Moving from gaming laptops to full-fledged gaming PCs, Intel recently released the first of its Arc desktop graphics cards: the A380. Unfortunately, it cannot stand out even among the cheapest competitors and is only available in China. The rest of the world is still waiting, ready to see what Team Blue has to offer in what is currently a duopoly dominated by AMD Radeon and Nvidia GeForce GPUs.
With rumors that Arc desktop GPUs may not ship globally until the fourth quarter of this year, it seems clear that Intel has delayed the release of Alchemist, its first series in a long line of planned discrete graphics cards. Perhaps most devastatingly, the CPU giant seems reluctant to make an official statement as to why it hasn’t been released yet, though there are rumors that it’s related to drivers.
Initially, it looked like the material would appear at the beginning of the year, which is markedly different from what’s happening now. Sure, mobile GPUs have started to roll out, but that doesn’t seem to have caused much of a stir. As for the desktop versions, except for a silent launch in China, everyone was waiting.
The biggest drawback to all of this is that Arc graphics cards will feel outdated as soon as they arrive. Considering Nvidia could release Lovelace in September and rival AMD isn’t far behind, Intel’s first attempt could generate a lot of buzz, pitting what should be current-gen hardware against next-gen options. performance terms.
I sincerely felt that if someone tries to compete with the two captains of industry, Intel has a chance. With more options from alternative carriers as well, players will benefit. But now I feel like it doesn’t matter. What will Intel offer that doesn’t already exist?
Hoping to rival the RTX 3070, maybe even the RTX 3070 Ti, maybe this first series of Arc desktop cards is still pretty impressive, but it will catch up. Also, why buy an Arc card as good as an RTX 3070 when you can just… buy a 3070? Prices are dropping at node speed, so unless Intel is willing to drop the MSRP to undercut the competition, it doesn’t look like it’s going to offer much, just more choice.
That doesn’t mean having more options is bad. But Intel’s lack of graphics hardware at a critical time in the industry when everyone is moving forward doesn’t bode well for Team Blue. The company can’t even brag about its Xe Super Sampling (XeSS), which is equivalent to Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD FSR upscaling technologies. It’s open source, as Intel itself says, so you don’t even need an Arc card to take advantage of it.
Look, I see that sounds like a negative response to delays. This shouldn’t be a harsh comment that Arc doesn’t stand a chance against future Lovelace and RDNA 3 architectures when it’s just targeting standards. .current generation, not to mention the uncharted waters of new firmware and software.
I don’t mind spending more time in the metaphorical oven because like everyone I want a reliable and functional product. The company has an uphill battle to prove that two proven brands are worth accepting and have a chance to make a first impression. A clogged GPU won’t help, of course, but a flagship graphics card competing with components that almost count as overkill, even without lag, won’t help either.
Intel’s smooth transition from a Q1 2022 release to a 2022 release tells me we’ll be sitting here for a while. The only salvation here is that the alchemist to have to to be able to offer competitive current-gen pricing, and is the first in a long line of planned GPUs including Battlemage, Celestial, and Druid.
It’s unclear what Intel’s roadmap is for initial debut success, as it has the resources to counter a false start. After all, Intel is not an upstart working out of someone’s barn. It is one of the largest technology companies in the world. If anyone has the ability to break through the hermetic duopoly to offer a viable alternative to Nvidia and AMD, it’s Intel. However, even mighty Intel can’t afford to delay its GPUs for long, especially as its first attempt pales in comparison to Nvidia’s three-year-old RTX 3050 and GTX 1650.
Source : PC Gamesn
