The most widely used graphics card among PC gamers, according to Steam's monthly hardware and software survey, is the six-year-old NVIDIA GTX 1060. The mid-range champion was priced at $249 when it launched in July of 2016.

Such an old graphics card is at the top of the list not because owners didn't want to upgrade, but because they couldn't. Surging graphics card prices during the pandemic, fueled in part by the cryptocurrency bubble, erased any chance of finding a graphics card that provided a meaningful bump in performance without needing to pay through the nose.

Prices are finally coming down, and it's likely that a flood of PC gamers are now seriously considering replacing their aging mid-range graphics cards. For the first time in decades, gamers will have more than two options to choose from. In addition to NVIDIA and AMD, Intel (INTC 0.61%) is officially in the graphics card business with the impending launch of its Arc A770 graphics card.

More competition in the graphics card market

After a long road and a dicey launch of a low-end graphics card in China, Intel is finally launching a mainstream graphics card meant to directly compete with NVIDIA and AMD. The Arc A770 will have two variants starting at $329, putting it against NVIDIA's RTX 3060 and AMD's RX 6650 XT. Intel undercuts both of those on price at the moment, with the RTX 3060 available for around $369 and the RX 6650 XT going for $339.

Intel is claiming that the A770 can deliver 65% better peak performance in ray tracing than the unnamed competition, which is presumably NVIDIA's RTX 3060. This outperformance is partly due to Intel's XeSS AI upscaling technology, which is similar to NVIDIA's DLSS. XeSS is capable of boosting performance significantly, although the results are dependent on the game.

Third-party reviews will be coming soon, as the A770 is set to launch on Oct. 12. If Intel's new graphics card really does deliver the best performance at this price point, the company could have a big winner on its hands.

One big caveat

If the A770 provides best-in-class performance, it will likely be limited to modern games. Intel has been battling issues with its software drivers in the lead up to this launch. What this means for gamers purchasing the A770 is that some games are going to work great, and others won't.

Modern games using the latest graphics APIs are where the A770 will shine. It's possible that the A770 will put the competition to shame in a select group of titles. Outside those titles, the picture gets more muddled. Any game using older graphics APIs like DirectX 11 are going to be hit or miss. There's a lot of optimization work that needs to be done on Intel's part, and it's unclear what the software side of things will look like when the A770 becomes available.

Hopefully, Intel has made progress over the past few months, but third-party reviews are likely to show the A770 coming up far short in at least some popular games. That will probably be enough to eliminate it as an option for many gamers. The good news is that this is a software issue that can be fixed.

Given the sheer number of gamers sitting on old, mid-range graphics cards, Intel's strategy to target the mid-range of the market makes a lot of sense. If the company can build up some credibility by launching a solid graphics card at a reasonable price, NVIDIA and AMD would have something to worry about.