Discussion Intel Arc Alchemist DESKTOP gaming GPU lineup includes the A770, A750, A580, and A380 models. Will release in Q3 2022. **Rumor**

[Metal Messiah.]

Hello, as we gamers desperately wait for INTEL to release its discrete GAMING GPU lineup which falls under the ARC Alchemist A-series, there are now new rumors popping up which might be distressing to gamers who are holding for an upgrade, and more importantly as they wait for a THIRD GPU player in the market.

It appears that Intel Arc Alchemist were supposed to appear this quarter, but a new rumor has it that there is a delay, and now everything is being postponed until third quarter of 2022. The latest rumor comes from reliable leaker Enthusiast Citizen who has a solid track record from his past leaks. The leaker states that while Intel has introduced its mobility lineup, the high-end variants along with the desktop lineup can be delayed till the end of Q2 or even early Q3 2022.

Intel’s graphics department can’t seem to make up its mind as to when it should release its first volley of desktop GPUs. According to new information shared, Intel has decided to delay its Arc Alchemist graphics cards again, this time to late Q2/early Q3.

This means that they may not hit the market until NVIDIA and AMD’s next-generation products, which, unfortunately for Intel, are poised to completely overshadow Arc due to their massive performance bumps over the current GeForce RTX 30 and Radeon RX 6000 Series, if recurring rumors are to be believed.

Intel is reportedly planning to unveil four SKUs, the most powerful of which (A770) may only be comparable to the GeForce RTX 3070. The reason for this delay is not clear, but it could probably be related to the GPU drivers, which are having a lot of problems at the moment. Previous reports have suggested that Intel will rather delay the release of its first GPUs in order to avoid a disastrous release, and this may be the reason why Intel Arc laptops are almost impossible to acquire anywhere (outside of KOREA I presume ?).

To quote the leaker Enthusiast Citizen, via translation:

“Intel’s independent display (referring to the desktop side) may be delayed again, the reason is unknown, it will be released at the end of Q2 ~ early Q3,” Enthusiastic Citizen wrote.

“There are four models in total, A770, A750, A580, and A380,” they go on to say. “The strongest A770 is probably a 3060Ti or so. So the A770 may not be the top, and there may be some A970 or other models in the back, but lol Yes, A770M is 16GB VRAM, A770 seems to be smaller than this number, the specific size is not clear, it may be | 86 or 10G, A750 and A580 are 8G VRAM video memory should be correct, there is no other news for the time being. Airbus (not) A380 maybe a dessert card. My personal guess is that the memory is at 60, and the performance should be stronger than the RX 6400.”

The leaker states that Intel is working on four variants. These include the ACM-G10 GPU-powered A770, A750, and the A580 while there's only one card aiming at the entry-level segment and that's the ACM-G11-powered A380.

Rumored Intel Arc Alchemist Desktop Graphics Cards:

• Arc A770: ACM-G10 GPU, up to 12 GB Memory
• Arc A750: ACM-G10 GPU, up to 8 GB Memory
• Arc A580: ACM-G10 GPU, up to 8 GB Memory
• Arc A380: ACM-G11 GPU, up to 6 GB Memory

As for the performance segment of Intel’s Arc Alchemist A-series graphics card lineup, the leak claims that Arc A770 is more powerful than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, something like the RTX 3070 as previous rumors have indicated, but what’s surprising is that the A770 is said to have either 10 GB or 8 GB memory. As you may know, Arc A770M mobility variant already comes with 16 GB VRAM, and it’s still not confirmed what the final memory capacity will be. Earlier leaks pointed to 16 GB for the flagship variant, but that may not be the case.

There is also a chatter of a high-end flagship SKU dubbed as Arc A970, but this remains to be seen. First we all need to see the start of the A700 and A500 ARC series of cards on the desktop platform before moving on to even higher-end cards.

It is also possible that the memory 16 GB can only be addressed for the limited edition variant that Intel showed off during the Arc announcement event ? As for the remaining ARC SKUs, the Arc A750 and the Arc A580 would feature 8 GB GDDR6 memory while the entry-level Arc A380 could come equipped with 6 GB GDDR6 memory and compete against the GeForce RTX 3050 since its performance is better than the AMD Radeon RX 6400.

While we can all agree that TSMC 6nm process node is proving to be a nice decision for GPU efficiency, but the real performance of the Arc Alchemist GPUs still remains un-tapped and we don't know how long it would take to get there, or even if Alchemist will still remain relevant in a few months considering both NVIDIA and AMD are aiming to launch their next-gen products by Q3-Q4 of 2022.

Honestly speaking I'm not very optimistic whether Intel can indeed deliver competitive discrete desktop gaming GPUs, given how much work needs to done also on the driver/software side as well. Also, let's not forget that even the recently released MOBILE discrete cards and their respective Laptops are nowhere to be found at retailers worldwide. So I can't expect miracles with the ARC desktop lineup either.

