“Large manufacturer stops production of Intel Arc GPUs due to quality problems”
The release of Intel Arc GPUs is reportedly far from smooth sailing after at least one independent board partner stops producing video cards based on Intel’s GPU. PC manufacturers and sellers would also have no confidence in the Arc Alchemist product line.
There would be little confidence in Intel’s new graphics cards at various layers of the PC industry, so reports Igor’s Lab based on various sources. In any case, the German medium spoke to one large board partner who would have completely stopped producing their own video cards based on Intel’s Arc GPUs because of ‘concerns about quality’.
Gunnir Intel Arc A380
To protect his sources, Igor Walllossek does not name concrete names, but it is said to be a ‘great partner’. Companies such as ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte are potential AIBs that make a variety of their own video cards with components from GPU giants such as Nvidia, AMD and, more recently, Intel. To be clear, it is not known whether it is one of those companies, or another party such as EVGA, ASRock, Sapphire, Gunnir or Zotac.
Several companies would have confirmed to Wallosek that Intel emphasized to them that the focus should be on the OEM market. Thus, manufacturers are incentivized to resell Intel Arc variants to PC manufacturers, which would not be as lucrative as selling GPUs separately.
On the other hand, unlike competitors, Intel reportedly does not give price guarantees and is said to have very poor conditions that should support third-party sales and returns systems. Several sales partners in Germany would not have done business with Intel for these reasons. Other European “dealers, potential distributors and manufacturers” would also have “little or no interest” in Intel’s new product line, according to Walllossek.
Igor’s Lab emphasizes that these developments took place even before the first disappointing benchmarks and reports about driver problems appeared online. For now, official information about the Arc family is scarce, as Intel is releasing the brand new product line in a very limited and phased way in only a few markets.