Today is a great day for Intel Arc Alchemist: The official specifications of the graphics cards have finally been revealed, confirming some previous speculation, but not without an unexpected announcement.
Although Intel has mainly focused on the Arc A770 and Arc A750, it will also release another GPU, the seemingly forgotten Arc A580. What can we expect from these GPUs and will they be competitive enough to catch the interest of Nvidia and AMD customers?
After a long wait, Intel did not hold back and told us most things we need to know about your discrete GPUs. Three graphics cards are on the way, and all three will use the same top-of-the-line ACM-G10 Alchemist GPU die. While we knew the Arc A770 and A750 and were able to see their performance in several videos with Intel’s Ryan Shrout and Tom Petersen, the Arc A580 was always an enigma in comparison, dwarfed by its two better siblings.
First up, we have the flagship Arc A770, with the full 32 Xe-Cores and 32 ray-tracing units. It will come in 16GB and 8GB memory versions and offer a maximum memory bandwidth of 560Gbps. The GPU has a 256-bit bus interface and a clock speed of 2.1GHz, powered by a 225-watt TDP.
The Arc A770 is expected to be a rival to Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, and if all goes well, it could even offer better performance than Nvidia’s offering. Of course, performance metrics will differ from game to game depending on the API: Intel GPUs shine when DirectX 12 and Vulkan are involved, but can struggle with DX11/9 games.
Next up is the Arc A750. While it runs on the same ACM-G10 GPU array, it comes with 28 Xe-Cores and 28 ray-tracing units. Like the Arc A770, it features a 256-bit memory bus and the same 225-watt TDP. However, it will max out at 8GB of memory, a clock speed of 2,050MHz, and an effective bandwidth of 512Gbps. This graphics card will be positioned in front of Nvidia’s RTX 3060.
Both graphics cards will be released in limited edition versions (which is Intel’s own design) and custom flavors prepared by Intel’s yet-to-be-named board partners. Intel won’t be releasing more powerful gpu’s in the Arc Alchemist lineup, so high-end graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD can rest easy.
Finally, we have the Arc A580, with 24 Xe-Cores and 8GB of memory, although once again, the same ACM-G10 die. Clock speed was rated at 1.7GHz combined with 512Gbps memory bandwidth, all on a 256-bit bus. This GPU will offer similar performance to the RTX 3050.
Intel plans to release the Arc A770 and Arc A750 (this time globally) this month, so we’re not too far off. The Arc A580 is said to follow later this quarter. As for pricing, Intel has promised to keep them competitive, so if it can get into lower price segments, it could still be competitive against rivals that way.
Assuming Intel can price the Arc A770 to be cheaper than $400, the Arc A750 under $350, and the Arc A580 closer to $200-$250, the GPUs would still rank pretty high compared to other cheap graphics cards. Let’s wait and see: it can’t be long until Intel confirms the official price.
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