I've been loving using an Intel graphics card for over a year, and this Black Friday deal is why you should join me

I've been using Intel Arc graphics from day one, and I haven't looked back. Part of that is wanting to support the newcomer and help drive competition, but a bigger part is my appreciation of truly impressive, more affordable hardware. Intel has a year of work in the Arc platform under its belt now, and with a Black Friday deal this good on a Sparkle A750, now is definitely a good time to join the blue team. 

Sparkle Intel Arc A750 ORC | was $225 now $179.99 at Amazon

Intel's A750 can game almost as hard as the NVIDIA RTX 3060, but with this deal it's significantly cheaper. Intel keeps making its graphics cards better, too, through constant work on its drivers, and for this money it's impossible to beat. 

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More great Black Friday deals

• Walmart: Early Black Friday deals on practically everything
• Dell: Top deals on laptops, gaming PCs, accessories, and more
• Alienware: Up to $800 off gaming laptops and desktops
• Best Buy: Big savings on video games, accessories, and more
• HP: Up to 84% of select HP Windows PCs and accessories
• Lenovo: Up to 50% of gaming towers, laptops, and accessories
• Newegg: Save on PC gaming accessories, components, and more
• Razer: Up to 43% off laptops and accessories with free gifts
• More individual deals:
  • Xbox Series X + Diablo IV + free $75 Target gift card for $634.99 $449.99 at Target
  • Samsung T9 4TB Portable SSD for $439.99 $249.99 at Best Buy
  • Xbox Stereo Headset — 20th Anniversary for $69.99 $46.86 at Walmart
  • Xbox Series X + Diablo IV + Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III for $639.99 $489.99 at Walmart
  • TP-Link Deco X55 Wi-Fi mesh 3-pack for $229.99 $179.99 at Amazon
  • Razer Wolverine V2 Chroma for $149.99 $89.99 at Best Buy
  • Xbox Series X + $50 Best Buy gift card for $549.99 $399.99 at Best Buy for Plus/Total members
  • HyperX Cloud III Wireless for $169.99 $129.99 at Best Buy
  • Xbox Series S + 3-months Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $299.99 $249 at Walmart
  • Lenovo LOQ Tower (17IRB8) + 3-months Xbox Game Pass Ultimate from $1,029.99 $674.99 at Lenovo

The Intel Arc A750 goes toe-to-toe with more expensive graphics cards 

Of the current Intel Arc lineup, the A750 is the sweet spot. While the A770 is a little more powerful, in my experience the difference between the two isn't huge. The lower asking price of the A750 makes the small performance sacrifice worth it. Especially when it's this cheap. 

More impressively, the Intel Arc A750 can go toe-to-toe with the NVIDIA RTX 3060, albeit when you don't factor ray tracing into the equation. Then again, I'd question whether ray tracing is worth it at all if you're buying a budget graphics card, though the Arc A750 can do it. 

The RTX 3060, even when discounted during an event like Black Friday, is still substantially more expensive. The A750 runs very close to the RTX 3060 at 1080p, even 1440p, and the XeSS upscaler is improving all the time. One area Intel has the upper hand, though, is that even its budget graphics cards have a hardware AV1 encoder, something NVIDIA only added on the RTX 40 series. 

I've obviously been following Intel's continued development first-hand, and as impressed as I was at launch, things are so much better now. Modern titles have always worked pretty well, but Intel has focused on delivering big improvements in older DX11, and even DX9 games. The latter is particularly impressive given that there's no hardware support for DX9 on Arc. 

Ultimately, at $180 you simply cannot do better right now if you're looking for a graphics card. This Sparkle version is also the best looking of them all, with a cool blue paint job. I was disappointed on Prime Day that there weren't any Intel discounts, but I'm excited about this one. Join me on team underdog, I promise you won't regret it.