Intel CEO Shows Off Arc A770 Graphics Card As First Batch Gets Ready For Retail

by Mark Tyson — Tuesday, September 20, 2022, 02:58 PM EDT

Intel’s CEO has posted a Tweet celebrating what would be a very special occasion for anyone—the receiving of an Arc A770 graphics card. Intel Graphics chief Raja Koduri delivered the svelte flagship accelerator to Pat Gelsinger on Sunday evening and posted his own tweet of the “surprise delivery” event shortly after his boss.

The purpose of these PR shenanigans employing two very senior Intel execs isn’t easy to pin down. However, it might in part be an answer to the persistent rumors of Arc GPUs being put out to grass, like the ill-fated Optane, and the lengthy list of other disinvested product lines such as Intel SoCs for smartphones. If reassurance was the purpose, it is a pretty convincing stunt, with the CEO lovingly embracing the fledgling GPU which has escaped its retail and review embargoed nest.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 and AMD Radeon RDNA 3 might be trying to hog the limelight today, but Intel doesn’t want to be forgotten, though its cute little photo shoot using one of the elusive Arc A770 graphics cards as a prop lacks pizzazz, relatively speaking. We all know that the A770 (and A750, and perhaps A580) is coming “very soon,” and other official statements have specified “this summer”, but it isn’t easy to keep our enthusiasm stoked up for whole seasons of the year. Please note the summer is officially over on Thursday, September 22nd.

In his Tweet, Gelsinger wrote of his surprise that Raja and the camera team dropped by, before adding “We are now getting the first batch of A770 cards ready for retail …excited!” Koduri’s recollection of the event wasn’t quite so sparkling; he explained to Gelsinger that he could connect up to 4x4K or just 2x8K displays to the flagship graphics card.

Above is a reminder of the Intel Arc A750 and A770 specs, two graphics cards that will be available “soon.” A more likely launch date than the last day of summer (Thursday) is probably on Sept 27, at the scheduled Intel Innovation event, where Raptor Lake should rear its scaly head.