According to the latest report from ComputerBase, Intel had a strong presence at the recently concluded Embedded World 2024 conference. The company officially showcased its Arc series of GPUs for the embedded market, based on the existing Alchemist chips rebranded as the "E series." However, industry whispers hint at a more significant development—the impending launch of Intel's second-generation Arc Xe² GPUs, codenamed "Battlemage," potentially before the lucrative Black Friday shopping season. While Alchemist serves as Intel's current offering for embedded applications, many companies in attendance expressed keen interest in Battlemage, the successor to Alchemist. These firms often cover a broad spectrum, from servers and desktops to notebooks and embedded systems, necessitating a hardware platform that caters to this diverse range of applications.

Officially, Intel had previously stated that Battlemage would "hopefully" arrive before CES 2025, implying a 2024 launch. However, rumors from the trade show floor suggest a more ambitious target—a release before Black Friday, which falls on November 29th this year. This timeline aligns with Intel's historical launch patterns, as the original Arc A380 and notebook GPUs debuted in early October 2022, albeit with a staggered and limited rollout. Intel's struggles with the Alchemist launch serve as a learning experience for the company. Early promises and performance claims for the first-generation Arc GPUs failed to materialize, leading to a stuttering market introduction. This time, Intel has adopted a more reserved approach, avoiding premature and grandiose proclamations about Battlemage's capabilities.

Intel on Wednesday released the XeSS 1.3 performance enhancement, which works with Intel Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs, and Intel Arc iGPUs powering the Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" processors. The new super sampling technology brings several under-the-hood improvements to the upscaler, which improves image quality at a given resolution. Intel leveraged this improved upscaler to rework the resolution-scale of each performance preset, thereby improving performance per preset; while also introducing new presets at both ends of the resolution scale. The company released the XeSS 1.3 SDK on GitHub, so developers can begin exploring the tech and implementing it on their games.

The XeSS 1.3 update is predicated on an improved upscaler. Intel says that it has updated the AI models with new optimizations, and additional pre-training, particularly with difficult to upscale elements (such as meshes, as in textures with a lot of alpha pixels). The updated upscaler offers better reconstruction of detail, better AA, less ghosting, and improved temporal stability. Intel then used this up change the resolution scale across all its presets as detailed in the table below. It introduced the new Ultra Performance preset that does a 3.0x resolution scale, something that didn't exist in the previous versions of XeSS. On the other end of the spectrum is Native AA, a mode that has zero upscaling, but just the full application of the upscaler as a varnish—this is essentially Intel's take on DLAA.

Phoronix has taken a short break away from monitoring the latest goings-on at AMD's software department—the site's editor-in-chief, Michael Larabel, took a moment to investigate patch notes relating to Intel's Xe and i915 Linux kernel graphics drivers. Earlier today, he noticed that "two additional PCI IDs" have been added to Team Blue's DG2/Alchemist family. This discovery prompted further sleuthing—after: "some searching and turning up hits within the Intel Compute Runtime code, 0x56BE is for an Intel Arc Graphics A750E variant and 0x56BF is for an Intel Arc Graphics A580E."

The aforementioned GPU identification codes seem to exist in gray area—the patch notes do not reveal whether these new variants are destined for desktop or mobile platforms. VideoCardz cited a remark made by "Bionic_Squash"—the reputable leaker reckons that the: "IDs are linked to Intel's Arc Embedded series. This family is tailored for industrial, business, and commercial applications, ranging from edge systems to powering large interactive screens." It is highly likely that Intel is paving the way for embedded/low-power variants of its existing Arc A750 and A580 GPUs. Tom's Hardware proposes that Team Blue is clearing out its inventory of remaining Alchemist silicon ahead of a successive generation's rollout—Battlemage is a major priority in 2024.

