| Acer Predator BiFrost Arc A770 OC 16GB: MSRP – $399; Avenue Value – $319 (As Low As $289) Acer’s tackle Intel’s Arc A770 GPU is the quickest and flashiest Arc card round, and you will not pay a premium for it when it is on-sale — which is usually. |
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When Acer supplied to ship over one among its Predator BiFrost A770 OC playing cards, nonetheless, it gave us the right alternative to revisit Arc and see how issues are going a yr out from launch. That is proper: it is already been a yr because the A770 and A750 launched final October. Time positive flies, would not it?
We might prefer to excitedly inform you that each one of Arc’s points are resolved and that this Acer card is an unbelievable gaming worth, however that’d be getting forward of ourselves. First, let’s speak concerning the the cardboard itself and its specs.
Acer’s Predator BiFrost Arc A770 OC relies on Intel’s Arc A770 product that’s itself based mostly on the ACM-G10 GPU. That is the biggest “Alchemist” GPU, and it is also used within the Arc A750, albeit in cut-down type. Trying on the specs, it has spectacular numbers: 4,096 shaders, 128 ROPs, and a 256-bit reminiscence bus giving it 560 GB/second of reminiscence bandwidth. For perspective, let us take a look at a number of competing GPUs on this useful chart:
That appears fairly promising, proper? Practically double the feel fillrate of most competing playing cards, gobs of reminiscence bandwidth, and large compute throughput. In any case, the ACM-G10 GPU is definitely fairly giant in comparison with, say, the AD106 within the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti or the Navi 33 chip used within the Radeon RX 7600. We did not have all of those playing cards available for re-testing in the present day, however we have been in a position to make do with a barely lowered choice that also paints a fairly first rate image of the efficiency of the Predator BiFrost A770 card.
If you have not learn our earlier protection of Intel’s Arc GPUs, it’s best to in all probability try this to get an thought of how issues have modified. This overview will not embrace benchmark knowledge for earlier driver variations as a result of we’re attempting to get an thought of how Arc, and particularly this Predator BiFrost Arc A770 card, compares to different choices out there available in the market. Nevertheless, we did just lately do a brief publish with some exams of the unique launch driver towards a a lot newer driver. This is a number of hyperlinks to our earlier protection that present some extra background element:
Intel Arc A770 And A750 Restricted Version Evaluation: Placing Alchemist To The Check
Arc Graphics Updates And PresentMon Examined: Intel Makes Big Strides
The Acer Predator BiFrost Arc A770 OC
So, concerning the Predator BiFrost itself. The look of the cardboard is actually distinctive. It has what seems to be like a classical blower shroud, supposed to vent warmth out the again facet of the case, however then on the finish of the board, there’s a big axial fan that vents air by the bottom of the cardboard towards the CPU cooler. It is an attention-grabbing design, and we’re not fully bought on the cooling advantages, nevertheless it actually seems to be flashy.
Whereas we’re discussing the design, we must always point out that RGB LED lighting is current in each the axial fan in addition to the squirrel cage in the course of the cardboard. Presumably this dual-fan setup is what evokes the “BiFrost” title.
On the highest of the cardboard, you’ve the Intel Arc A770 branding in addition to some RGB LEDs that illuminate a Predator brand when the cardboard is on; you possibly can see these within the rendered picture above. The Predator BiFrost Arc A770 takes a pair of eight-pin energy connectors giving it some 375W complete of accessible energy, however that needs to be gross overkill for a card of this energy stage. It is doable that Acer supposed customers to have some headroom for overclocking, which we’ll discuss a lot later.
Across the again of the cardboard, you’ve a partial backplate that bears the Predator monster head brand in addition to the Intel Arc A770 branding, after which one other backplate behind that one which protects the rear of the GPU. Total the design seems to be difficult and we suspect it might be cheaper to easily manufacture a single aluminum plate, however we do need to admit it seems to be fairly wild.
A lot of the card’s rear case bracket is taken up by fan vents for the centrifugal blower that directs air towards each the vents and the axial fan on the rear of the cardboard, that ejects air upward (in a conventional tower case). The output cluster on the Predator BiFrost A770 is similar triple-DisplayPort-plus-one-HDMI cluster that we see on most trendy GPUs, so full marks for out there ports, however no factors for originality.
Total the cardboard is a pleasant, cheap measurement, properly inside acceptable bounds, and far smaller than many current GPUs. It would not stick up too far above the enlargement card backplate, and it would not have backward-facing PCIe energy connectors, a pet peeve of mine. We do not actually have any complaints with the development of the cardboard, however taking it aside to re-paste it looks as if it may very well be a problem, because the design of the cooler is sort of difficult.
You are not simply right here to gawp on the factor, although, are you? Let’s begin some charts and numbers.
