Intel has announced its next-generation ARC graphics program, the code name for its next-generation discrete products that will come to desktops and laptops to compete with AMD’s Radeon and Nvidia’s GeForce brands. Intel is revealing its new brand name in a brisk video and has announced an ARC series that will cover several generations of graphics hardware. Codenames for future generations of Intel’s gaming GPUs have also surfaced online namely Battlemage and Celestial Druid. In addition to the introduction of ARC branding, Intel also clarified how the four planned generations of graphics cards will work.
Originally known as DG2, its new ARC brand means that the official name of Intel’s Xe discrete graphics cards will resemble the cores of its CPUs. The ARC product family is the codename for Intel’s future graphics launches, similar to AMD brands AMD products (Radeon) and Nvidia brands (Nvidia products) GeForce. Alchemist will be available in laptop and desktop versions when GPU graphics architecture comes, with Intel promising to compete with existing GPU market leaders such as AMD and Nvidia.
We can’t keep it a secret any longer! So excited to introduce the brand for our High-Performance Graphics: Intel Arc. Find out more. https://t.co/GzGcM8KDq1 #IntelArc pic.twitter.com/OWFbdTyLZy
— Intel Graphics (@IntelGraphics) August 16, 2021
The first wave of ARC products codenamed “Alchemist” is expected to arrive in the first quarter of 2022 and Intel will support advanced gaming graphics technologies such as DirectX 12 Ultimate Power, supersampling, and hardware-based raytracing. The Intel ARC graphics products are designed specifically for games, and the first codenames for the Alchemist SoCs will be available on desktops and notebooks by global partners. The ARC family will be launched in the same quarter in the form of the “Alchemy” GPU, which is what we know as Intel’s Xe, HPG, and DG2 GPUs.
After a round of rumors, Intel has finally announced its ARC brand for powerful consumer-grade GPUs along with relating services and software for gamers. The company has shared teaser videos purporting to show features from games such as Crysis: The Remastered Trilogy, Forza Horizon 4, and Metro Exodus using ARC silicon. Intel has announced that its new line of gaming-centric GPUs will have accompanying software and player service. The brand will be the latest line of high-performance gaming GPUs under the name Intel ARC to take on AMD and Nvidia, with the company’s first GPU line in play soon next year.
In order to show Intel’s commitment to the discreet GPU market, Intel announced several more GPUs in the coming years after the successful alchemist codename, including Battlemage and Celestial (note the alphabetical order and high fantasy theme), named after the successful Alchemist-based codename. In addition to the first GPU with Intel ARC branding, Intel revealed codenames for later generations of Intel ARC GPUs, including Batllemage, Celestial, and Druid.
In 2022, Intel Arc graphics cards will compete with AMD and Nvidia. Intel is returning to the discrete graphics card market, a decade after its last attempt to sell a GPU. Intel has been developing a graphics card for a very long time and it will be a wait till 2022 when we’ll be getting our hands on what they have been cooking. That would make life difficult for Nvidia and AMD, which have enjoyed a monopoly on the GPU market. We saw the Intel Xe, HPG, and Alchemist GPUs, based on discrete graphics cards and technical examples, leak out a few months ago, along with rumors about performance and price data, and you can read more about them here.
Intel and its graphics development team have worked hard to optimize the feature list and performance of its ARC / Alchemist GPUs to run multiple AAA titles. The current-gen Intel Xe integrated graphics is based on a scalable graphics architecture that delivers state-of-the-art performance with great functionality ranging from integrated and discrete data centers to all the way to supercomputers.
The Alchemist, Intel’s first generation of ARC products will support Intel’s long-term vision to provide gamers and developers smooth gaming and content creation experiences by providing them with hardware innovation and choice combined with open and accessible software tools. The Alchemist series processors will be available in numerous desktops and notebooks from Intel partners around the world.
Specifications and pricing have not yet been announced and it is unclear how many models in this generation will be for gamers, the segment Intel is aiming at. Intel names the graphics cards after the OEM brands sold by partners that ship laptops and PCs with the GPUs. The company also names the graphics card distributors, partners, and OEM brands that ship these laptops.