SPARKLE unveiled its low-profile series around mid-January—this lineup included an Intel Arc A380 GENIE dual-fan/dual-slot model and an Arc A310 ECO (single-slot, single-fan config) card. Compact device expert/YouTuber, ETA Prime, has uploaded a fascinating video that covers a modification project that involved a hybridization of SPARKLE's latest low-profile graphics cards and a Minisforum MS-01 test system. SPARKLE has released various models based on Intel's "Alchemist" Arc A380 6 GB GPU, but their PCB design is shared across a range of cooling options. ETA Prime could not source an aftermarket lower-profile cooler for his SPARKLE A380 GENIE, so he resorted to cannibalizing the A310 ECO model for relevant parts.

The ECO's single-slot cooling solution was not well proportioned enough to make contact with the SPARKLE A380 GENIE's VRM, so ETA Prime had to "add an aftermarket heatsink." He sold the remaining unneeded pieces—A310 board and GENIE cooler—to a friend for $60. The resultant hybrid—the "world's first-ever single-slot Intel Arc A380"—was bunged into the SFF Minisforum MS-01 test system. Notable specs included the Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and 32 GB of DDR5-5200 RAM. ETA Prime utilized Acer's Predator BiFrost graphics card utility to "trick" in a stable 54 W power limit. 60-ish FPS performance results—with low-to-medium settings at 1080p across a selection of games—were promising, especially for a restrictive small form factor build. ETA Prime hopes that SPARKLE will launch a smaller A380 model in the future—alternatively a specialist firm could produce a nice aftermarket copper part.

Tulpar, an emerging PC gaming hardware company, has been doing the rounds across several European tech events—they demoed Meteor Lake-powered handheld devices at last month's Intel Extreme Masters tour stop in Katowice, Poland. A Hardwareluxx Germany report presented evidence of the Turkish company expanding into graphics card market sectors—Tulpar exhibited their "customized" Intel Arc A770 16 GB model at a recent trade show in Berlin. Andreas Schilling, resident editor at Hardwareluxx, realized that Tulpar had simply rebadged and color adjusted ASRock's Arc A770 Phantom D OC card design.

Tulpar's product placard boasted about their own "3X Cooling System"—a thin renaming of the already well-known ASRock Phantom Gaming triple-fan cooling solution. Their reliance on OEM designs is not a major revelation—the Tulpar 7-inch handheld gaming PC appears to be based on an existing platform—somewhat similar to Emdoor's EM-GP080MTL. Company representatives estimate that their "first dedicated gaming GPU" will be hitting retail within the third quarter of this year. News outlets have questioned this curious launch window—first generation Intel Arc "Alchemist" graphics cards (released in late 2022) are a tough sell, even with a much improved driver ecosystem delivering significant improvements throughout 2023/2024. Tulpar could be targeting a super budget price point, since Team Blue has signalled that their next-gen "Battlemage" GPUs are due later on in the year.

Intel just announced optimizations for PyTorch (IPEX) to take advantage of the AI acceleration features of its Arc "Alchemist" GPUs.PyTorch is a popular machine learning library that is often associated with NVIDIA GPUs, but it is actually platform-agnostic. It can be run on a variety of hardware, including CPUs and GPUs. However, performance may not be optimal without specific optimizations. Intel offers such optimizations through the Intel Extension for PyTorch (IPEX), which extends PyTorch with optimizations specifically designed for Intel's compute hardware.

Intel released a blog post detailing how to run Meta AI's Llama 2 large language model on its Arc "Alchemist" A770 graphics card. The model requires 14 GB of GPU RAM, so a 16 GB version of the A770 is recommended. This development could be seen as a direct response to NVIDIA's Chat with RTX tool, which allows GeForce users with >8 GB RTX 30-series "Ampere" and RTX 40-series "Ada" GPUs to run PyTorch-LLM models on their graphics cards. NVIDIA achieves lower VRAM usage by distributing INT4-quantized versions of the models, while Intel uses a higher-precision FP16 version. In theory, this should not have a significant impact on the results. This blog post by Intel provides instructions on how to set up Llama 2 inference with PyTorch (IPEX) on the A770.