But maybe at least we will see a new 3'rd GPU player in the market, so there is still hope the gaming GPU market and the prices normalize as well, assuming these ARC cards are competitive and offer a decent Price/Performance ratio as well ??

But I digress !

 

[A2D3RS0N]

I know there's rumors of Intel mass manufacturing powerful cards based on some of their line of cards limited to only 64bit and plans on limiting their powerful cards with lower memory units, based on their manufacturing number on their data sheet, all information released can be called into speculation, when there's definitive proof and release of all product lines and manufactured specifications and tear down guides of each product will determine the future of the market. When we know the density of the memory units and how many BGA balls they use for each product, then we can start counting how many balls we need to fix a card if it breaks, you never want to run out of BGA balls when fixing something and I hope they make rework stencils for their cards, because baking one would be hard after setting each BGA ball one by one, then just lose some balls after trying to bake it, before the next baking phase of adding units. I am sure everyone who knows about AMD and NVIDIA, also know Intel has been losing the CPU race and will continue to disappoint the public with above average prices for their products, Intel will have to pay for all the manufacturing licenses for each product they did not fully design, making them even further behind than just being a new GPU manufacturer, just be prepared to be disappointed in Intel's greediness.

 

[Metal Messiah.]

I know there's rumors of Intel mass manufacturing powerful cards based on some of their line of cards limited to only 64bit and plans on limiting their powerful cards with lower memory units, based on their manufacturing number on their data sheet

Are you talking about the GPU's memory bus width interface/64 bit or some other feature ?

 

[A2D3RS0N]

There was a rumor of plans to mass manufacture 64bit bus width interface gpu's to stay with-in the cheaper low tier cards, in the range of graphics of the current release of console's to keep a medium between the consumer to buy Intel and try to control the market based on if customers were to switch from xbox console to PC, my guess Intel just wants to get any customers they can get and may produce affordable low end cards cheaper than a console, I am just guessing based on this rumor about it. I know Microsoft and NVIDIA do business a lot the same with Intel, so I would imagine Intel would be basically manufacture GPU's quite similar to NVIDIA's in design or if they really designed their own GPU's, it would be intriguing to see the architecture of their cards, We are all blind until the truth is revealed.

 

[Metal Messiah.]

As far as I know the INTEL's ARC DG2 desktop GPU silicon is based on a totally new GPU architecture. The hardware design/layout of the chip would be very different than AMD or Nvidia, and while they might use 64-bit bus interface, but that would cannibalize their GPU sales, IMO.

64 bit bus interface is very low, and only entry level cards will sport this feature, because we have already seen Intel officially announce 256-bit at least for the high-end 512EU silicon.

 

[Metal Messiah.]

Some UPDATE on this GPU lineup. It appears that INTEL would be prepping an even slower entry-level discrete card for the desktop. Even the rumored high end ARC SKUs as outlined in the first post above, can hardly compete with either AMD's or NVidia's offerings, at least not in the upper gaming high-end GPU segment, based on rumors and predictions.

On top of that, now we would be getting an entry-level card as well from Intel. But anyways, Intel's Arc Alchemist A-Series graphics card lineup is now rumored to feature an absolutely low-end graphics card known as the A310. The rumor comes from same reliable leaker, Enthusiast Citizen, over at Bilibili, who reported the lineup a few days ago.

Although Intel never launched DG1 officially in the desktop space, the GPU still ended up in the OEM segment with options from a range of AIBs, including ASUS. The DG1 graphics card, being an entry-level design, did find some popularity given its low price and feature set. Based on the new rumor, Intel is expected to release a successor to the DG1 graphics card in the form of the Arc A310 graphics card.

The previous rumor already talked about four Intel Arc A-Series desktop graphics cards based on the Alchemist 'DG2' GPUs. If the rumor about the Arc A310 is correct, then this would be the fifth graphics card within the lineup.

The A310's name pretty much sums up what this card is, an entry-level and low-power graphics card that will be aimed at the OEM segment. It may be possible that this card would only get released in the OEM segment and not see a DIY release like the RX 6400 (at least initially).

In terms of specs, the Arc A310 will be a cut-down graphics card, sitting below the Arc A380 and the Arc A350. It will utilize the ACM-G11 GPU core and feature 4 GB GDDR6 memory across a 64-bit bus interface. As for core count, it could either retain the 96 EUs of the Arc A350 series or go even lower with just 64 EUs enabled. That will be half of the full ACM-G11 GPU it is based upon.

Performance is said to be slower than the Radeon RX 6400 graphics card.

