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Intel Arc A750 LEGO edition

(Image credit: Intel)

This week, the live-streamed broadcast on the Intel Insiders Community Discord channel highlighted a project with Intel Arc Graphics cards and LEGO. The show, a recording of which is now available to watch on Twitch, featured Zach Hill, an Arc Graphics tech marketing exec and LEGO fan. Hill has been working in his spare time for the last six months on creating a 1:1 or life-size model of the Intel Arc A750 graphics card using the huge library of LEGO bricks available in software.

Intel Arc A750 LEGO edition

(Image credit: Intel)

The project aims to create a replica of the A750 as close as possible using available LEGO bricks. For this purpose, Hill uses BrickLink Studio, a free software package (LEGO Group owned) which allows 3D building and rendering of projects using the full gamut of LEGO bricks still produced. According to Hill’s estimation, the project, as you see it in the pictures throughout this article, is 80% finished. If you watch the video you can see and hear areas of the project which Hill still thinks require attention. One of the obvious non-LEGO issues, though, is that the sticker needs changing from Arc A770 to A750.

Hill and regular host Bob Duffy discussed whether the life-size graphics card could have LEDs or even RGB. A brief answer to this question is that there are some LEGO lighting kits available (previously released in a LEGO blacksmith and a lighthouse kit, for example), but in making the graphics card model a 1:1 size, there really wasn’t room to include them. This was also partly why Hill targeted the A750 for his LEGO design project – it doesn’t need LEDs to be realistic, just some silver accent LEGO bricks.

Intel Arc A750 LEGO edition

(Image credit: Intel)

Non-LEGO fans will probably learn a lot about these creative building bricks from watching the video. Some of the things we picked up included a pair of new acronyms; AFOL (Adult Fans Of Lego), and SNOT (Studs Not On Top). The Arc A750 design uses quite a lot of bricks which are SNOTs.

On the topic of making these LEGO Intel Arc A750 graphics cards widely available after the project is completed, things seemed rather uncertain. It was highlighted that the LEGO Ideas Set (opens in new tab) program could get an official kit mass-produced with 10,000 votes behind it. However, Hill didn’t seem keen on this idea, perhaps because the project isn’t yet finished to his satisfaction. Also he seemed to direct those interested towards the future possibility of the BrickLink Studio design being made available and users sourcing / buying their own bricks using the catalog associated with the model.

If someone were to build the project in its present state, Hill reckons the 500 to 6000 bricks needed would cost about $120 or more. That’s almost half the price of a real working Intel Arc A750 GPU.

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Mark Tyson is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

The post Life-Size LEGO Intel Arc Graphics Card Project Revealed first appeared on tomshardware.com

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Life-Size LEGO Intel Arc Graphics Card Project Revealed

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