The global chip-manufacturing giant Intel has today announced to launch a brand new line of high-performance gaming GPUs to take on AMD and Nvidia. Dubbed the Intel Arc, it is the company’s first gaming-centric GPU line that will debut next year. Although not much information is available about the graphics cards as of now, Intel shared shone a light on some information about the GPU line in an official video.
So, let’s take a look at some of the key features that the Intel Arc GPUs will offer.
Intel Arc – High-Performance Gaming GPUs
So, the Intel Arc GPUs will be dedicated graphics processors that will cater to high-end gaming PCs and thin-and-light gaming laptops. The first GPU under the Intel Arc branding is codenamed “Alchemist” and will arrive in the first quarter of 2022. Other than this, Intel has also revealed the codenames of the later generations of Arc GPUs and they are Batllemage, Celestial, and Druid.
Now, coming to the Alchemist GPUs, the graphics processors will support advanced features such as hardware-based ray tracing, variable-rate shading, mesh shading, and Direct X 12 Ultimate. Moreover, as per Intel, these GPUs will also be capable of “artificial intelligence-based super sampling” technology to upscale low-res graphics to high resolutions without putting more pressure on GPUs.
The Alchemist GPUs are based on the company’s Xe HPG microarchitecture, which is a combination of Intel’s HP and HPC microarchitectures. As per the company, the Xe HPG microarchitecture is to deliver scalability while delivering compute efficiency with high-end graphics features.
As for the games that could take advantage of the Intel Arc GPUs, the company gave a quick look at some of them running on a pre-production model of the Alchemist GPU. In an official video, Intel showcased an Arc GPU running games like Forza Horizon 4, PlayerUnknown’s Battleground (PUBG), and Metro Exodus. The GPU can run the Crysis Remastered Trilogy as well. You can check out the video right here.
As for the availability, there is no information available other than the fact that Intel will bring the first Arc Alchemist GPUs in the first quarter of 2022. The company says that it will reveal more details about the Intel Arc GPUs later this year.
