Despite the ongoing shortages in the tech world, in which gamers are struggling to get hold of new graphics cards, it hasn't stopped the likes of Nvidia or AMD from launching new products, and Intel is not far behind them. With Intel announcing its range of upcoming Arc GPUs, with the first being the Alchemist, there has been interest in how well it's likely to perform against its competitors. Recent developments now reveal what the hardware's specs will be, with a source indicating that it could be a rival for some already-released top graphics cards.
According to a report, Intel has now confirmed what the specifications of its first Arc GPU will be, with a launch window expecting to be in the first quarter of 2022. At this year's InnovatiON event, the tech giant revealed that the maiden graphics card in the brand will have 32 Xe Cores, each of which will have 16 Vector Engines and 16 Matrix Engines, which equates to 512 Execution Units.
To put that into perspective, the report goes on, this means the Arc Alchemist is still on target to beat out some of the most powerful Nvidia or AMD graphics cards on the current market. With the specs given, it means Intel's hardware could rival the likes of the Nvidia RTX 3070 which was launched this summer, and has 8 GB of VRAM. While the report doesn't say anything about how the Alchemist will compare to a modern AMD GPU, the equivalent to the "green team's" hardware would likely be the RX 6700 XT, which came out a little sooner than its Nvidia rival, and has 12 GB of VRAM.
This means that earlier rumors that the Intel GPU would match the 3070, or even the 3070 Ti, may be true after all. One thing the company was able to show off at this year's event was the Alchemist's XeSS technology. This is Intel's equivalent of Nvidia's DLSS and AMD's FSR upscaling features, which are fast becoming the industry standard for modern games in terms of graphical fidelity.
It's hard to say at this stage how well the hardware will do, but it's looking more like it should be able to take on the big leagues right from the starting block. While recent benchmark tests showed concern over Alchemist's performance, these were just brief glimpses into a product that is still being worked on. Once Intel launches its GPU, then people will know how it stacks up against the rest. The only problem then is whether it will be able to meet demand during these tumultuous tech times.
Source: PC Gamer