Intel announces its first Arc A-Series GPU for laptops
In 2018, Intel announced plans to develop its own line of standalone GPUs designed to compete with rival cards from AMD and NVIDIA. And despite many delays, including missing its original 2020 launch window, the first batch of Intel’s new Arc graphics cards this spring are finally ready for use in retail devices starting with Samsung’s Galaxy Book 2 Pro laptop.
As a quick recap, Intel’s Arc line will eventually cover both laptops and desktops, the first batch of A-Series GPUs being lower-power cards primarily for ultraportable and thin-and-light notebooks. Starting with the new Arc A350M and A370M, before moving on to the more powerful Arc 5 and Arc 7 cards, which will expire sometime later, the company’s graphics cards will use the same naming scheme as its CPU. Summer
Throughout the Arc GPU family, Intel’s graphics architecture is based on four main pillars: the company’s XE Core, XE Media Engine, XE Display Engine, and XE Graphics Pipeline. All arc cards will also have the same set of basic features, including support for DirectX12 Ultimate, Ray Tracing, XE Super Sampling, AV1 hardware acceleration and more.
The Arc’s XE cores are based on Intel’s XE HPG (High Performance Graphics) microarchitecture, each with 16 256-bit vector engines. 16 1,024-bit matrix engine and 192KB of shared memory. The XE Media Engine is designed to support popular video apps with hardware encoding up to 8K 10-bit HDR and hardware acceleration (VP9, AVC, HEVC, AV1) for many popular standards. Meanwhile, the XE Display Engine was designed to simultaneously handle video output for two 8K displays at 60Hz, four 4K displays running at 120Hz, or a single 1440p screen at 360Hz.
Intel’s new A-Series GPUs will have a plan similar to the company’s CPU, with low-power Arc 3 GPUs now available, followed by more efficient Arc 5 and Arc 7 cards later this summer.
For the two new cards, both the A350M and A370M are targeting 1080p gaming in the popular game range from 60fps to 90fps. The A350M is designed to draw power between 25 and 35 watts and will have six XE cores, six ray tracing units, a 1,150 MHz graphics clock (which Intel says is a conservative estimate of the card’s typical clock speed) and 4GB GDDR6. vRAM. Alternatively, the A370M is designed for slightly larger laptops with a power draw of 35 to 50 watts, eight XE cores, 8 ray tracing units, a 1,550 MHz graphics clock and the same 4GB vRAM. And as you can see in the image above, the upcoming Arc 5 and Arc 7 cards will be significantly more powerful. But again, at the beginning of the summer they will not be out.
For the two new cards, both the A350M and A370M are targeting 1080p gaming in the popular game range from 60fps to 90fps. The A350M is designed to draw power between 25 and 35 watts and will have six XE cores, six ray tracing units, a 1,150 MHz graphics clock (which Intel says is a conservative estimate of the card’s typical clock speed) and 4GB GDDR6. vRAM. Alternatively, the A370M is designed for slightly larger laptops with a power draw of 35 to 50 watts, eight XE cores, 8 ray tracing units, a 1,550 MHz graphics clock and the same 4GB vRAM. And as you can see in the image above, the upcoming Arc 5 and Arc 7 cards will be significantly more powerful. But again, at the beginning of the summer they will not be out.