Intel today launched the Arc A580 "Alchemist" desktop graphics card, with general availability across both the prebuilt and DIY retail channels. The card starts at a price of USD $179.99. The A580 targets the lower-end of the mid-range, and is targeted at AAA gaming at 1080p with medium-thru-high settings. The card fully meets DirectX 12 Ultimate feature-requirements, and is based on the Xe HPG "Alchemist" graphics architecture that powers the current Arc A750 and A770.

The new A580 has a lot in common with the Arc 7-series, as it is based on the same 6 nm ACM-G10 (aka DGX-512) silicon that powers them. Intel carved out this SKU by enabling 24 out of 32 Xe Cores, across 6 out of 8 Render Slices. This results in 384 execution units, or 3,072 unified shaders, 384 XMX AI acceleration cores, 24 Ray Tracing engines, 192 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. Perhaps the best aspect of the A580 is its memory sub-system that's been carried over from the A750—you get 8 GB of 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit memory bus, yielding a segment-best 512 GB/s memory bandwidth. Intel claims that the Arc A580 should provide performance highly competitive to the GeForce RTX 3050, but there's more to this, do check out our reviews.

ASRock Arc A580 Challenger OC | Sparkle Arc A580 Orc

Schenker Technologies GmbH's e-commerce platform, bestware.com, is now offering Intel's NUC X15 Laptop Kit with Core i7-12700H and dedicated Arc A730M graphics card, in addition to the laptops of the two own brands XMG and SCHENKER. The base configuration of the 2 kg light and well-equipped 15.6-inch notebook is available at a reduced price of €899 (~$963) for a limited time at launch.

Intel NUC X15 Arc combines Core i7-12700H with Arc A730M
Measuring 358.26 x 235 x 22.2 mm and weighing just 2 kg, the 15.6-inch Intel NUC X15 Arc positions itself among the light and slim laptops in its performance class. The display lid and top shell of the black chassis are aluminium; only the bottom shell and the display frame use plastic. Despite its compactness, the NUC 15 Arc offers high performance. Intel pairs a Core i7-12700H with 14 cores (6 performance, 8 efficiency cores) and 20 threads with a dedicated graphics card from its own Arc portfolio: The Arc A730M offers a generous 12 GB of GDDR6 memory and operates at a TGP of 75 watts.

The Asian Games 2022 athletic event was originally set to take place last September—officials have rescheduled proceedings to later this month (opening September 23, closing October 8). Gunnir has prepared new versions of its existing Arc A770 & A750 Photon OC graphics cards in celebration of e-sports competitions being added to the roster at XIX Asian Games, Hangzhou. The Chinese hardware manufacturer has produced an extensive portfolio of Intel Alchemist-based discrete solutions, so it is not surprising to see slightly revised designs being issued to tie-in with a significant multi-sport tournament.

Gunnir's Photon OC White Edition shroud has been updated with the official Asian Games emblem as well as wavy graphic patterns—their retail packaging shares similar revisions, giving off some very calming vibes. According to product listings on JD.com, the A750 8 GB model currently sells for 1699 RMB (~$232), while the range-topping A770 16 GB variant is available to pre-order at 2399 RMB (~$328). The latest Intel and Gunnir collaboration is not likely to reach Western shores—Team Blue's Chinese operation announced (last month) that it was the official graphics processor supplier for this month's Hangzhou Asian Games. We expect only the most hardcore of GPU collectors to import these curiosities from Joybuy/Jingdong (JD).

Intel recently updated its website to highlight interposers used for testing upcoming chips before their actual product integration. A specific webpage now showcases components used by various tools, notably the "Gen5 VR," which stands for CPU Voltage Regulator in this context. The highlight of the update reveals at least four yet-to-be-announced products: Battlemage (BMG), Arrow Lake (ARL), and Lunar Lake (LNL), slated for launch in 2024. Particularly interesting are the two Battlemage interposers: BGA2362-BMG-X2 and BGA2727-BMG-X3. This hints that a Battlemage GPU could have more pins than Intel's current top-tier GPU from the Alchemist series, known as DG2, which features 2660 pins (BGA2660-DG2-512EU).

