ASRock Arc A380 Challenger ITX launches in the United States
Intel Arc A380 launches at 139.99 USD.
Finally, after more than two months since the official debut of Arc A380, the entry-level GPU based on the small ACM-G11 Alchemist GPU becomes available through Newegg in the US. This is the first time Intel desktop Arc GPUs are actually on sale in this country and first time they are sold officially available outside China.
Starting at 139.99 USD, one will find ASRock Arc A380 Challenger ITX graphics card. This is the first and thus far only ASRock model based on Intel GPU, but there are rumors that the company is preparing other variants (with two fans). ASRock’s card is actually not the first model based on this Intel GPU, it was GUNNIR Photon OC which had been used for initial Arc desktop reviews. Thus far, GUNNIR was the only available card through retailers and system integrators in China. However, due to high import costs it made no economic sense to buy these cards, especially since they are slower than competing products such as NVIDIA’s GTX 1650 or AMD’s RX 6400 GPUs at similar (official) price points.
The A380 features 8 Xe-Cores and 6 GB of GDDR6 memory. Compared to the flagship mobile GPU with the same GPU, this card has higher memory capacity and wider memory bus (6GB 96b vs 4GB 64b).
The Challenger ITX is a single-fan model designed for ITX form factor. It is actually factory-overclocked up to 2250 MHz but has default TDP of 75W. It supports up to four display connectors (3x DP 2.0, 1x HDMI 2.0b), which an advantage over Navi 24 based cards limited to two outputs.