Earlier today, Intel announced that it will unify its graphics hardware, software, and services under the common name "Arc", with the first gaming graphics cards for desktops and laptops set to appear in early 2022. The company also launched a completely new website dedicated to the "Arc" brand, where videos demonstrating the capabilities of the new cards in some games can be viewed.
In case you were curious, Intel Arc GPUs will come with full DX12U support, including mesh shading, and high-performance ray tracing. Bonus, high-quality neural supersampling deserves a separate announcement. https://t.co/HIBJ8tWhwr
— Anton Kaplanyan (@Kaplanyan) August 16, 2021
Another interesting thing is that the "Arc" brand will span several generations of graphics cards, with the first of them carrying the codename "Alchemist", instead of the previous "DG2". The first powerful graphics cards will be based on Intel's Xe-HPG (High Performance Graphics) architecture. Future generations will be named "Battlemage", Celestial, and "Druid". We will have to see what exactly the company's plans are regarding the hardware of the "Alchemist" cards. However, the press release notes that they will „feature hardware-based ray tracing" (Ray Tracing) and Super Sampling powered by artificial intelligence“, the latter suggesting that we may see some form of hardware-accelerated AI functionality enhancing performance in gaming. Additionally, it becomes clear that the more budget-friendly Xe-LP, as well as the server Xe-HPC will continue to serve their respective market segments. Intel recently recruited Anton Kaplanyan, a former Nvidia engineer who is a pioneer of DLSS technology, which is a sign that the company may be planning a longer-term development rhythm for this type of technology. Of course, any technology in Intel's graphics processors that would be implemented in Alchemist has certainly been developed over the years. Still, Kaplanyan is clearly already rolling up his sleeves at Intel, as he shares in a tweet (as you can see below) that Alchemist will come with full DX12U support, including mesh shading and high-performance ray tracing. He also shares that the neural "supersampling" will be announced separately.
In case you were curious, Intel Arc GPUs will come with full DX12U support, including mesh shading, and high-performance ray tracing. Bonus, high-quality neural supersampling deserves a separate announcement. https://t.co/HIBJ8tWhwr
— Anton Kaplanyan (@Kaplanyan) August 16, 2021
We still do not have official information on the specifications, but it is rumored that the cards feature 512 EU (Execution Units) and are based on TSMC node, delivering far higher performance than the discrete DG1 graphics card from the lower class that was recently introduced. Expect more information in the coming months! Source: Tom's Hardware
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