Intel presents its brand “Arc” for high-end graphics cards. The GPUs are expected to arrive in spring 2022. We present you the information.
What’s it about? Intel has presented solid information about its high-end graphics cards under the brand “Arc”. With these graphics cards, they aim to stir up the market starting next year.
This introduction from Intel is unlikely to surprise users interested in graphics cards. Intel has made it clear for several years that it is interested in becoming a serious third player in the field of modern gaming graphics cards. So far, mainly AMD and Nvidia are competing for potential buyers of a graphics card.
When is the graphics card coming? Manufacturer Intel has at least provided a time window for when the graphics card is supposed to arrive: early 2022. The first Arc graphics cards, based on the “Alchemist” generation, will be released in the first quarter of 2022 and will signify the official start of Intel’s entry into the graphics card market.
Intel wants to introduce both graphics cards for desktop PCs and gaming laptops, aiming to position itself as broadly as its competitors, who also offer graphics cards for various devices.
What will the graphics card cost? Currently, there is hardly any solid information on this. We do not know prices, but it is quite likely that Intel will orient itself on the competition. Nvidia’s popular GeForce RTX 3080 is expected to be available for a suggested retail price of 729 Euros, but current market prices are significantly higher.
Whether prices will stabilize by early 2022 is also uncertain.
When will there be more information? Intel stated in its conference that it would release more information regarding the new high-end graphics cards by the end of 2021. So we will have to wait a bit longer to know more.
Nonetheless, the initial response to Intel’s presentation has been quite positive. MeinMMO summarizes the first user reactions for you:
In early 2021, Intel released low-end graphics cards for pre-built PCs
At the beginning of the year, Intel introduced low-end graphics cards for pre-built computers. These are the DG1 graphics cards, Intel Iris Xe Max. They are primarily aimed at office users and were not designed for gaming, nor are they suitable for it. Especially the software had significant issues.
Intel’s upcoming Arc graphics cards are based on the Xe microarchitecture, which is also the foundation for the low-end graphics cards, but the architecture is referred to as Intel Xe-HPG. The HPG stands for High Performance Gaming and is being developed under the codename DG2.
How much performance the new graphics card from Intel will provide is still unknown. The graphics card is expected to offer hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-driven super sampling. Additionally, it will have full support for DirectX 12 Ultimate.
With AI technology, they want to compete with Nvidia and AMD
What does Intel’s graphics card offer? Intel plans to offer “AI-driven super sampling” directly from release with its graphics cards. Nvidia is already successfully using this in its Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technique.
In June 2021, AMD also released its FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) as a response to DLSS. The number of supported games is increasing month by month. Meanwhile, two major game engines also support AMD’s technology.
How exactly Intel’s technology will work is not yet known. Nvidia’s DLSS technology can only be used on Nvidia graphics cards with tensor cores. AMD has chosen an open variant that works with the competitor’s graphics cards as well.
What does this technology actually bring? The aim of all these technologies is to upscale games from a lower resolution to achieve smoother frame rates without noticeable losses in image quality. This way, the game runs significantly smoother without requiring a faster graphics card.
With DLSS, there is a simple way to significantly increase the FPS while maintaining quality. This is especially helpful when the graphics card is already heavily loaded. For the GeForce RTX 3060, the performance gain can be up to 30%.
