Intel is building dedicated gaming graphics cards, due out in Q1 2022, and we may have just gotten our first look at the big one, the Arc Alchemist. Here are some leaked images from YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead (via Videocardz):
Arc is Intel’s new GPU brand, designed to compete with Nvidia GeForce and AMD Radeon, and the Arc Alchemist is the first GPU in the company’s roadmap that’s actually scheduled to release. The company had previously built the Intel DG1 to test the GPU waters, but that was a comparatively weak card, based on the Xe LP (low-power) graphics architecture, and consumers couldn’t actually buy it. This new card is part of Intel’s Xe HPG roadmap (high-power / gaming) and is said to deliver performance akin to an Nvidia RTX 3070 thanks to 512 execution units (EUs) and 16GB of GDDR6 memory.
Leaks suggest that Intel may also have several variants of its “DG2” GPU in the works, including lighter versions with 448EUs, 384EUs, 256EUs or as few as 128EUs for an entry level GPU. Even that would be notably more than the number of graphics core clusters that Intel has typically integrated into its own CPUs.