MSI Unveils its Custom Intel Arc A380 Graphics Card

So far there have officially been two AIB partners who have confirmed custom designs of Intel’s upcoming (well, technically already released in China) Arc A380 graphics card, GUNNIR and ASRock. While we did, of course, expect more AIB partners to be confirmed over the coming weeks, we have to admit that it was a little unclear as to whether any more would choose to make their debut in China or whether they would wait until the formal Western release (which I promise you shouldn’t be too much further away!).

Following a report via Videocardz, however, MSI has officially become the third manufacturer to confirm a custom Intel Arc A380 graphics card!

MSI Unveil Custom Intel Arc A380 Graphics Card

MSI’s official custom design is interesting for more than a few reasons. Firstly, it would appear that this is the first dedicated design with a low-profile aesthetic in mind. Yes, the other two custom AIB A380s are both, like this, single slot models. This one from MSI, however, does still appear to be notably slimmer. – The trade-off for this, however, is that this is the first custom A380 (including Intel’s own in-house designs) to feature a twin-fan cooling solution.

This means that although this version is thinner, it’s about 3-4″ comparatively longer with MSI seemingly choosing a longer thinner heatsink rather than a smaller ‘fatter’ one.

There is, however, a third factor that ties into some news leaked earlier this week.

MSI IS Releasing Custom Intel Arc GPUs?

Earlier this week, information appeared online suggesting that a major AIB partner had officially withdrawn from creating custom Intel Arc graphics cards due to ‘quality concerns‘. At the time, this was strongly hinted by the source to be MSI. However, nothing was confirmed.

Based on this news, therefore, it would appear that MSI is going to release custom Intel Arc graphics cards. A factor which, by proxy, suggests that it’s another AIB partner who has withdrawn, right? Well, yes and potentially no. – You see, China is a bit of an odd market when it comes to QA with standards, generally speaking, being a bit lower than what we would see on Western shores.

Put simply, MSI, in creating this custom Arc A380, may have decided that there is no way this GPU would pass the muster in more stringent markets such as North America, Europe, and the UK. – As such, despite there now being a custom AIB A380 from MSI in China, this might be as far as they go.

What do you think though? – Let us know in the comments!