The company Sparkle seems to be ready to come out of “graphic anabiosis” and return to the production of graphics cards. The Taiwanese company, which has been actively cooperating with NVIDIA for a long time, left the business of consumer graphics adapters about ten years ago, focusing on embedded devices. However, it seems that the manufacturer with history received an offer that it could not refuse.

Recently, the company renewed its activity in social networks, announcing that Sparkle becomes an authorized Intel AIB partner for the development, manufacture and sale of Intel Arc video cards.

Therefore, the Sparkle assortment will be replenished with three models of the Alchemy family at once – Sparkle Intel Arc A750 TITAN OC Edition, Sparkle Intel Arc A750 ORC OC Edition, as well as Sparkle Intel Arc A380 ELF .

The older Intel Arc TITAN OC model has a fairly large TORN cooler with a 2.5 slot design and a total length of 306 mm. Three fans are used to blow the radiator unit. The GPU is accelerated to 2300 MHz. The video card is equipped with 8 GB of memory.

Sparkle Intel Arc A750 ORC OC is much more compact – 2.2 slot design, total length 222 mm. The model uses a cooler with a pair of axial fans. The GPU in this case is accelerated to 2200 MHz. The model also has 8 GB of memory.

We remind you that Intel Arc A750 series video cards have a 256-bit bus and are equipped with GDDR6 chips with an effective frequency of 16,000 MHz. This configuration allows you to get bandwidth at the level of 512 GB/s. This is more than the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (504 GB/s). Overall, Intel ARC A750 is able to compete with GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB and Radeon RX 6600 8 GB.

Both video cards support 0dB Fan technology with fans stopping at minimum load. In addition, the adapters have the ThermalSync option, which provides LED indicators on the sides of the card that change color depending on the temperature of the graphics processor.

For connecting additional power, video cards are equipped with two 8-pin connectors. The level of energy consumption of models from Sparkle is not indicated, however, it is unlikely to differ from the declared by Intel – 225 W. For systems, power supplies with a capacity of 650 W or more are recommended.

The third model in the manufacturer’s updated range is Sparkle Intel Arc A380 ELF. This is a compact video card (153 mm) with a single-fan dual-slot cooler and a very simple radiator design. The GPU frequency is up to 2000 MHz. ELF has 6 GB of memory, a 96-bit bus and does not require the connection of additional power. Among the direct opponents of this model are GeForce GTX 1650 and Radeon RX 6400.

Sparkle does not yet specify prices and dates for the start of sales. Let’s assume that the price of Intel Arc A750 series models will be close to the recommended price, which was reduced from $289 to $249 at the beginning of February. Meanwhile, the MSRP for the base Intel Arc A380 models is $139.

Time will tell if Sparkle, after a long hiatus, has managed to maintain development potential sufficient to actively play in the segment of discrete graphics. Nevertheless, we wish them success. The current pool of players of the “blue” team will obviously benefit from additional reinforcement. Let us remind you that ASRock, Acer, Gunnir and MSI (OEM production) are still involved among Intel’s partners in the production of video cards.

In turn, we continue to wait for the official start of sales of Intel graphics cards in Ukraine. Half a year has passed since the global launch, it would be time to solve the issue with the supply of adapters.