Intel Unveils Arc Gaming GPU Brand That's Set To Shock The Industry, Radeon And GeForce
According to Intel, the Arc branding will span multiple generations, with Alchemist being followed by Battlemage, Celestial, and Druid. The company explains that first-generation Arc graphics cards will fully support DirectX 12 and leverage hardware-based ray tracing like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 and the Radeon RX 6000 families. In addition, Arc will offer Intel's take on supersampling (i.e., NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution) leveraging artificial intelligence technology.
Updated, 10:33 AM ET - Intel has uploaded live action game play footage on the product.
"Today marks a key moment in the graphics journey we started just a few years ago. The launch of the Arc brand and the reveal of future hardware generations signifies Intel's deep and continued commitment to gamers and creators everywhere," said Roger Chandler, Intel VP and GM of Client Graphics Products and Solutions. "We have teams doing incredible work to ensure we deliver first-class and frictionless experiences when these products are available early next year."
As we previously reported, the first-generation Arc graphics cards (Alchemist) will launch during the first quarter of 2022 and we expect to hear more details about these first-generation discrete graphics cards tomorrow at Intel's Architecture Day. We don't know if Intel will give us any hints about the performance of the Alchemist graphics cards, but previous rumors suggest flagship SKUs with up to 512 execution units may rival the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti.
If that rumor is accurate, and Intel can satisfy demand from gamers – something that NVIDIA and AMD are incapable of doing right now – the Arc brand might just shock everyone next year.
