Intel's Alchemist gaming GPUs definitely look like they mean business

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Moore's Law is Dead has revealed more of Intel's secrets.

Intel GPU renders on a black background
(Image credit: Intel)

Given how hard getting your hands on graphics cards can be at the moment, even talking about them can feel like a pipe dream. But dreamers we are, and there are new photos of Intel’s Arc Alchemist graphics card to help fuel us. 

The photos were shared by Moore’s Law is Dead (thanks, Videocardz), a YouTuber who’s making a reputation for spreading seemingly reputable information about Intel’s upcoming hardware. They appear to show both sides of the flagship Arc Alchemist graphics card, giving us a nice look at the fans, but more importantly the PCB layout.

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Intel’s Arc Alchemist graphics card, previously known as the Intel DG2 discrete graphics card, shows off a nice black and silver colour scheme, and the top 512EU model is expected to sport up to 16GB GDDR6 memory and 4096 FP32 shading units. These specs are inline with thoughts that this card is set to stand against at the least, Nvidia’s RTX 3070 and AMD’s Radeon RX 6700 XT.

Despite this verified oomph, these pics also only show 8 and 6-pin power connectors. This could put the new Intel Arc Alchemist cards behind given the mutterings of new PCIe 5.0 power connector that can deliver up to 600W of power on with a single cable.

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(Image credit: Colorwave)

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The lower powered, DG2-128EU GPU also saw some spotlight in the video by way of rendered models. These look like they may have a much smaller form factor, and are slated to come with up to 8GB of GDDR6 memory and 1024 FP32 shading units. These 75W units should make interesting competition for the lower powered GPU market. 

This all seems inline with what we learned during Intel’s InnovatiON event. Not only did we get a look at those Alder Lake CPUs, but the Arc Alchemist graphics processors were verified to pack 32 Xe Cores.

If all pans out, we could be seeing some very beefy units when the Intel Arc Alchemist is due for launch in Q1 2022.

Hope Corrigan
Hope Corrigan
Hardware Writer

Hope’s been writing about games for about a decade, starting out way back when on the Australian Nintendo fan site Vooks.net. Since then, she’s talked far too much about games and tech for publications such as Techlife, Byteside, IGN, and GameSpot. Of course there’s also here at PC Gamer, where she gets to indulge her inner hardware nerd with news and reviews. You can usually find Hope fawning over some art, tech, or likely a wonderful combination of them both and where relevant she’ll share them with you here. When she’s not writing about the amazing creations of others, she’s working on what she hopes will one day be her own. You can find her fictional chill out ambient far future sci-fi radio show/album/listening experience podcast right here.

No, she’s not kidding.