June 21 update: Intel has officially confirmed that only Intel-branded Arc A770 LE cards are being discontinued and that "silicon for AIB is still being manufactured."

Original post It's official: as of June 20, the Intel-made Arc A770 is history. Intel has issued a Product Change Notification (PCN) for the card. The "key feature" of this change is that the product is being discontinued. Yikes.

The notice (currently at the top of Intel's PCN list) states that June 20 is the last day for both orders and shipments. This is basically a warning to all Intel customers that Intel will no longer be accepting orders for Intel Arc A770 cards, and that the last shipment has likewise ended.

"Customers" in this case means distributors, retailers, and other large entities, as Intel does not sell graphics cards directly to gamers.

It is important to note that this "End of Life" notice only pertains to the Intel Arc A770 16GB card (Intel does not manufacture the 8GB version); third-party cards known as AIB or add-in board cards are also cancelled cancelled, which does not mean that the A770 as a GPU is dead. [Of course, that could be Intel's plan. But that is not what this cancellation notice means. In fact, there is good reason to believe that the A770 is not scheduled to be cancelled shortly.

First, several AIB manufacturers, including Acer, offer Arc A770-based cards. Additionally, Sparkle recently announced its own new line of Arc-based boards, including the top-of-the-line A770 Titan.

This announcement was made in early June, so it would be a bit odd if the A770 was cancelled altogether just a few weeks later.

Furthermore, we still expect Intel's second generation Arc graphics architecture, codenamed Battlemage, to arrive next year. At this point, we have no reason to believe that the cancellation of this Intel Arc card says anything about Intel's broader plans for Arc.

We will, of course, keep a close eye on any developments. It is fair to say that Intel's Arc was not the smoothest of launches. Similarly, Intel has been cutting costs of late and has plenty of experience when it comes to scrapping projects that don't bring a return.

So, I would not bet my house that the entire Arc graphics project will definitely work. However, the cancellation of this particular product does not indicate anything terribly sinister for Arc. And after several driver updates and significant price reductions, the A750 in particular has become quite attractive. So let us hope that the only way is up for Arc.