.

The good news is that we were hoping for a price tag of under $200 in the US, and Intel has positioned the A580 nicely beneath that level - the official MSRP is $179.

However, there's a problem with that as Arc GPU pricing stands as we write this piece, namely that the Arc A750, further up the range, has been reduced so it's barely any more expensive than that.

At Newegg and Amazon right now, the Sparkle A750 Orc GPU is $190, so that's only ten bucks more than the A580 is priced at by Newegg.

With the A580, you're getting 24 Xe-Cores, 8GB of VRAM, and boost up to 2GHz, with faster clocks on the A750, and 28 Xe-Cores. So granted, there isn't a huge difference, but those extra cores are clearly a decent dollop of additional power.

So, given the respective price tags right now, it doesn't make any sense to buy the A580, not unless you need the more frugal power usage really badly (it's 40W less than the A750, at 185W).

Mind you, this is the current situation, and it could change. We might see the A750 go back up in price to where it was last week, when the GPU was pitched at around $220. And of course, after the launch of the A580, it could have a few dollars chipped off the price with discounts at the same time.

Whatever the case, the market will force the A580 to make some kind of sense in terms of relative value to its higher-end Arc sibling, otherwise it's just going to sit on shelves gathering dust, which clearly won't happen.

Three graphics card manufacturers are producing the Arc A580, and those are ASRock, Gunnir, and Sparkle as mentioned.

It's an entry-level graphics card for solid 1080p gaming, and when prices readjust, this new GPU may tempt some buyers to join the Intel fold. Certainly that's what Team Blue will be hoping, anyway.