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Intel is only a few weeks away from the launch of its Arc A770 graphics card (opens in new tab). This promises to be the first graphics card aimed at delivering decent performance in games. Notably, the Arc A770 is said to compete with his Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 (opens in new tab) on both frames per second and price. But releasing Intel’s first-generation Alchemist GPUs wasn’t an easy road. The company faced questions about latency, driver issues, and even its continued interest in graphics.
But no one said it was easy. Intel has largely allayed concerns that graphics interest is waning, and from people I’ve spoken to at the company, it seems like Intel will be there for the long haul. This includes the opinion of Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. He recently had the opportunity to briefly ask about Intel’s independent graphics projects.
“We thought we could extend the embedded software stack more directly into the discrete graphics market. Couldn’t scale to 5x the requirement.
“Once it hits the market, it is easy to improve it and add features, but the transition from integrated to discrete has been more difficult than expected. So it came out a little later than I had hoped.”
“Overall, we think the A770, which was just announced this week and will ship on October 12th, will be a very compelling product,” he continues. “I believe we’ve overcome most of the issues with the software stack. The game’s certifications are now very high, and we’re getting very positive responses to our unique features as part of the product. Now that I have a solid footing, I feel great. “
Intel’s Xe architecture first appeared in his Ice Lake and Tiger Lake mobile his chips, but it also made an appearance in discrete low-power GPUs. Since then we have owned an Arc A380 and very quietly an Arc A310 (opens in new tab). The former received less praise from reviewers. In a few weeks we will see the Arc A770, followed possibly by the A750.