Intel Arc

Intel Arc is a brand of graphics processing units designed by Intel. These are discrete GPUs mostly marketed for the high-margin gaming PC market. The brand also covers Intel's consumer graphics software and services.

Intel Arc

Release date	March 30, 2022; 2 years ago (March 30, 2022)[1]
Manufactured by	TSMC
Designed by	Intel
Marketed by	Intel
Codenames	Alchemist Battlemage Celestial Druid
Architecture	Intel Xe
Cores	Up to 32 Xe cores
Transistors	Up to 21.7 billion
Fabrication process	N6
Cards
Entry-level	Arc 3
Mid-range	Arc 5
High-end	Arc 7
API support
DirectX	Direct3D 12.0 Ultimate (feature level 12_2) Shader Model 6.7
OpenCL	OpenCL 3.0[lower-alpha 1]
OpenGL	OpenGL 4.6
Vulkan	Vulkan 1.3
History
Predecessor	i740

Arc competes with Nvidia's GeForce and AMD's Radeon lines.^[2] The Arc-A series for laptops was launched on March 30, 2022, with the A750 and A770 both released in Q3 2022.^[3][4][5] Intel missed their initial Q2 2022 release target, with most discrete Arc GPUs not launching until October 2022.^[6]

Intel officially launched the Arc Pro workstation GPUs on August 8, 2022.^[7][8]

Etymology

According to Intel, the brand is named after the concept of story arcs found in video games.^[9] Each generation of Arc is named after character classes sorted by each letter of the Latin alphabet in ascending order. They begin with A, then B, then C, and so on. The first generation is named Alchemist, while Battlemage, Celestial and Druid are the respective names for the second, third and fourth Arc generations.^[10]

Graphics processor generations

1st generation (Alchemist)

An Intel Arc A770 16 GB, the highest-end desktop GPU from Intel's first generation Alchemist GPUs, with a Rubik's Cube for scale

Developed under the previous codename "DG2", the first generation of Intel Arc GPUs (codenamed "Alchemist") released on March 30, 2022.^[1][11] It comes in both add-on desktop card and laptop form factors. TSMC manufactures the die, using their N6 process.^[12]

Alchemist uses the Intel Xe GPU architecture, or more specifically, the Xe-HPG variant. Alchemist supports hardware-based ray tracing, XeSS or supersampling based on neural networks (similar to Nvidia's DLSS and AMD's FSR), and DirectX 12 Ultimate.^[1][13] Also supported are DisplayPort 2.0 and overclocking. AV1 fixed-function hardware encoder is included in Alchemist GPUs as part of the Intel Quick Sync Video core.^[14]

Intel confirmed ASTC support has been removed from hardware starting with Alchemist and future Arc GPU microarchitectures will also not support it.^[15]

Arc Alchemist does not support SR-IOV^[16] or Direct3D 9 natively, instead falling back on the D3D9On12 wrapper which translates Direct3D 9 calls to their Direct3D 12 equivalents.^[17][18]

Arc support OpenCL 3.0^{[note 1]} for example, this GPU can work in the grid World Community Grid.^[19]

