Despite the fact that its laptop-focused Arc GPUs were introduced earlier this week, Intel also provided a sneak glimpse at its long-awaited return to the world of desktop graphics cards, saying that an initial batch of “limited edition” GPUs would be available this summer.
The desktop Arc cards aren’t receiving much attention from the company, but more information is promised before the end of the year. Arc has a dual-fan design with one HDMI port and three DisplayPort connections on the side, however, based on their looks, it’s unclear what the needs for those ports are.
Intel’s new Arc card is being advertised as a “limited edition.” Even so, it’s unclear if this means the company will have a limited number of cards when they go on sale this summer, or whether it refers to its in-house GPUs (similar to Nvidia’s “Founder’s Edition”).
Intel Arc
Intel will also introduce its more powerful Arc 5 and Arc 7 laptop GPUs, as well as its XeSS AI-based super sampling technology for games and apps, this summer.
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Only the A350M and A370M will be accessible since these GPUs are the weakest in the Arc 3 series. These cards each have six Xe cores and six ray tracing units. They are ideally suited for ultraportable devices with better graphical capacity than integrated graphics, rather than specialized gaming PCs, due to their 25W to 50W output. The sole choice for serious gaming laptops is the Arc 5 and Arc 7 GPUs, which will deliver much more graphics processors, ray-tracing units, RAM, and power when they arrive in the beggining of summer.
However, all Arc GPUs will have certain new characteristics that might also help them stand out from the competition. An example of how AV1 will improve XSplit game streaming was given by Intel, which claims this is the first time the industry has supported complete AV1 hardware acceleration (as well as other features).
