At Computex 2024, Taiwanese company Sparkle, a leading partner of Intel for producing Arc graphic accelerators, showcased some intriguing graphics cards. The company continues to innovate with unconventional solutions, as demonstrated at the exhibition.
Three unique graphics cards were shown by Sparkle. One of these adheres to Asus BTF (Back to The Future) components’ philosophy of hidden power connectors. Instead of bringing a cable to the 12VHPWR connector, it utilizes the Asus PCIe High-Power slot on the motherboard, which can supply up to 600 watts. This is ample even for the power-hungry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090. Sparkle demonstrated a graphics card with this power type in a system with the ASUS TUF BTF board, indicating collaboration between the two companies.
Sparkle also boasted about graphics cards with hybrid or full liquid cooling systems. Intel Arc graphics usually do not need a liquid cooling system due to relatively conservative power requirements. However, the Taiwanese manufacturer may be readying these graphics cards for the next generation of Battlemage architecture GPUs, which could consume more power.
Among these was a graphics card with a liquid cooling unit inside the case, reminiscent of MSI Fuzion graphics cards. Another Sparkle model sported an external radiator, unusual for Intel Arc GPUs with a thermal design power (TDP) of 225 watts but common in powerful cards such as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080/4090.