Display connections: DisplayPort 2.0 (40 Gbit/s bandwidth) and HDMI 2.1

Desktop

Branding and Model[20]		Launch	MSRP (USD)	Code name	Process	Transistors (billion)	Die size (mm2)	Core config [lower-alpha 2]	L2 cache	Clock rate (MHz)[lower-alpha 3]	Fillrate		Memory					Processing power (TFLOPS)			TDP	Bus interface
											Pixel (GP/s)	Texture (GT/s)	Type	Size (GB)	Bandwidth (GB/s)	Bus width	Clock (MT/s)	Half precision (base)	Single precision (base)	Double precision (base)
Arc 3	A310	Sep 28, 2022	$110	ACM-G11 (DG2-128)	TSMC N6	7.2	157	6 Xe cores 768:32:16:6 (192:96:2)	4 MB	2000 2000	32	64	GDDR6	4 GB	124	64-bit	15500	6.144	3.072	0.768	75 W	PCIe 4.0 x8
	A380	Jun 14, 2022	$139					8 Xe cores 1024:64:32:8 (256:128:2)		2000 2050	64 65.6	128 131.2		6 GB	186	96-bit		8.192 8.3968	4.096 4.1984	1.024 1.0496
Arc 5	A580	Oct 10, 2023	$179	ACM-G10 (DG2-512)		21.7	406	24 Xe cores 3072:192:96:24 (768:384:6)	8 MB	1700 1700	163.2	326.4		8 GB	512	256-bit	16000	20.890	10.445	2.611	175 W	PCIe 4.0 x16
Arc 7	A750	Oct 14, 2022	$289					28 Xe cores 3584:192:112:28 (896:448:7)	16 MB	2050 2400	229.6 268.8	393.6 460.8						29.3888 34.4064	14.6944 17.2032	3.6736 4.3008	225 W
	A770 8GB		$329					32 Xe cores 4096:256:128:32 (1024:512:8)	16 MB	2100 2400	268.8 307.2	537.6 614.4						34.4064 39.3216	17.2032 19.6608	4.3008 4.9152
	A770 16GB		$349											16 GB	560		17500

• v
• t
• e

1. In OpenCL 3.0, OpenCL 1.2 functionality has become a mandatory baseline, while all OpenCL 2.x and OpenCL 3.0 features were made optional.
2. Shading cores (ALU): texture mapping units (TMU): render output units (ROP): ray tracing units
      (tensor cores (XMX): execution units: render slices)
3. Boost values (if available) are stated below the base value in italic.

Mobile

Branding and Model[21]		Launch	Code name	Process	Transistors (billion)	Die size (mm2)	Core config[lower-alpha 1][lower-alpha 2]	L2 cache	Core clock (MHz)[lower-alpha 3]	Fillrate[lower-alpha 4]		Memory					Processing power (TFLOPS)			TDP	Bus interface
										Pixel (GP/s)	Texture (GT/s)	Type	Size	Bandwidth (GB/s)	Bus width	Clock (MT/s)	Half precision	Single precision	Double precision
Arc 3	A350M	Mar 30, 2022	ACM-G11 (DG2-128)	TSMC N6	7.2	157	6 Xe cores 768:48:24:6 (96:96:2)	4 MB	1150 2200	27.6 52.8	55.2 105.6	GDDR6	4 GB	112	64-bit	14000	3.5328 6.7584	1.7664 3.3792	0.4416 0.8448	25–35 W	PCIe 4.0 ×8
	A370M						8 Xe cores 1024:64:32:8 (128:128:2)		1550 2050	49.6 65.6	99.2 131.2						6.3488 8.3968	3.1744 4.1984	0.7936 1.0496	35–50 W
Arc 5	A530M	Q3 2023	ACM-G12 (DG2-256)				12 Xe cores 1536:96:48:12 (192:192:3)	8 MB	1300				4 GB 8 GB	224	128-bit					65–95 W
	A550M	Q2 2022	ACM-G10 (DG2-512)		21.7	406	16 Xe cores 2048:128:64:16 (256:256:4)		900 1700	57.6 108.8	115.2 217.6		8 GB				7.3728 13.9264	3.6864 6.9632	0.9216 1.7408	60–80 W
	A570M	Q3 2023	ACM-G12 (DG2-256)						1300											75–95 W
Arc 7	A730M	Q2 2022	ACM-G10 (DG2-512)		21.7	406	24 Xe cores 3072:192:96:24 (384:384:6)	12 MB	1100 2050	105.6 196.8	211.2 393.6		12 GB	336	192-bit		13.5168 25.1904	6.7584 12.5952	1.6896 3.1488	80–120 W	PCIe 4.0 ×16
	A770M						32 Xe cores 4096:256:128:32 (512:512:8)	16 MB	1650 2050	211.2 262.4	422.4 524.8		16 GB	512	256-bit	16000	27.0336 33.5872	13.5168 16.7936	3.3792 4.1984	120–150 W

• v
• t
• e

1. Shading cores (ALU): texture mapping units (TMU): render output units (ROP): ray tracing units
      (tensor cores (XMX): execution units: render slices)
2. Texture fillrate is calculated as the number of texture mapping units (TMUs) multiplied by the base (or boost) core clock speed.
3. Boost values (if available) are stated below the base value in italic.
4. Pixel fillrate is calculated as the lowest of three numbers: number of ROPs multiplied by the base core clock speed, number of rasterizers multiplied by the number of fragments they can generate per rasterizer multiplied by the base core clock speed, and the number of streaming multiprocessors multiplied by the number of fragments per clock that they can output multiplied by the base clock rate.

