An Intel contest to advertise the corporate’s Arc graphics cards additionally hints at pricing for 2 of the desktop GPU fashions.
The corporate plans on freely giving 300 Arc graphics playing cards by the “Xe HPG scavenger hunt,” which kicks off on Oct 27. Apparently, the principles for the competition additionally point out the overall retail worth of the prizes, as noticed by a consumer on Reddit.
The highest prize, valued at $900, features a “Premium Intel Arc graphics card,” some firm merchandise, and six months of Xbox Recreation Move for the PC. In the meantime, the second prize gives up a “Efficiency Intel Arc graphics card,” firm swag, and a three-month membership to Xbox Recreation Move for the PC for a complete worth of $700.
It’s not clear what merchandise Intel will provide up. However we do know an Xbox Recreation Move Final membership prices $44.99 for 3 months and $89.99 for a six-month subscription, according to the Microsoft Retailer.
So should you assume the Intel swag is a T-shirt and a water bottle value round $50, then it’s not arduous to estimate the value for every GPU mannequin. The Premium Intel Arc mannequin ought to are available in at round $760 whereas the Efficiency mannequin probably has value shut to $600.
These prices would put the playing cards on the higher-end of the spectrum. In distinction, AMD’s 6800 XT card begins at $649 whereas Nvidia’s RTX 3080 can go for $699 and up, though the chip scarcity, rising logistics prices, and Trump-era tariffs have brought about GPU costs to inflate over the previous yr.
Nonetheless, if Intel provides extra firm swag than anticipated, then the pricing for the playing cards will drop down even additional, placing them nearer in line to Nvidia’s RTX 3070 card and AMD’s 6700 XT, which have a $499 and $479 beginning value, respectively.
The opposite curious a part of the competition is the way it runs till April 29, 2022. Intel has stated it plans to launch the Arc graphics card throughout subsequent yr’s Q1. However the scope of the launch—will it embody each desktop graphics playing cards and laptop computer GPUs?—is unknown.
Within the meantime, the corporate plans on giving 100 customers the grand prize and 200 different individuals the second prize. The scavenger hunt entails answering 10 questions through the ensuing weeks to earn factors; these with essentially the most factors get the highest prizes. To reply the questions, the chip maker plans on posting clues on Twitter from Intel executives.
“Acquiring a registered Twitter account isn’t required, all Tweets will likely be made on accounts seen with out signing into Twitter,” the competition guidelines say. When you’re the primary one to reply a query, you may earn a max of 5,000 factors. Intel is opening up the competition to customers primarily based within the US and elements of Europe and Asia.