Intel’s highly anticipated Arc GPUs have taken another step closer to gamers’ hands: the company announced at CES 2022 that it has begun shipping its first-generation Alchemist GPUs to OEM customers, including Acer, Asus, Clevo, Dell, Gigabyte, Haier, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, MSI, and NEC, for desktop and laptop systems.
The Arc GPUs are a big deal for Intel, as they will package the company’s new Xe graphics architecture into the discrete laptop and desktop GPUs, marking Intel’s biggest foray yet into the graphics world (the company is best known for its CPUs). High-level gaming and creative features, such as hardware-accelerated ray tracing and Intel’s AI-accelerated supersampling, will be supported by Arc GPUs. In a nutshell, Arc is Intel’s most serious attempt yet to challenge AMD and Nvidia’s GPU dominance in both laptops and desktops.
Unfortunately, there’s still no information on when the first PCs with Intel’s Arc GPUs will be available, either as pre-built OEM desktops and laptops or as standalone units that users can buy and incorporate into their existing gaming rigs. Similarly, there’s no official information on how many distinct versions of Alchemist GPUs will be available, what the graphics cards’ real specs will be, or – most significantly — how much they’ll cost.
Intel also announced at CES 2022 that discrete Arc GPUs will be required on Intel Evo-branded laptops using its new 12th Gen H-series chips, so we should see at least mobile versions of the new graphics systems in the coming months.
Intel announced ISV partner momentum with its XeSS AI-driven upscaling technology, which is currently being integrated into many game titles across a range of publishers, including exclusive integration into Kojima Production’s Death Stranding Director’s Cut, which also includes core optimizations for 12th Gen Intel Core processors.
“We’re delighted to announce our partnership with Intel for the Death Stranding Director’s Cut edition on PC. Death Stranding has been a hugely popular game with PC players and we’re excited to see how Intel’s new XeSS technology will enhance player experiences for Director’s Cut,” said Neil Rally, president of 505 Games.
via Intel
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