• Arc A770: ACM-G10 GPU, Up To 12 GB Memory (Faster Than RTX 3060 Ti)
• Arc A750: ACM-G10 GPU, Up To 8 GB Memory (Faster Than RTX 3060)
• Arc A580: ACM-G10 GPU, Up To 8 GB Memory (On Par With RTX 3060)
• Arc A380: ACM-G11 GPU, Up To 6 GB Memory (Faster Than RTX 3050)
• Arc A310: ACM-G11 GPU, Up To 4 GB Memory (Faster Than RX 6400)

As for the other graphics cards that were detailed last week, the same leaker reports that Intel's Arc A380 will fall between the RTX 3050 and RX 6400 graphics cards. The mid-range Arc A580 will fall between the RTX 3060 and RX 6600 graphics cards while the high-end Arc A750 will be faster than the RTX 3060.

Meanwhile, the Arc A770 will end up faster than the RTX 3060 Ti.

In select scenarios, the Intel Arc lineup will offer higher performance such as Raytracing and titles with XeSS support but aside from that, Intel needs a LOT of work to be done on the driver side before they can really compete with NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.

 

[Metal Messiah.]

This just got worse.

Intel Confirms Arc A-Series Graphics Card Delay: Cites Lack of Software Readiness & COVID Lock Downs Impacting Supply Chain

It's not just one report, but various other rumors and similar reports from the past several months which had cited Intel's drivers being problematic & that these were the going to be the main reason behind a potential delay. Well, it looks like Intel has come out and confirmed that Arc A-Series has indeed been delayed from a Q2 launch to a later summer launch.

In the blog post published by Lisa, the company rep confirms that while Intel's entry-level Arc A3 products will be launching in Q2 2022, they will be limited to China-only through system builders and OEMs. The proper DIY roll-out is expected either in late Q2 or early Q3 which will bring these cards to other regions too. This is looking very much like the South Korea exclusive timed launch for the Arc A-Series mobility GPU lineup.

Furthermore, the higher-end Intel Arc A7 and A5 gaming graphics cards for desktop PCs will start to roll out worldwide through OEMs and system integrators later this Summer which means late July or mid of August 2022 and that pushes us to Q3 2022.

A whole quarter after the initial launch plan for Intel's Arc A-Series desktop graphics cards. This is the same timeframe when Intel is expected to launch its workstation Arc graphics cards but it looks like since the gaming cards won't make it to the market till Q3 2022, the workstation cards could either be pushed back to late Q3 or even Q4 2022.

THW's article.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-arc-gpu-launch-delays

Furthermore, all of these delays and driver issues don't bode well for Intel's first graphics launch. Plus, if this continues, then Intel could lose potential board partners which would affect the roll-out of their Arc graphics cards further. Overall, this isn't looking good at all but hopefully, Intel can put forward a better launch timeframe at its 'VISION' event.

 

[Eximo]

Frankly they missed the window. This entire line-up is going to launch with a whimper, and maybe even die off entirely for the consumer segment outside of OEM and laptops.

They could have grabbed a huge chunk of people desperate for something, anything. Now they have tried and true available at low costs. Unless these are priced at a fire sale, and we all know they won't, they'll just sit on the shelves.

I suppose OEM gaming desktops might get them some market penetration.

I still might buy one of the small ones, just to see how it goes. At least it would have all up to date ports and features.

 

[Metal Messiah.]

Exactly.

Actually, If the release slips to August, there will be little time for the range to establish itself or stay at the top of the PC news cycle before Nvidia and AMD's next-generation cards are released later in the year.

I have a strong gut feeling that the first-generation Arc cards will have a tough task matching current-generation GPUs, and surely they won't be able to compete with Nvidia Ada Lovelace or AMD RDNA 3 cards, at least at the high-end of the market. They could still be very price competitive if Intel aggressively goes after market share, though. It's going to be an interesting battle.

 

[Metal Messiah.]

Is INTEL really releasing their super resolution tech this month itself, XESS ?

MAY 20th to be precise according to an interview with WCCFTECH, though only 1 game will support it initially, DOLMEN. It's kind of weird to know that XESS comes at a time, when there are no discrete GPUs from INTEL to work with. Even the entry-level Mobile chips are exclusive to the Korean market.

Of course this tech will also work on some of the GPU models from AMD and Nvidia, but it would have been much better to check the performance on an INTEL hardware. XE-HPG discrete graphics to be precise.

https://wccftech.com/dolmen-qa-the-...-the-first-game-to-support-fsr-dlss-and-xess/

Will XeSS support be available at launch?
I think I can tell you that everything, including the partnership with Intel, will be released in the Day One patch.

Does Dolmen support any other upscaling technologies, such as AMD’s FSR and NVIDIA’s DLSS?
Yes. The technologies you mentioned are in and will be working with the game.

Okay, that’s nice. Are you planning to upgrade AMD FSR to the 2.0 version?
Dolmen will ship with FSR 1.0, but we have the intention to upgrade to 2.0, yes.

— Kiev Martins, Producer on Dolmen at Massive Work Studio