Skip to main content

Intel targets RTX 3060 takedown with Arc Alchemist price cut

Intel is cutting the price of its Arc A750 graphics card in an attempt to strike at Nvidia’s popular RTX 3060. Starting today, the Arc A750 starts at $250 for Intel’s Limited Edition model.

As you can read in our Intel Arc A770 and A750 review, the card narrowly beats the RTX 3060 at 1080p, while carving out a more significant lead at 1440p. The price cut brings a $40 reduction in the price the A750 debuted out, tipping the value scales in Intel’s favor.

Two intel Arc graphics cards on a pink background.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Intel claims the A750 offers a 52% better value considering its price and performance compared to the RTX 3060. However, Intel based this assessment on a starting price of $391 for Nvidia’s GPU. At the time of publication, you can find new, in-stock RTX 3060 graphics cards starting at $340. Based on that, the A750 offers closer to 39% more performance per dollar.

The main hurdle for Intel’s Arc Alchemist GPUs has been DirectX 9 performance. Near launch, Intel announced that it wouldn’t directly support DirectX 9, instead relying on emulation. This had a big impact on DirectX 9 games, such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Stellaris, as confirmed through reviews.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!

Intel says it’s made major strides with DirectX 9 since launch, however. Along with the price cut, Intel is debuting a new driver that further improves DirectX 9 performance.

Compared to the driver at launch, Intel claims a 77% increase in Counter-Strike, a 45% boost in League of Legends, and a 10% jump in Guild Wars 2. On average, Intel says the A750 is 43% faster in DirectX 9 games than it was at launch.

Intel says it has made headway in DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 games as well, showing a 57% jump in Warframe. Intel clarified that it specifically targeted Warframe for optimization, however, so you shouldn’t expect that large of a jump in other DirectX 11 and 12 titles.

Although those are impressive claims, it’s important to wait for third-party testing. Now that Intel’s latest driver is available, we can throw the Arc A750 back on the test bench to see if the performance jumps are as large as Intel says they are.

GPU prices have dropped massively over the past year, but budget options are still few and far between. At $250, where the Arc A750 now lands, the only other option is AMD’s RX 6600. It’s a solid GPU, but it falls behind the Arc A750 in ray tracing performance as you can read in our RX 6600 review.

Starting with the price drop, Intel is also offering new Arc GPUs with codes for Nightingale and The Settlers: New Allies.

Jacob Roach
Lead Reporter, PC Hardware
Jacob Roach is the lead reporter for PC hardware at Digital Trends. In addition to covering the latest PC components, from…
The RTX 4090 is more popular on Steam than any AMD GPU
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU.

Despite being easily the fastest graphics card you can buy right now, the RTX 4090 is a niche product. At $1,600, it's out of the conversation for the vast majority of gamers. Still, that hasn't stopped the GPU from reaching a high ranking in Steam's hardware survey. According to the latest survey, the RTX 4090 is in 0.96% of gaming PCs running Steam -- more than any individual AMD GPU.

Although it's no surprise that Nvidia tops the charts in the Steam hardware survey -- the most recent report says Nvidia is represented in 76.59% of PCs compared to AMD's 15.79% -- it's shocking to see such an expensive GPU rank so highly. Compared to last month, the RTX 4090 even gained 0.11%, despite only being available above list price.

Read more
Don’t buy the RTX 3060 in 2024
The RTX 3060 installed in a gaming PC.

Nvidia's RTX 3060 is the most popular GPU around, and it's not even close. According to the latest Steam hardware survey, the 2021 GPU is in close to 7% of gaming PCs. That's a huge slice of the pie. For reference, the second most popular GPU, the RTX 2060, sits at just under 4%. It's easy to see why the GPU is popular, too. You can pick it up for between $250 and $300 -- and for even less used -- and it comes with a critical 12GB of VRAM.

It's the go-to GPU for maxed-out 1080p gaming in 2024, but based on my testing, it probably shouldn't be. The RTX 3060 is a workhorse, and for a large range of games, it's one of the best graphics cards you can buy. When it comes to the latest, most demanding games, however, the RTX 3060 struggles to keep up.
The litmus test

Read more
The RTX 4090 is past its prime, and that’s OK
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU.

In October 2022, when I first reviewed the RTX 4090, I called it "both a complete waste of money and the most powerful graphics card ever made." That's even more true now that it was more than a year ago. The AI boom shortly after the launch of the RTX 4090, combined with some international restrictions on the GPU, has caused prices to skyrocket to unattainable places, moving the affordability from unlikely to basically impossible.

But that's changing. Reports indicate that prices are slowly dropping, moving from a high of $2,200 down to around $2,000. That's still way above the GPU's list price of $1,600, but the trajectory now is at least positive.

Read more