Intel Enters Discrete GPU Market With Launch of Arc A-Series For Laptops

MojoKid writes: Today Intel finally launched its first major foray into discrete GPUs for gamers and creators. Dubbed Intel Arc A-Series and comprised of 5 different chips built on two different Arc Alchemist SoCs, the company announced its entry level Arc 3 Graphics is shipping in market now with laptop OEMs delivering new all-Intel products shortly. The two SoCs set the foundation across three performance tiers, including Arc 3, Arc 5, and Arc 7.

For example, Arc A370M arrives today with 8 Xe cores, 8 ray tracing units, 4GB of GDDR6 memory linked to a 64-bit memory bus, and a 1,550MHz graphics clock. Graphics power is rated at 35-50W. However, Arc A770M, Intel's highest-end mobile GPU will come with 32 Xe cores, 32 ray tracing units, 16GB of GDDR 6 memory over a 256-bit interface and with a 1650MHz graphics clock. Doing the math, Arc A770M could be up to 4X more powerful than Arc 370M. In terms of performance, Intel showcased benchmarks from a laptop outfitted with a Core i7-12700H processor and Arc A370M GPU that can top the 60 FPS threshold at 1080p in many games where integrated graphics could come up far short. Examples included Doom Eternal (63 fps) at high quality settings, and Hitman 3 (62 fps), and Destiny 2 (66 fps) at medium settings. Intel is also showcasing new innovations for content creators as well, with its Deep Link, Hyper Encode and AV1 video compression support offering big gains in video upscaling, encoding and streaming. Finally, Intel Arc Control software will offer unique features like Smooth Sync that blends tearing artifacts when V-Synch is turned off, as well as Creator Studio with background blur, frame tracking and broadcast features for direct game streaming services support.

A Third Contender arrives

[Matt321]

This will be good for quality and price.

Re:A Third Contender arrives

[CaseyB]

It also rounds out the teams nicely: Red, Green, and now Blue.

Re:

[williamyf]

It also rounds out the teams nicely: Red, Green, and now Blue.

Do not forget the orange/yellowish/gold team, Innosilicon. Currently selling GPUs inside china only, but comming soon to a computer shop near you...

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[arglebargle_xiv]

Weren't Intel already doing discrete GPUs back with the i750? How did that, and the dozen other attempts they've made since then, work out then?

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[Life2Death]

With that weird Intel Radeon NUC thing we had briefly, I was hoping intel licensed Radeon tech from AMD and was going to use that to benefit us all - with a competitor in the market. So far their offerings are underwhelming but at start I suppose.

They're looking kind of underpowered

[rsilvergun]

roughly on par with an MX550, but that's only if you've got a laptop with good cooling that hits a solid TDP. The trouble with laptops is cooling and power usage can completely change your performance. So much so that Intel can do all sorts of shenanigans. e.g. you can have an iSeries CPU that runs rings around the Ryzen equivalent... so long as you're comparing a $2000 intel laptop with a $1000 AMD one.

All told it looks like these are going to hang with AMD's latest integrated GPUs, but that means you'

Re:

[MojoKid]

Interesting analysis. What makes you think it's roughly on par with an NVIDIA MX550?

Intel's claims

[rsilvergun]

the framerates and settings they're claiming to get are in line with an MX550, which itself is in line with the new AMD RDNA2 APUs (which are in the hands of a few reviewers, go to YouTube and search for "RDNA2 APU").

Intel could be lying, but if they are it's likely by using thermals and TPDs. e.g. the chips might need to run way hotter and with more juice to hit those numbers. Which again, is fine for a $2000 laptop, but if I'm spending that kinda money on a laptop I'm expecting a 3050 or 3060 in it fo

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[Xenx]

To be clear, the benchmarks being proffered right now are for the "faster" Arc 3. There are still three SKUs above this one coming out later this year. The higher tiers go up to 4x the raw compute capability. I don't know how well it actually scales. The MX550 might not be a terrible comparison in terms of where it should be placed in the spectrum. I don't think these tiers are really meant for gamers, but more for systems that need better GPU performance than iGPU can offer.

As to your whole thermals conc

Yeah but Intel did knock my socks off

[rsilvergun]

I mean this is basically the performance of a gtx 760. Basically up 10-year-old graphics card. Yeah I get but it's a laptop chip and a lower end part but it's been 10 years. This isn't something that's going to set the world on fire is all.

The trouble I have with thermals is that until we actually see reviews of real laptops we don't know for sure if Intel's numbers are going to be bunk or not. That's all.

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[Xenx]

Comparing it to a GTX 760 is a bit flawed. There is a lot going on going through that many generation. In some tests you'll see the same performance, in others the MX550 comes out ahead. One example would be Timespy. If you compare the MX550's score against scores for the 760, the MX550 would come out in 3rd place. It scores about 40% higher than the average for the 760. Looking at passmark they score the same, but the FPS numbers are different. The 760 does better for older DX, but on DX12 the MX550 pulls

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[drinkypoo]

I don't care at all about synthetic benchmark numbers, what matters in the real world is maximum and minimum frame rates (or other application benchmarks for non-game application purposes) compared to cost. Historically for example systems with Intel processors had slightly higher minimum frame rates than the AMD processors which compete with them, albeit at 1.5-2x the cost, given the same GPU. The superior single thread performance would win out in a crunch. I still buy AMD though, because the performance

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[Pinky's Brain]

AMD seems unable to deliver low cost, low power 6000 series APU (6600/6800-HS/U) despite launching in January. I think they just can't pay enough to TSMC to compete for EUV against Apple. There are some higher end 6000 series laptops, but those are all expensive desktop replacement gaming laptops with dGPUs and huge cooling solutions.

Thinkpad Z13 will be the first highly portable laptop with a 6000 series APU and it's not going to be cheap. What AMD can do with their latest integrated GPUs seems to be mostl

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[rsilvergun]

When the new APU use hit they always put them in overpriced laptops. It seems kind of silly to me because why would you buy that when you could get something with a discreet GPU for the same price but I guess somebody must do it because this is the third or fourth time I've seen this happen.

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[williamyf]

When the new APU use hit they always put them in overpriced laptops. It seems kind of silly to me because why would you buy that when you could get something with a discreet GPU for the same price but I guess somebody must do it because this is the third or fourth time I've seen this happen.

The people who buy these costly laptops with APUs iGPUs instead of a Laptop with a dGPU are people who want/need a light laptop with long battery life and a decent graphic acceleration. Not necesarily for games, but please remember that, nowadays pretty much every basic software is graphics accelerated.

The browser y'all are using to read my replay? Yup, DirectX/OpenGL/Vulkan HW acceleration... Does your mail client uses a browser as the backend (like Thunderbird does)? Well, that's GPU acceleration too. Wha

Might need another iteration or two, but ....

[King_TJ]

I think this is going to be a HUGE deal for PC gamers. It doesn't have to offer "the best" or even "excellent" performance if the price and the *availability* are right. Right now, a lot of people are frustrated because they simply want to repair a gaming PC with a dead video card or want to build a new rig and 3D cards of all types are really scarce.

As an example? Micro Center near me has a glass display cabinet for its 3D graphics boards and every time I've been in there, it's been completely empty excep

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[torkus]

GPUs were oos for a long while

less than a month ago i was in microcenter in denver and they had a whole cage of high end cards. Granted, this coincided with among the lowest crypto prices of recent times :)

Almost picked one (or 5) up but didn't seem worth the hassle. TBH unless you get free electricity and/or net-profit resale of the cards the ROI on mining is pretty awful.

Wow!

[nagora]

With Intel's fantastic track record on graphics the market is surely theirs for the taking. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.