Intel Discontinues Arc A770 Limited Edition GPU

Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition
Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition (Image credit: Amazon)

Intel has announced that the company has officially discontinued the Arc A770 Limited Edition (21P01J00BA). The Arc Alchemist graphics card, which fell short of becoming one of the best graphics cards, will still be around but only available in custom AIB models.

Intel typically allows customers to place last orders before discontinuing a product. However, the company handled the Arc A770 Limited Edition case differently. The Product Change Notification (PCN) document states that yesterday, June 20, was the final product discontinuance order and shipment date. It's safe to assume that the last shipments of Arc A770 Limited Edition graphics cards are already en route to distributors and retailers.

The Arc A770 Limited Edition is officially retired after less than a year on the market. While the product name says "limited edition," note that it was not intended to be a limited run in the typical sense. Instead, Limited Edition is Intel's branding for its own in-house graphics cards. Regardless, the chipmaker can now prioritize silicon production for its AIB partners.

Intel offers the Arc A770 in both 8GB and 16GB variants, but the limited edition was one of the handful of options with 16GB. Fortunately, that has changed since vendors, including Acer and old-school player Sparkle, got in the game.

The Arc A770 Limited Edition sells between $349 to $369, depending on which retailer you're looking at. The Acer Predator BiFrost Intel Arc A770 OC is available at multiple stores for $339, so the only one reason to pick up the Arc A770 Limited Edition is if you love Intel's design or want it to add to your collection. Producing full graphics cards is evidently not Intel's forte, so discontinuing the Arc A770 Limited Edition gives the chipmaker an easy exit and sticks to what it does best, producing silicon.

The Arc A750 Limited Edition remains safe for now, but its discontinuance is probably imminent. It's the only other dedicated graphics card sold by Intel, margins are likely very slim, and it wouldn't be a surprise to see it end up on the chopping block.

Battlemage, the successor to Alchemist, is supposed to arrive in 2024, so Intel may want to redirect any Limited Edition resources toward getting Battlemage ready. According to some rumors, Intel is reportedly preparing at least two Battlemage graphics cards that could be the direct replacement for the Arc A750 and Arc A770.

Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • SSGBryan
    Happy mine arrived today, they have been hard to come by for a while.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    The A750's price bouncing back from $200 to $250 was a pretty solid hint that Intel may have been tightening supply.

    Wonder how long supplies are going to last. Then again, I don't imagine demand being particularly high.
    Reply
  • vern72
    Wow. AMD didn't give up when their first generation of x86 chips weren't up to par.
    Reply
  • SSGBryan
    Well, the LE does stand for Limited Edition.

    It is better than what I have now, and I expect it to hold me over until Q4 of 2024, when we should be seeing battlemage.
    Reply
  • SSGBryan
    vern72 said:
    Wow. AMD didn't give up when their first generation of x86 chips weren't up to par.
    AMD had CPU chips as their core business.

    Intel is looking to move into a new market.
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    vern72 said:
    Wow. AMD didn't give up when their first generation of x86 chips weren't up to par.
    Unless I missed some bit of news it doesn't sound like Intel is giving up on the dGPU market. The article states

    Instead, the chipmaker can now prioritize silicon production for its AIB partners

    Sounds more like they are only discounting for their own design.
    Reply
  • Unolocogringo
    Many of us are still on the fence with Intel graphics cards.
    This is their third foray into the D-GPU market.
    They abandoned their first attempt shortly after launch. about a year or so, then abandoned the second attempt after releasing it as pro only.

    Will Intel abandon their customers again? for the third time?
    Reply
  • PEnns
    "...so discontinuing the Arc A770 Limited Edition gives the chipmaker an easy exit and sticks to what it does best, producing silicon."
    Did I miss something?? Intel won't be producing that specific model. That doesn't automatically mean Intel is done with making GPUs!!

    Actually, for first generation GPUs, Intel's were quite decent!!
    Reply
  • BFG-9000
    PEnns said:
    Actually, for first generation GPUs, Intel's were quite decent!!
    I had their first gen GPU the i740, and while it was faster than their first IGP (the μPD7220 licensed from NEC), decent was not how I would describe it, not even for 1998. They thought AGP was so fast that there wasn't any need for much local memory.

    Arc is their 2nd gen, if you don't count Xe. So you could say they didn't give up either.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    InvalidError said:
    The A750's price bouncing back from $200 to $250 was a pretty solid hint that Intel may have been tightening supply.

    Wonder how long supplies are going to last. Then again, I don't imagine demand being particularly high.
    I hope the "refresh" still happens. Maybe that's why they're trying to whittle down their inventory.

    Given that Battlemage won't launch for more than a year, maybe they found enough bugs & bottlenecks in Alchemist to fix that they can unlock a half generation's worth of performance. Even with the latest drivers, it's still performing well below where its specs would suggest. So, I think it's plausible there are some hardware bugs holding it back.
    Reply