This unveiling could indicate Intel's plans to introduce two GPUs in its new series or potentially two different package sizes. Manufacturers often use consistent package sizes for multiple GPUs, granting flexibility to interchange processors with similar specifications and presenting a feasible production strategy. Another notable mention is the Arrow Lake-HX, intended for premium desktop/laptop hybrids.. While there was some buzz about the ARL-HX series before, this update provides clear confirmation from Intel. Lastly, the reveal includes an interposer for the Lunar Lake-M series (LNL-M), which is expected to be Intel's most energy-efficient line. Drawing parallels from the Alder Lake series, such chips were designed for tablets with power consumption between 5 to 7 watts.

Intel Graphics late Wednesday released the Arc GPU Graphics Software 101.4578 beta. These drivers come with Game On (day-zero) optimization for the hottest game release of this Summer, "Baldur's Gate 3." Intel beat both AMD and NVIDIA to be the first with optimized drivers for the game. The fantasy RPG releases later today. Given that the game is very easy on system requirements, you can expect the entire span of Intel Arc "Alchemist" graphics card to be perfectly suited to the game. The Arc A380 should be able to max out the game at resolutions of 1080p, while the A750 and A770 should max it out at 1440p and 4K Ultra HD.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4578 beta

A Newegg product page popped up last week, giving us a first glimpse at ASRock's Phantom Gaming Arc A770 16 GB graphics card. The e-tailer had no stock available on July 20, but the listing included an asking price of $329.99 (MSRP is $349). The Taiwanese manufacturer was radio silent at the time—no press material was released, and their own website was not updated with a product page for the 16 GB variant of its existing custom Alchemist design.

The ASRock Arc A770 Phantom Gaming 16 GB OC model's page is now live and fully accessible, and Newegg appears to have units in stock. TPU has not received any fresh PR material, so ASRock is seemingly taking a quiet approach to their new product's launch. The spec sheet shows that the card's memory clock comes in at 17.5 Gbps, which makes it a good alternative to Intel's recently discontinued A770 Limited Edition. It joins Acer's competing Predator BiFrost model in an exclusive club—these are the only 16 GB A770 custom design graphics cards available in the West.

Intel's Alchemist engineering team has been working on improving its open-source Vulkan drivers for Linux—recent coverage from Phoronix shows that Team Blue's hard work is paying off, especially in the area of gaming performance. The site's founder, Michael Larabel, approves of the latest Mesa work produced by Intel engineers, and has commended them on their efforts to better the Arc Graphics family. His mid-month testings—on a Linux 6.4-based system running an Intel Arc A770 GPU—demonstrated a "~10% speed-up for the Intel Arc Graphics on Linux." He has benchmarked this system again over the past weekend, following the release of a new set of optimizations for Mesa 23.3-devel: "The latest performance boost for Intel graphics on Linux is by supporting the I915_FORMAT_MOD_4_TILED_DG2_RC_CCS modifier. Indeed it's panning out nicely for furthering the Intel Arc Graphics Vulkan performance."

He apologized for the limited selection of games, due to: "the Intel Linux graphics driver still not having sparse support in place, but at least that will hopefully be here in the coming months when the Intel Xe kernel driver is upstreamed. Another recent promising development for the Intel open-source graphics driver support is fake sparse support to at least help some games and that code will hopefully be merged soon." First up was Counter-Strike: Global Offensive—thanks to the optimized Vulkan drivers it: "enjoyed another nice boost to the performance as a result of this latest code. For CS Linux gamers, it's great seeing the 21% boost just over the past month."

