Intel is turning the great graphics card war into a three-cornered fight, unveiling its own Intel Arc brand of high-performance GPUs.
The chipmaker is making a push into territory staked out by rivals Nvidia and AMD – dubbed “Team Green” and “Team Red” by fans – with “Team Blue” set to launch its first generation of gaming graphics, codenamed “Alchemist”, in the first quarter of 2022, with following generations “Battlemage”, “Celestial”, and “Druid” coming further down the track.
Alchemist will, like Nvidia’s GeForce RTX and AMD’s Radeon RX 6000-series products, feature hardware-based real-time ray tracing; in addition, it will offer AI super sampling technology to compete with Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), which allow games to be played at lower resolutions and upscaled to reduce strain on the GPU and increase framerates.
Roger Chandler, Intel vice president and general manager of Client Graphics Products and Solutions, says Arc represents a “key moment” in Intel’s graphics journey.
“The launch of the Intel Arc brand and the reveal of future hardware generations signifies Intel’s deep and continued commitment to gamers and creators everywhere.
“We have teams doing incredible work to ensure we deliver first-class and frictionless experiences when these products are available early next year,” he said.
Here's a sneak peek of pre-production Intel Arc graphics in action. https://t.co/VOMsMN6r2y #IntelArc pic.twitter.com/b9fOsXdRCq
— Intel Graphics (@IntelGraphics) August 16, 2021
Intel Arc graphics cards will power both desktops and notebooks.
