ASRock Goes Low-Profile with New Arc A380 Graphics Card

As Intel’s slate of video card board companions has expanded over the past yr, so has the range within the ecosystem, because the newly minted companions got down to design their very own distinctive merchandise round Intel’s fledgling GPU household. This, fortunately, is beginning to embody some underserved markets comparable to low profile vide playing cards, which have been left behind within the concentrate on bigger-and-better video playing cards. Which brings us to ASRock’s newest Arc A380 graphics card, a brand new low-profile A380 design that brings Intel’s entry-level discrete GPU to smaller methods.

So far as specs are involved, ASRock’s Arc A380 Low Profile 6GB (A380 LP 6G) is a typical Arc A380 product that carries Intel’s ACM-G11 GPU (1024 stream processors, 2.0 GHz) coupled with 6GB of GDDR6 reminiscence hooked up by way of a 96-bit interface. Remarkably, the cardboard maintains a TDP beneath 75W, which eliminates the necessity for an additional energy connector. This makes it a potential improve for small type issue machines and older PCs that should not have a spare PCIe energy connector.

It ought to be famous, nonetheless, that whereas the A380 LP 6G is a low-profile card, it’s nonetheless a comparatively highly effective card, necessitating a dual-slot cooler. So whereas the cardboard ought to work with the vast majority of compact PCs, it might nonetheless be a bit too huge for the smallest of methods.

The low-profile design of the ASRock Arc A380 graphics card means that it is not essentially focusing on even entry-level gaming machines. As an alternative, it seems to be a affordable selection for minimalist workplace PCs and residential theater PCs (HTPCs). Talking of workplace PCs, ASRock’s Arc A380 Low Profile 6GB graphics card solely has two show outputs: one DisplayPort 2.0 and one HDMI 2.0b. This attribute units a constraint for functions that require greater than two displays. After all, far not all workplace PCs want three or extra shows, however ASRock’s board can be unusable for issues like video partitions which might be usually pushed by compact PCs.

ASRock’s low-profile Arc card ought to be out there at retail quickly. Although at the least for the second, the corporate is just not itemizing a value for the pint-sized product.