Workstation

Branding and Model[22]		Launch	Code name	Process	Transistors (billion)	Die size (mm2)	Core config[lower-alpha 1]	L2 cache	Core clock (MHz)[lower-alpha 2]	Fillrate[lower-alpha 3][lower-alpha 4]		Memory					Processing power (TFLOPS)			TDP	Bus interface
										Pixel (GP/s)	Texture (GT/s)	Type	Size	Bandwidth (GB/s)	Bus width	Clock (MT/s)	Half precision	Single precision	Double precision
Arc Pro	A30M (Mobile)	Aug 8, 2022	ACM-G11 (DG2-128)	TSMC N6	7.2	157	8 Xe cores 1024:64:32:8 (128:128:2)	4 MB	1550			GDDR6	4 GB	112	64-bit	14000		4.20[22]		50 W	PCIe 4.0 x8
	A40												6 GB	192	96-bit	16000		5.02[22]
	A50								2050											75 W
	A60M (Mobile)	June 6, 2023	ACM-G12 (DG2-256)				16 Xe cores 2048:128:64:16 (256:256:4)		1300				8 GB	256	128-bit			9.42[22]		95 W	PCIe 4.0 x16
	A60												12 GB	384	192-bit			10.04[22]		130 W

• v
• t
• e

1. Shading cores (ALU): texture mapping units (TMU): render output units (ROP): ray tracing units
      (tensor cores (XMX): execution Units: render slices)
2. Boost values (if available) are stated below the base value in italic.
3. Pixel fillrate is calculated as the lowest of three numbers: number of ROPs multiplied by the base core clock speed, number of rasterizers multiplied by the number of fragments they can generate per rasterizer multiplied by the base core clock speed, and the number of streaming multiprocessors multiplied by the number of fragments per clock that they can output multiplied by the base clock rate.
4. Texture fillrate is calculated as the number of texture mapping units (TMUs) multiplied by the base (or boost) core clock speed.

Future generations

Intel also revealed future generations of Intel Arc GPUs under development:^[23][5] Battlemage (based on Xe²), Celestial (based on Xe³), and Druid. Battlemage will succeed Alchemist.

Intel revealed that Meteor Lake and later generations of CPU SoCs uses an Intel Arc Tile GPU.^[24][25]

Intel XeSS

Intel XeSS is a real-time deep learning image upsampling technology developed primarily for use in video games as a competitor to Nvidia's DLSS and AMD's FSR technologies. Additionally, XeSS is not restricted to Arc graphics cards. It does utilize XMX instructions exclusive to Arc graphics cards, but will fall back to utilizing DP4a instructions on competing GPUs that have support for DP4a instructions. XeSS is trained with 64 samples per pixel as opposed to Nvidia DLSS's 16 samples per pixel (16K reference images).^[26][27]

Standard XeSS quality presets^[28]

Quality preset[lower-alpha 1]	Scale factor[lower-alpha 2]	Render scale[lower-alpha 3]
Ultra Quality	1.30×	77.0%
Quality	1.50×	66.7%
Balanced	1.70×	58.8%
Performance	2.00×	50.0%
Ultra Performance	3.00×	33.3%

1. The algorithm does not necessarily need to be implemented using these presets; it is possible for the implementer to define custom input and output resolutions.
2. The linear scale factor used for upsampling the input resolution to the output resolution. For example, a scene rendered at 540p with a 2.00× scale factor would have an output resolution of 1080p.
3. The linear render scale, compared to the output resolution, that the technology uses to render scenes internally before upsampling. For example, a 1080p scene with a 50% render scale would have an internal resolution of 540p.

