Intel officially enters the discrete GPU game with Arc on Wednesday

Intel Alchemist GPU renders on a blue gradient background
(Image credit: Intel)

Intel is poised to showcase its new Arc laptop GPUs on a live stream this Wednesday to coincide with its launch. This would be the first time since an Intel investors' event since we've heard any official word of these new GPUs. 

A tweet from Intel confirms that we should expect to see some "OEM devices featuring Arc GPUs will be launched by the end of this month." A landing page for the livestream discovered a couple of weeks ago revealed the date and time of said livestream, which did spoil the surprise. 

According to a previously leaked slide, Intel is prepping at least five different notebook SKUs from high-end discrete graphics with 512 EUs with 16GB VRAM to a low-end SKU with 96 EUs and 4GB VRAM, seemingly making a laptop GPU for all budgets. 

We are hoping in the presentation we will get more of a sense of how these GPUs' gaming performance, of course, along with seeing what pricing will be like on OEMs using these discrete graphics. We expect these Intel to compete in the lower-to-mid range laptop market, which is always welcome. 

We are not expecting much of Intel Arc desktop GPUs since that launch seems to have been pushed back to June. Intel wants to make sure the launch of the Arc desktop GPUs goes off without a hitch at a time when its competitors' video cards are not only back in stock but lowering in price. Well, lower than they were

This is also a good opportunity to see XeSS in action. Intel's AI upscaling tech promises double the performance boost and is welcome, especially on budget laptops. 

As soon as we get review samples of these Intel Arc laptops in-house, we'll put them through their paces and see if Intel's return to the GPU scene makes any real difference in the highly competitive GPU fight.

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Jorge Jimenez
Hardware writer, Human Pop-Tart

Jorge is a hardware writer from the enchanted lands of New Jersey. When he's not filling the office with the smell of Pop-Tarts, he's reviewing all sorts of gaming hardware, from laptops with the latest mobile GPUs to gaming chairs with built-in back massagers. He's been covering games and tech for over ten years and has written for Dualshockers, WCCFtech, Tom's Guide, and a bunch of other places on the world wide web. 

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