Intel's Arc A380 desktop graphics card has been spotted for sale in China, in a truly bizarre situation, made all the more remarkable by the exorbitant price tag.
As VideoCardz reports (opens in a new tab), JD.com, a major retailer in China, which is the only country where Intel has released the Arc Alchemist desktop line so far, has listed a Gunnir A380 Photon graphics card, but priced at a ridiculously low 3999 yuan (around £600 / £490 / AU$850).
Remember that Intel's MSRP for the A380 in China is set at a quarter of that asking price, so it's an astronomical premium here (more than the sky-high levels Nvidia's current GPUs reached). at the height of the graphics card stock crisis last year, where prices briefly tripled the MSRP).
Note that the A380 graphics card in question is currently out of stock anyway, as well as only being present on the Chinese market.
Analysis: Price of reserved spaces, or advance payment of interest?
Why the extremely inflated prices? Well, as you may know, the Intel Arc A380 isn't even supposed to be for sale as a standalone yet - JD.com only intends to sell pre-built PCs with the A380 inside at the moment (and the same goes for it). for all retailers). So taking out a separate copy of the graphics card seems to break the rules anyway.
What could be going on here is that the price may just be a placeholder (it's unclear if the card was briefly on sale and then sold out, or just not in stock yet anyway) or maybe the retailer has raised the price to take advantage of what it perceives as likely early demand for the Arc A380.
In other words, JD.com might think it can get away with charging for the novelty of being able to buy the first Intel Arc desktop GPU (at that asking price, you'd even wonder if that might not be featured as a collector's item). , perhaps a part of the history of the graphics card).
Either way, the price makes absolutely no sense given the kind of entry-level performance the A380 offers, and could be readjusted when the Gunnir A380 comes into stock. Of course, there's no way to compare the asking price to any other retailer in China, as there's no A380 inventory available anywhere else.
For now, this remains an anomaly, although it is very interesting to see that a standalone Arc graphics card could be purchased, probably, in a very short time. From what Intel has officially stated, we expected Arc desktop GPUs to be in OEM PCs in June.
This is all for the Chinese market, of course, and global availability won't start until a little later, maybe late July if we're lucky, but most likely August, and again, desktop products Arc games will only be available as pre-built PCs to begin with (or so we're told).
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