Intel's graphics cards are called Arc and are expected in Q1 2022
Yesterday, Intel surprised us all by revealing the name of their upcoming dedicated graphics cards: Intel Arc. The first graphics card architecture under the new brand is called Alchemist and is said to launch in the first quarter of 2022.
DG2 becomes Alchemist. The technical codename that’s been used in the tech forums for the past few months is replaced by Intel with a catchier name. Intel's new graphics card architecture for dedicated GPUs is released under the Intel Arc brand, analogous to Nvidia's GeForce or AMD's Radeon. Battlemage, Celestial and Druid are the names of the following architectures under the new brand. Intel announced this quite unexpectedly on Monday, 16 August 2021.
Not much information
The upcoming Intel Arc graphics cards are based on the Xe-HPG microarchitecture. Xe is the graphics architecture that’s also used for the integrated graphics on Intel's newer CPUs. HPG stands for High Performance Gaming – the dedicated cards for more demanding gamers. The first generation Intel Arc, Alchemist, is said to be capable of hardware-based ray tracing, feature AI-based super sampling technology analogous to Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) as well as support DirectX 12 Ultimate.
All graphics card buzzwords are there.
More information should be available in the months before the release in Q1 2022. A trailer that shows games such as «Metro Exodus», «Rift Breaker», «Crysis Remastered» and «Forza Horizon 4» rendered in 1440p resolution from an Alchemist map is supposed to make it easier to bridge the waiting time.
What to expect performance-wise?
According to leaks, the performance of the top card of the Alchemist series is expected to be at about the level of an RTX 3070 by Nvidia. However, it’s still too early to say anything more specific.
Intel has been working on its own graphics card architecture for several years. The semiconductor manufacturer from Santa Clara is striving to become the third big player next to Nvidia and AMD. To achieve this, Intel poached then Senior Vice President and Chief Architect of AMD Radeon Technologies Group Raja Koduri in 2017. So far, Intel has made great progress with this reinforcement, especially in the integrated graphics of the CPUs.
With Alchemist, dedicated cards are following. No matter how good Intel's entry into the graphics card market will be, it will be good for business. As we all know, competition is good for business.
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