Intel Plans Discrete Gaming GPU for 2022 in Battle with NVIDIA, AMD

Intel is wrestling to win market share from Nvidia and AMD in gaming with its new family of discrete graphics processing units (GPUs) for desktops and laptops that will debut in early 2022 under its new Arc brand name. 

The Santa Clara, California-based company said that the Arc line would span several generations of hardware targeting gamers and content creators, coupled with its software and services for high-performance graphics. Intel said that its new generation of gaming GPUs based on its Xe-HPG architecture would be called Alchemist. The silicon will start shipping in consumer graphics cards for laptops and desktops by the first quarter of 2022.

Intel said the Alchemist GPU, formerly code-named DG2, will offer hardware-based ray-tracing technology and its artificial intelligence-based super sampling. Intel plans to compete directly with Nvidia, which rolled out real-time ray tracing and AI upscaling in its GeForce RTX family of GPUs in 2018. Intel is also trying to close its gap with AMD, which also supports ray tracing and non-AI upscaling technology in its flagship Radeon GPU family.

Intel said Alchemist, which is currently in pre-production, will also support Microsoft's DirectX 12 Ultimate.

Ray tracing renders light and shadows more realistically in a computer-generated scene. The technology is used to trace the path light rays take in a 3D digital world, and then it calculates the way the light interacts with digital objects it collides with. The other area Intel is trying to address with its Arc processors is upscaling technology, which improves grainier resolution images by filling in the blanks between the pixels in the original image and sharpening the scene. That results in improved image quality and smoother frame rates for video games.

Though it is unclear what process node the Alchemist GPU will be based on, Intel plans to have it manufactured by a third-party foundry. The company said it would share more details on its Arc GPU lineup later this year.

Intel has been investing aggressively to propel its ambitions in graphics processing chips. The semiconductor giant signaled its focus in 2018 when it hired Raja Koduri, who was formerly chief architect for AMD’s Radeon GPUs. In recent years, Intel developed a new graphics architecture known as Xe. The company said Xe spans a wide range of microarchitectures, including Xe-HPG, which is at the heart of its consumer-grade Arc GPUs, and the high-performance Xe-HP and Xe-HPC, which are targeted at huge cloud data centers and supercomputers.

Intel debuted its first-generation Iris Xe discrete graphics processors for desktops, code-named DG1, early in the year. The chips are manufactured on the 10-nm SuperFin technology node and based on the efficiency-focused Xe LP architecture that is also at the heart of the integrated graphics in its latest line of laptop processors. The DG1 graphics product is targeted at the budget end of the market, where it was released as an OEM-only part.

Roger Chandler, vice president and general manager of consumer graphics products at Intel, said that its long-term roadmap for its Arc GPU products underscores that it is in for the long haul in the gaming GPU business. In a statement, he said that Intel is taking pains to roll out products that will deliver "first-class and frictionless” performance to consumers when the graphics cards powered by its Arc line of GPUs come to market in 2022.

Intel also rolled out new code names for future generations of gaming GPUs that belong to the Arc product line. According to the company, Alchemist will be followed by Battlemage, Celestial, and Druid in the upcoming years.