An OFFICIAL Intel Arc GPU Was Finally Spotted At IEM 2022

It's easy to understand why some people might as well have given up on seeing an Intel Arc GPU, because Team Blue has been teasing for so long with basically nothing to show for. That is, until today.

(Photo : YouTube - Intel Graphics)
intel arc gpu

After what seemed to be forever, an actual, official Intel Arc graphics card has finally been seen in the wild - albeit as a static display - shown off at the chipmaking giant's Intel Extreme Masters 2022 ESports tournament in Dallas. According to a report by PCGamer, a Twitter user by the name of @theBryceIsRt snapped some photos of the card and shared it online.

Here is the tweet containing the images:

Another Twitter user, @RepsUp100, posted a video of the static display GPU:

What you can see there is what looks to be Intel's own version of a reference GPU design, much like NVIDIA's Founder's Edition GeForce cards. The Arc graphics card itself features a very subdued design that's uncharacteristic of AMD's or NVIDIA's recent releases, which may indicate what Intel wants to do aesthetics -wise. A card with this kind of design will basically fit into almost any themed build.

It's a bit weird how it's displayed, though. The card was propped up on its I/O, which means you couldn't see what kind of ports it has. So we're not sure whether it has the right modern standards like an HDMI 2.1 port, or a series of DisplayPort 1.4a ports. But what looks clear is that the card has an obvious 8+6 pin power config, which could mean that it draws around 300W of power, writes WCCFTech.

With a TDP of 300W, this puts what looks to be the flagship Intel Arc GPU in the same tier as the NVIDIA RTX 3070 and the AMD RX 6800 non-XT. It could be safe to say that one can expect 3070/6800-like levels of performance from the Alchemist card, but that won't be confirmed until the desktop lineup finally launches.

Read also: Graphics Card Specs 101: The Most Important Ones EXPLAINED

What Gaming Tech Will The Desktop Intel Arc GPU Line Bring?

There's really not a lot of information other than what's been revealed back in March (Team Blue's Arc mobile launch). But here are the gaming technologies that Intel revealed with that line of laptop GPUs, which could very well be included in the desktop lineup as well.

One of these technologies is Deep Link, which promises to improve performance "while gaming and creating" with Dynamic Power Share. According to Intel, this technology "provides automatic and dynamic redistribution of power between the CPU and GPU to boost performance depending on usage."

Here's a presentation detailing Deep Link, wherein Team Blue also mentioned Stream Assist tech to help make streaming far better on Arc graphics cards:

Aside from those two, Intel also promises to bring their own NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR competitor: XeSS. The company's supersampling tech was demonstrated in the upcoming action RPG Dolmen, and the results look quite promising with a native 1080p image upscaled to 4K using XeSS:

Looks like NVIDIA and AMD will have to step their games up.

Related: Intel CPU Names Explained: What Is i5, i7, Xeon, ETC...

Story posted on GameNGuide

Written by RJ Pierce