Originally designed as an OEM component primarily aimed at the Chinese market, the Arc A310 had limited availability for DIY sales. However, Sparkle, a brand that has recently made a comeback in the GPU market in an exclusive partnership with Intel, has taken the lead in bringing this GPU to consumers through Newegg.
The Sparkle Arc A310 ELF is the most basic option in the company’s product range. It features only 6 Xe-Cores and a 64-bit memory bus with 4GB memory, indicating it’s not intended for gaming. Nevertheless, the Arc A3 series supports AV1 encoding, making it a valuable addition for main GPUs that don’t need an immediate upgrade.
Unfortunately, the current price listing for this card is $109.99, which is less than ideal. Gamers can easily find the RX 6500 XT, often used as the benchmark for entry-level GPU reviews. The 6500 XT is already 10-40% faster (depending on the test) than the Arc A380, which utilizes a full ACM-G11 configuration with 8 Xe-Cores. Considering that the A310 has only 6 Xe-Cores, it’s clear that it will be even slower.
What’s worth mentioning is that this design deviates from the one that surfaced in August, which had a dual-fan setup. Instead, the current version features a single-fan Mini-ITX design, reminiscent of the A380 ELF cooler.
Not to forget that this A310 isn’t technically the first A310 available in the US market. Matrox offers a professional LUMA video card using the same SKU, but it serves a distinct purpose. It’s designed for driving multi-display support and is intended for fanless operation in embedded systems, like medical applications and video walls.
Via Newegg