Here’s what we know about Intel Arc GPUs thus far.
Earlier this year, Intel began shipping its first Arc laptop GPUs to retailers. The company plans to follow up with Arc desktop GPUs sometime in 2022.
GPUs in Arc graphics cards are more powerful than those in Intel’s integrated Iris Xe graphics cards. Nvidia and AMD’s graphics card markets are more competitive than they’ve ever been because to Intel’s entry into this space.
The Arc 350M and Arc 370M were the first two laptop GPUs produced by Intel under the Arc brand. PC users, especially gamers, would salivate at the idea of future graphics cards that are even more powerful than the current models. In theory, Intel may spark a new GPU arms race if these early Arc 3 graphics cards are any indication of what we might anticipate from the desktop counterparts.
Everything we’ve learned about Intel’s Arc GPUs thus far is here.
Intel Arc laptop GPUs: Specs
| Xe cores | Raytracing Units | Memory (GDDR6) | |
| A350M | 6 | 6 | 4GB |
| A370M | 8 | 8 | 6GB |
| A550M | 16 | 16 | 8GB |
| A730M | 24 | 24 | 12GB |
| A770M | 32 | 32 | 12GB |
Arc laptop graphics cards from Intel: cost and availability
A350M and A370M processors were unveiled on March 30th, 2022, by Intel. The problem is that they are laptop GPUs, so you’ll have to locate a laptop that can be equipped with them. Galaxy Book2 Pro from Samsung starts at $1,049 and has an Arc A-series card as one of the first laptops to arrive with this kind of graphics card.
A350M is designed for light and thin laptops, whereas A370M is designed for high-performance gaming. With prices beginning at $899, more powerful Arc 5 and Arc 7 GPUs will be released later this year in laptops from partners such as Acer and Asus.
Arc A-series cards are still up in the air as to whether they will be the sole Arc laptop GPUs for the foreseeable future.
The performance of Intel Arc laptop GPUs
When it comes to the Intel Arc GPU series, the Arc 3 GPUs (also known as the A350M and A370M) are the weakest links. On the other hand, their 1080p gaming capabilities range from 60 to 90 fps. Despite the fact that many PC gamers find 1080p to be a little boring, the laptop’s framerates might be rather astounding.
There are six Xe cores and six raytracing units in the A350M, while there are eight in the A370M, which both include 4GB of DDR6 RAM. Gaming and content production are the primary focus of these “Xe core” processors.
According to Intel, the A350M uses 25 to 35 watts of electricity and runs at 1,150 MHz on the graphics processor. The 8 XE and 8 RT cores of the A370M require 35-50 watts. This GPU features a 1,150MHz graphics frequency and 4GB of VRAM, much as the A350M.
In this infographic, Intel shows how different games function on Arc GPUs. Several games, including Doom Eternal, Destiny 2, and The Witcher 3, clocked in at 60 frames per second or higher, but the underlying hardware characteristics are still a mystery. With such incredible performance, we can only think what the Arc 5 and Arc 7 GPUs will be capable of providing – not to mention the eventual desktop variants.
Laptop graphics cards from Intel using Arc architecture: Specifications
Because of its support for DirectX 12 Ultimate and hardware-accelerated raytracing, Intel’s Arc laptop GPUs are competitively priced.
Arc GPUs will also benefit from Intel’s new Deep Link technology, which allows them to function better with the company’s 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs. Using a 12th generation Intel Core CPU in conjunction with the GPUs could boost performance in compute-intensive apps like Adobe Photoshop, Handbrake, and XSplit.
XeSS AI-powered supersampling is also supported by these GPUs, and it makes use of the Arc GPUs’ unique Matrix Extensions (XMX) AI engines to boost game resolution algorithmically while the game is running, with no effect on performance at all. If it succeeds, it should be able to compete with other non-proprietary technologies like Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution. You could conceivably run XeSS on an Nvidia GPU that doesn’t support Nvidia’s own DLSS and get higher performance out of it using Intel’s technology, without the need for an Arc GPU.
Though it is planned to be released in the summer of 2022, XeSS does not support all games. Although Intel claims to be working with game developers to guarantee that the greatest number of titles support XeSS, a “unique integration” in the PC version of Death Stranding Director’s Cut was teased at CES 2022.
Arc GPUs are ideal for XeSS, of course. No other GPU on the market can presently match the Xe media engine on these GPUs, which enables hardware acceleration of the AV1 (an open-source video codec) encoding process.
The Intel Arc desktop GPU
Intel’s Arc GPUs for desktop PCs are still mostly a mystery to us at this time.
Arc desktop GPUs will be launched by Intel in the summer of 2022, and a teaser picture of a full-size Arc desktop GPU was added at the conclusion of a promotional movie for the first Arc 3 laptop GPUs. It’s as large as an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, so can we expect the same performance from it? Until then, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
The Future of Intel’s Arc GPUs
DirectX 12 Ultimate and the new XeSS upscaling technology included in Intel’s newest graphics cards, as well as hardware-based raytracing, appear ready to provide much-needed respite to the overheated and undersupplied GPU market.
We won’t know for sure how these new Arc GPUs stand up against rival laptop GPUs from Nvidia and AMD until we test several Arc-powered laptops. Despite this, Intel looks to be making a major push into the GPU market this year. In 2022, we can’t wait to get our hands on the first Arc desktop GPUs.