Issues

Drivers

Performance on Intel Arc GPUs has suffered from poor driver support, particularly at launch. An investigation by Gamers Nexus discovered 43 known driver issues with Arc GPUs, prompting a response and acknowledgement of the issues from Intel.^[29][30][31] Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger also blamed driver problems as a reason for Arc's delayed launch.^[32]

A beta driver from October 2022 accidentally reduced the memory clock by 9% on the Arc A770 from 2187 MHz to 2000 MHz, resulting in a 17% reduction in memory bandwidth.^[33] This particular issue was later fixed.^[34]

Intel provides an open source driver for Linux.^[35]

DirectX 9 compatibility

As of the Alchemist generation, Arc only includes direct hardware support for the DirectX 11 & 12 and Vulkan graphics APIs, with the older DirectX 9 & 10 and OpenGL APIs being supported via a real-time compatibility layer built into Intel's graphics driver.^[36] As a result, Alchemist GPUs perform noticeably worse than competing Nvidia and AMD GPUs in software that can only use these older APIs, including multiple DirectX 9-based esports games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.^[37] There is also a performance gap between DirectX 11 and DirectX 12.

A December 2022 driver update improved Arc compatibility and performance with DirectX 9-based games.^[38] According to Intel, the driver update made Arc GPUs up to 1.8x faster in DirectX 9 games.^[39] A February 2023 driver update further improved Arc's performance on DirectX 9-based games.^[40]

Legacy BIOS compatibility

Intel Arc requires the a UEFI BIOS with resizable BAR support for optimal performance.^[41]

Footnotes

1. In OpenCL 3.0, OpenCL 1.2 functionality has become a mandatory baseline, while all OpenCL 2.x and OpenCL 3.0 features were made optional.

