Intel Arc

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Short description: Graphics processing unit brand
Intel Arc
Intel Arc logo (black).svg
Release dateMarch 30, 2022; 2 years ago (March 30, 2022)[1]
Codenames
  • Alchemist
  • Battlemage
  • Celestial
  • Druid
ArchitectureIntel Xe
CoresUp to 4,506
TransistorsUp to 21.7 billion
Fabrication processTSMC N6
Cards
Entry-levelArc 3
Mid-rangeArc 5
High-endArc 7
API support
Direct3D
OpenCLOpenCL 3.0[lower-alpha 1]
OpenGLOpenGL 4.6
VulkanVulkan 1.3
History
Predecessori740

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

Intel 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 Q3'22.[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 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

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 will come 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 DirectX 12 Ultimate.[1][13] Also supported is 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 Intel Arc GPU microarchitectures will also not support it.[15]

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

Intel Arc support OpenCL 3.0[lower-alpha 1] for example, this GPU can work in the grid World Community Grid.[19]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 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.

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

Desktop

Mobile

Workstation

Future generations

Intel also revealed future generations of Intel Arc GPUs under development:[20][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 will use an Intel Arc Tile GPU.[21][22]

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 Intel Arc graphics cards. It does utilize XMX instructions exclusive to Intel 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).[23][24]

Quality presets

Standard XeSS presets[25]
Quality preset[lower-alpha 1] Scale factor[lower-alpha 2] Render scale[lower-alpha 3]
Ultra quality 1.30× 77.0%
Quality 1.50× 66.6%
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.[26][27][28] Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger also blamed driver problems as a reason for Arc's delayed launch.[29]

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.[30] This particular issue was later fixed.[31]

Intel provides an open source driver for Linux too.[32]

