Intel ARC GPUs: Leaked specs, release date, and more

Intel is about to launch its first-ever generation of graphic cards and is set to arrive in early 2022. The company that specializes in manufacturing central processing units for PCs is finally trying something new. They have also confirmed three future generations of their upcoming GPU lineup and it needs to be seen how the fans react to their new products.

The new GPU series from Intel will be going by the name “Intel Arc” and promises to take gaming hardware, software, and services forward. Intel has confirmed that Arc products will be using the Xe architecture, an attempt to compete with the existing GPU giants Nvidia and AMD.

Amidst the global crisis, the fate of this new product lineup is still yet to be determined. The article below will provide a detailed look at the leaked specifications, release date, and more.

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Intel ARC GPUs: leaked specs, release date, and more

The latest GPU lineup from Intel will be integrated with the Xe architecture while the Tiger Lake laptops will come with the integrated graphics variant of the same. As of now, three generations have been confirmed for the Arc series of GPUs and might be launching in early 2022.

Initially, the first-generation cards were named DG2, but later got changed to Alchemist. The second and third-generation cards will be named Battlemage and Celestial, respectively.

Release dates for these cards have not yet been confirmed as Intel has only hinted at the first quarter of 2022. Powered by Xe HPG architecture, the cards will serve these particular purposes:

• Xe HPC – High-performance GPUs designed for data centers and supercomputing
• Xe HP – High-performance GPUs targetted for PC gamers and workstations.
• Xe LP – Low-performance GPUs for entry-level cards and integrated graphics.

Recently, details of four Intel Arc graphics cards were leaked by a test driver that was meant for the 11th generation Intel NUC Kit. These names include the Arc A380, A350, A370M, A350M and the Iris Xe A200M. It has been reported that the Arc A380 and A350 are dedicated GPUs, while the M types are designed for laptops.

The Arc A380 will have a clock speed of 2.45 GHz and 6GB of GDDR6 memory and will aim to compete with the Nvidia 1650s head-to-head. The Arc 512 EU model will have a massive 16GB GDDR6 memory and 4,096 Execution Units. The data in the table below is still unconfirmed and rumored by Intel and Moore's Law is Dead.

VideoCardz	Arc A???	Arc A380	Arc A350
GPU	DG2-512EU	DG2-128EU?	DG2-128EU
Execution Units	512	TBC	96-128
FP3 Cores	4096	TBC	768-1024
Memory Configuration	16GB GDDR6	6GB GDDR6	4GB GDDR6
Memory Bus	256-bit	96/192 bit (?)	64 bit (?)
Boost Clock	2.2-2.5 GHz	~2.45 GHz	2.2-2.5 GHz
Typical Board Power	~225W	TBC	~75W

The games featured in the footage above require some serious horsepower to run which means things might be going in the right direction. A benchmark leak has also shown that the Alchemist cards reached a speed of 2,200MHz. This is faster than most AMD and Nvidia cards in the market at the moment, but does not guarantee better performance than them.

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Ray Tracing Support

A dedicated Ray Tracing unit will be provided for each core of the Xe HPG design. Intel has also confirmed that its upcoming graphic cards will support DirectX 12 and Vulkan Ray Tracing at launch during Architecture Day 2021. An AI-assisted super sampling feature (similar to Nvidia's DLSS) will also be incorporated with their upcoming GPU series.