References

1. "Intel will launch its Arc GPUs on March 30". www.pcworld.com. Retrieved December 25, 2023.
2. Warren, Tom (August 16, 2021). "Intel enters the PC gaming GPU battle with Arc". The Verge. Archived from the original on August 29, 2021. Retrieved August 29, 2021.
3. "Intel® Arc™ A750 Graphics - Product Specifications". Intel. Retrieved July 24, 2023.
4. Gartenberg, Chaim (March 30, 2022). "Intel's first Arc GPUs are now available for laptops". The Verge. Archived from the original on April 2, 2022. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
5. "Intel Introduces New High-Performance Graphics Brand: Intel Arc". Intel. Archived from the original on March 16, 2022. Retrieved August 29, 2021.
6. Szewczyk, Chris (May 9, 2022). "Intel Arc desktop cards face more delays". PC Gamer. Retrieved October 6, 2022.
7. "Intel Unveils Arc Pro GPU Products". Intel. August 8, 2022. Archived from the original on August 20, 2022. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
8. "Intel® Arc™ Pro A-Series Graphics for Workstations". Intel. Archived from the original on August 20, 2022. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
9. Ung, Gordon (August 19, 2021). "Intel's Arc gaming GPU: Price, specs and availability". PCWorld. Archived from the original on August 29, 2021. Retrieved August 29, 2021.
10. "Intel Introduces New High-Performance Graphics Brand: Intel Arc". Intel Newsroom. August 16, 2021. Retrieved October 5, 2022.
11. Rutherford, Sam (August 16, 2021). "Intel Names New Brand of GPUs That Will Hit Shelves Next Year". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on January 3, 2022. Retrieved August 29, 2021.
12. Cunningham, Andrew (August 20, 2021). "Intel provides more details on its Arc GPUs, which will be made by TSMC". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on August 29, 2021. Retrieved August 29, 2021.
13. "Intel® Arc™ A-series Graphics Gaming API Guide". Intel. Archived from the original on July 20, 2022. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
14. Szewczyk, Chris (April 4, 2022). "Intel Arc GPUs will support AV1 encode and decode". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 6, 2022. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
15. "intel: ASTC support was removed on Gfx12.5 (!13206) · Merge requests · Mesa / mesa · GitLab". GitLab. October 5, 2021. Archived from the original on October 7, 2021. Retrieved October 7, 2021.
16. "Graphics Virtualization Technologies Support for Each Intel Graphics Family". Intel. Archived from the original on August 9, 2022. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
17. "Which Intel® Graphics Products Support DirectX 9* (DX9)?". Intel. Archived from the original on August 27, 2022. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
18. Killian, Zak (August 15, 2022). "Intel Xe And Arc Graphics Lack DX9 Support Forcing DX12 Emulation". HotHardware. Retrieved October 10, 2022.
19. "Help". World Community Grid. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
20. "Intel Arc Graphics". Intel. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
21. "Intel Arc Graphics". Intel.
22. "Intel® Arc™ Pro A-Series Graphics". Intel.
23. Smith, Ryan (August 16, 2021). "Intel Video Cards Get a Brand Name: Arc, Starting with 'Alchemist' in Q1 2022". AnandTech. Archived from the original on January 8, 2022. Retrieved August 29, 2021.
24. Smith, Ryan (February 17, 2022). "Intel Meteor Lake Client Processors to use Arc Graphics Chiplets". AnandTech. Archived from the original on February 17, 2022. Retrieved February 17, 2022.
25. Sripada, Radhakrishna (July 7, 2022). "[Intel-gfx] [PATCH 0/2] i915: Introduce Meteorlake". Free Desktop. Archived from the original on July 7, 2022. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
26. Solca, Bogdan (August 8, 2022). "More details on Intel's AI-based Xe SuperSampling tech launching with the ARC GPUs revealed by principal engineer". NotebookCheck. Archived from the original on July 3, 2022. Retrieved July 3, 2022.
27. "Intel® Iris® Xe MAX Graphics Open Source Programmer's Reference Manual For the 2020 Discrete GPU formerly named "DG1" Volume 11: Media Engines February 2021, Revision 1.0" (PDF). Intel. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 3, 2022. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
28. Mujtaba, Hassan (March 24, 2022). "Intel Showcases Arc Alchemist GPU Performance With XeSS & Raytracing Enabled, Calls XeSS Better Than Temporal Upscaling". Wccftech. Archived from the original on March 24, 2022. Retrieved March 24, 2022.
29. Gamers Nexus (August 1, 2022). "Worst We've Tested: Broken Intel Arc GPU Drivers". YouTube. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
30. McLoughlin, Aleksha (October 8, 2022). "Intel Arc driver issues – Are they fixed?". PC Guide. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
31. Pearce, Lisa (August 19, 2022). "Engineering Arc - 8/19/2022". Intel. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
32. Cunningham, Andrew (August 9, 2022). "Rumors, delays, and early testing suggest Intel's Arc GPUs are on shaky ground". Ars Technica. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
33. "Some Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition GPUs may show up with lower memory clock". VideoCardz. October 24, 2022. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
34. Klotz, Aaron (October 28, 2022). "Intel Arc A770 GPU Memory Clock Bug Fixed With Driver Update". Tom's Hardware. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
35. Phoronix (August 25, 2022). "Intel Arc Graphics Running On Fully Open-Source Linux Driver". Phoronix. Retrieved January 13, 2023.
36. Roach, Jacob (August 22, 2022). "Bad news: Intel's Arc GPU issues run much deeper than performance". Digital Trends. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
37. Kan, Michael (December 7, 2022). "With New Driver, Intel Arc GPUs Run Older DirectX 9 Games Up to 79% Faster". PCMag. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
38. Shrout, Ryan (December 6, 2022). "Upward Trajectory: Improvements to DirectX 9 Games on Intel® Arc™ Graphics". Intel. Archived from the original on June 16, 2023. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
39. "Intel Arc GPUs get performance boost for DirectX 9 games, CS:GO now up to 1.8x faster". VideoCardz. December 7, 2022. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
40. "Intel Arc Graphics Updates, New Bundle, and Pricing". Archived from the original on October 1, 2023. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
41. "Intel® Arc™ A-Series Graphics – Desktop Quick Start..." Intel. Retrieved July 4, 2024.

External links

• Official website
• Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers 2024.1