Acer’s First GPU is an Intel Arc A770 With Two Different Types of Fans
Acer decides to go with the newest kid on the block for its first GPU.
Out of nowhere, Acer has announced its entry into the graphics card market officially, with the introduction of its Predator BiFrost GPU on Twitter today. Surprisingly, it's not an Nvidia or AMD-powered graphics card but one featuring Intel's new Arc A770 flagship GPU.
The card itself is very striking and features a design we've never seen before. It incorporates a blower-style fan in the middle and a much larger non-blower fan design to the right. This gives the card a unique aesthetic, with two very different-looking fans cooling the GPU.
At the very least, this unique cooling architecture will make the card easily stand out from the rest of its competitors, which is a good thing for Acer if it plans to gain popularity in the GPU space.
This combination of a blower and non-blower design might actually be good in terms of performance. The blower-style fan in the middle should, in theory, push a lot of the card's exhaust air out the rear of the case, which will reduce ambient temperatures within the chassis under load. This can help keep the card cool and keep other components within the system cool as well.
Aesthetically the card features a metallic-looking shroud with a black finish over the entirety of the card - giving the card a mature look. Both fans incorporate RGB lighting designs, but the much larger rear fan features significantly more RGB lighting compared to the middle fan. Finally, Acer has embedded its Predator gaming logo on the side, and RGB illuminated it.
Powering the card are two 8-pin supplementary power connections.
Introducing the all new @intelgraphics #IntelArc A770 GPU, which we've christened #PredatorBiFrost. Paving the way for a new generation of gaming awesome! pic.twitter.com/MmN4rAszItSeptember 30, 2022
Will it Be an A770 8GB or 16GB?
Unfortunately, all Acer announced was the card's name and a picture of the GPU, with no details about core specifications. All we know is that it will be an A770 8GB or 16GB model.
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Intel finally announced full details on its higher trim Arc A750 and A770 GPUs just yesterday, including prices and a release date. All three models, including the Arc A750 8GB, A770 8GB and A770 16GB, will be launching on October 12th, featuring prices at $289, $329 and $349, respectively.
To refresh your memory, the Arc A750 8GB will feature 28 Xe Cores, 3584 shader cores, 448 MXM engines (for AI stuff like XeSS AI upscaling), and a clock speed of 2050MHz. The memory system includes 16Gbps modules operating on a 256-bit wide bus and 8GB of memory capacity.
This GPU will represent the higher-end range of Intel's GPUs, but it is certainly not the flagship part.
That title belongs to the Arc A770, which features 32 Xe cores, 4096 Shader cores, 512 MXM engines and a frequency of 2100MHz. For memory, the card will come in 8GB and 16GB capacities - both of which operate on 17.5Gbps memory modules and a 256-bit wide bus. In this situation, all the 16GB model offers is extra capacity - unlike some of Nvidia's counterparts which boost memory and/or core counts along with the higher memory capacity.
Be sure to check out our unboxing of the Arc A750 and A750, and stay tuned for our initial review of the cards at a later date. Intel showed off some impressive performance numbers, with both cards competing favorably against the RTX 3060 in several titles. Hopefully, we'll see similar results in our labs.
Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.
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rluker5 It's creative, but I don't like it. The blower is in the wrong spot to get the most out of it. Will probably still work well enough for this card but is a bit wasteful.Reply
A better design would be some coldplate (to add in vrm,vram) with cpu cooler mount compatibility with an AIO attached. With the cpu cooler mount compatibility you could do a lot of customization. They could still have the fan on the back if they wanted. It could be even better if the card came with standard plugs for pump and fan. -
ET3D The 8GB and 16GB versions do have different memory clocks. The article is wrong on that count.Reply -
The Historical Fidelity Wow $329 for a 406mm2 die size on TSMC 6nm, I don’t see how there is any profit in that from an Intel/AIB standpoint. AIB’s are saying they are getting about 20% margins at $470 msrp on the AMD RX 6700 XT with 335mm2 die on cheaper 7nm process with cheaper 192-bit memory bus.Reply
IDK if it’s intel’s intent here, but I thank them for sacrificing profits and margins on their first gen gpu products just to get their foot in the door and end the duopoly. -
gg83 Acer has been making all sorts of laptops with Intel, so this makes sense. Next is motherboards and rgb ram.Reply -
Pollopesca One of the drawbacks to a blower design is they tend to be on the lauder side. Curious if this hybrid setup would mitigate that, especially in a mini-ITX setup. Depending on how benchmarks look after launch I might actually pick one of these up and find out.Reply -
RichardtST Ooooo.... so shiny any cool! Imma have to get me one to test with.... Yeah... to test with. That's my excuse. I will test with it... something....Reply -
Exploding PSU This gave me a strong Mandela effect feeling. I could've sworn a prominent manufacturer like Acer would already have their own line of GPUs, especially with the fact they do have the gaming-oriented Predator sub-brand. I couldn't believe they've only jumped into the GPU market this recently.Reply
On a more serious note, I really like the design. Now that's unique