DirectX 9 compatibility

As of the Alchemist generation, Intel 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.[33] 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, League of Legends and StarCraft II.[34] 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.[35] According to Intel, the driver update made Arc GPUs up to 1.8x faster in DirectX 9 games.[36] A February 2023 driver update further improved Intel Arc's performance on DirectX 9-based games.[37]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Intel will launch its Arc GPUs on March 30" (in en-US). https://www.pcworld.com/article/623068/intel-will-launch-its-arc-gpus-on-march-30.html. 
  2. ↑ Warren, Tom (August 16, 2021). "Intel enters the PC gaming GPU battle with Arc" (in en). https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/16/22626912/intel-arc-gpu-brand-alchemist-codename-release-date. 
  3. ↑ "Intel® Arc™ A750 Graphics - Product Specifications" (in en). https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/227954/intel-arc-a750-graphics/specifications.html. 
  4. ↑ Gartenberg, Chaim (March 30, 2022). "Intel's first Arc GPUs are now available for laptops". https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/30/23000576/intel-arc-gpu-a-series-laptop-gaming-release-date. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Intel Introduces New High-Performance Graphics Brand: Intel Arc" (in en-US). https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/introducing-discrete-graphics-brand-intel-arc.html. 
  6. ↑ Szewczyk, Chris (May 9, 2022). "Intel Arc desktop cards face more delays" (in en-US). https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-arc-desktop-cards-face-more-delays/. 
  7. ↑ "Intel Unveils Arc Pro GPU Products". August 8, 2022. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/article/arc-pro-gpu-products-unveiled.html. 
  8. ↑ "Intel® Arc™ Pro A-Series Graphics for Workstations". https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/arc-discrete-graphics/a-series/workstation/overview.html. 
  9. ↑ Ung, Gordon (August 19, 2021). "Intel's Arc gaming GPU: Price, specs and availability" (in en-US). https://www.pcworld.com/article/3629402/intels-arc-gaming-gpu-price-specs-and-availability.html. 
  10. ↑ "Intel Introduces New High-Performance Graphics Brand: Intel Arc". August 16, 2021. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/introducing-discrete-graphics-brand-intel-arc.html#gs.e4uo5u. 
  11. ↑ Rutherford, Sam (August 16, 2021). "Intel Names New Brand of GPUs That Will Hit Shelves Next Year" (in en-US). https://gizmodo.com/intel-names-new-brand-of-gpus-that-will-hit-shelves-nex-1847493648. 
  12. ↑ Cunningham, Andrew (August 20, 2021). "Intel provides more details on its Arc GPUs, which will be made by TSMC" (in en-US). https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/intel-provides-more-details-on-its-arc-gpus-which-will-be-made-by-tsmc/. 
  13. ↑ "Intel® Arc™ A-series Graphics Gaming API Guide". https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/guide/arc-a-series-gaming-api-developer-optimization.html. 
  14. ↑ Szewczyk, Chris (April 4, 2022). "Intel Arc GPUs will support AV1 encode and decode". https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-arc-gpus-will-support-av1-encode-and-decode/. 
  15. ↑ "intel: ASTC support was removed on Gfx12.5 (!13206) · Merge requests · Mesa / mesa · GitLab". October 5, 2021. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/13206. 
  16. ↑ "Graphics Virtualization Technologies Support for Each Intel Graphics Family". https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000093216/graphics.html. 
  17. ↑ "Which Intel® Graphics Products Support DirectX 9* (DX9)?". https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000091238/graphics.html. 
  18. ↑ Killian, Zak (August 15, 2022). "Intel Xe And Arc Graphics Lack DX9 Support Forcing DX12 Emulation" (in en-US). https://hothardware.com/news/intel-xe-and-arc-graphics-d3d9on12. 
  19. ↑ "Help". https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/topic.s?shortName=GPU. 
  20. ↑ Smith, Ryan (August 16, 2021). "Intel Video Cards Get a Brand Name: Arc, Starting with 'Alchemist' in Q1 2022". https://www.anandtech.com/show/16886/intel-video-cards-get-a-brand-name-arc-coming-q1-2022. 
  21. ↑ Smith, Ryan (February 17, 2022). "Intel Meteor Lake Client Processors to use Arc Graphics Chiplets". https://www.anandtech.com/show/17264/intel-meteor-lake-client-processors-to-use-arc-graphics-chiplets. 
  22. ↑ Sripada, Radhakrishna (July 7, 2022). "[Intel-gfx [PATCH 0/2] i915: Introduce Meteorlake"]. https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/intel-gfx/2022-July/301011.html. 
  23. ↑ Solca, Bogdan (August 8, 2022). "More details on Intel's AI-based Xe SuperSampling tech launching with the ARC GPUs revealed by principal engineer". https://www.notebookcheck.net/More-details-on-Intel-s-AI-based-Xe-SuperSampling-tech-launching-with-the-ARC-GPUs-revealed-by-principal-engineer.556659.0.html. 
  24. ↑ "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". https://01.org/sites/default/files/documentation/intel-gfx-prm-osrc-dg1-vol11-mediaengines.pdf. 
  25. ↑ Mujtaba, Hassan (March 24, 2022). "Intel Showcases Arc Alchemist GPU Performance With XeSS & Raytracing Enabled, Calls XeSS Better Than Temporal Upscaling" (in en-US). https://wccftech.com/intel-showcases-arc-alchemist-gpu-performance-xess-raytracing-enabled-calls-xess-better-than-temporal-upscaling/. 
  26. ↑ Gamers Nexus (August 1, 2022). "Worst We've Tested: Broken Intel Arc GPU Drivers" (in en-US). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjYSeT-T5uk&ab_channel=GamersNexus. 
  27. ↑ McLoughlin, Aleksha (October 8, 2022). "Intel Arc driver issues – Are they fixed?" (in en-US). https://www.pcguide.com/gpu/intel-arc-driver-issues-are-they-fixed/. 
  28. ↑ Pearce, Lisa (August 19, 2022). "Engineering Arc - 8/19/2022" (in en-US). https://community.intel.com/t5/Blogs/Products-and-Solutions/Gaming/Engineering-Arc-8-19-2022/post/1407637. 
  29. ↑ Cunningham, Andrew (August 9, 2022). "Rumors, delays, and early testing suggest Intel's Arc GPUs are on shaky ground" (in en-US). https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/rumors-delays-and-early-testing-suggest-intels-arc-gpus-are-on-shaky-ground/. 
  30. ↑ "Some Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition GPUs may show up with lower memory clock" (in en-US). October 24, 2022. https://videocardz.com/newz/some-intel-arc-a770-limited-edition-gpus-may-show-up-with-lower-memory-clock. 
  31. ↑ Klotz, Aaron (October 28, 2022). "Intel Arc A770 GPU Memory Clock Bug Fixed With Driver Update" (in en-US). https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-fixes-low-memory-clocks-a770. 
  32. ↑ Phoronix (August 25, 2022). "Intel Arc Graphics Running On Fully Open-Source Linux Driver" (in en-US). https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-arc-graphics-linux. 
  33. ↑ Roach, Jacob (August 22, 2022). "Bad news: Intel's Arc GPU issues run much deeper than performance" (in en-US). https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/intel-arc-alchemist-driver-issues-compound/. 
  34. ↑ Kan, Michael (December 7, 2022). "With New Driver, Intel Arc GPUs Run Older DirectX 9 Games Up to 79% Faster" (in en-GB). https://uk.pcmag.com/graphics-cards/144245/with-new-driver-intel-arc-gpus-run-older-directx9-games-up-to-79-faster. 
  35. ↑ Shrout, Ryan (December 6, 2022). "Upward Trajectory: Improvements to DirectX 9 Games on Intel® Arc™ Graphics" (in en-US). https://game.intel.com/story/intel-arc-graphics-directx9/. 
  36. ↑ "Intel Arc GPUs get performance boost for DirectX 9 games, CS:GO now up to 1.8x faster" (in en-US). December 7, 2022. https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-arc-gpus-get-performance-boost-for-directx-9-games-csgo-now-up-to-1-8x-faster. 
  37. ↑ "Intel Arc Graphics Updates, New Bundle, and Pricing". https://game.intel.com/story/intel-arc-graphics-unleashing/. 

External links



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