An MSI Arc A310 4 GB Low Profile 2X graphics card is now available to purchase at a couple of Russian PC hardware retailers (for roughly $140), and a local YouTuber has already produced a quick unboxing video. Intel's board partners have been sluggish in adopting lower-end Alchemist GPU variants, with only a handful of companies bothering to produce cards based on the Arc A310 (DG2-128).

Sparkle displayed an unnamed super compact model at Computex 2023, and presentation slides have recently revealed that their "Industrial Low-Profile" series will be introduced under the GENIE moniker, comprised of single slot/fan A310 and A380 variants. Sparkle has not outlined a possible Western release for these budget cards, and other manufacturers have been reluctant to move beyond the Chinese OEM market. The Gigabyte A3 series is reportedly a Russian market exclusive for the moment, so it will be interesting to see if MSI is only targeting that territory with its competing dual fan design Arc A310 4 GB Low Profile model.

Sparkle presented a pair of custom Intel Arc A380 and A310 cards[/url] at last month's Computex expo—reaffirming its commitment to presenting the full lineup of Arc GPUs. It is now reported that these "Industrial Low-Profile" cooled units will form the company's "GENIE" series. Sparkle's triple-fan TITAN series is comprised of Arc A770 and A750 GPUs, while the dual-fan ORC is formed solely of an A750. ELF is a single fan design A380 card.

The aforementioned GENIE models are both one slot designs with single fans and a low profile shrouds that only covers part of the PCB (comparable to the reference card). The A380 unit offers 8 Xe-Cores with 6 GB GDDR6 96-bit memory, while the lesser A310 gets 6 Xe-Cores and 4 GB of GDDR6 64-bit memory. The leaked presentation slide does not show any release date information, but reasonably final looking hardware making an appearance at Computex 2023 suggests that the GENIE series is not too far off from reaching retail.

According to information and images released by Xfastest, Acer seems to be preparing a new trio of Predator BiFrost custom cards. The series is currently limited to a single factory overclocked model, based on Intel's Arc A770 16 GB GPU. One of the new cards seems to be a cheaper (~$258) A750 8 GB BiFrost model, so Acer's Alchemist ACM-G10 GPU variant lineup is welcoming one addition.

Acer is also embracing RDNA 3 courtesy of AMD, although graphics card enthusiasts could see the introduction of two new Predator BiFrost models based on Radeon RX 7600 8 GB GPU as less than exciting prospects. The leaked photos seem to show a cooler design that lacks ARGB around the two cooling fans—budget friendly pricing (~$290 for the overclocked model, and ~$258 for non-OC) suggests that fancy livery is not so important in the low-to-mid-range tier.

Chinese tech tipster Golden Pig Upgrade has turned its attention to Intel's Meteor Lake processor series—they believe that hardware partners are putting qualification samples (QS) through the ringer. The short Bilibili social media post proposes that these laptop-oriented prototypes sport six high-performance Redwood Cove cores running at 4.80 GHz, eight energy-efficient Crestmont cores, as well as two low-power Crestmont cores. Apparently the unit's TDP can be adjusted—starting at 20 W, and going up to 65 W. Golden Pig Upgrade was also informed about a Core Ultra 9 model capable of hitting 5.0 GHz (or greater) maximum CPU clocks.

The qualification sample's integrated graphics processing unit is reportedly based on the Xe-LPG architecture—some experts reckon that this could offer performance (4.5 FP32 TFLOPS) comparable to Arc A380 or A370M discrete solutions. The sampled iGPU could feature up to 128 execution units (so equivalent to 1024 stream processors, as well as 8 Xe clusters)—insider sources allege that units can boost to a maximum of 2.2 GHz. It will be interesting to observe how this will stack up against AMD's Radeon 780M iGPU—which is theoretically in a similar ballpark (4.3 FP32 TFLOPS).

ASRock has added another Arc model to its small selection of Intel graphics cards—this time in low profile form. The entry level A380 GPU is well suited for this narrow (zero dB/silent) dual fan cooling solution due to its diminutive 75 W TDP rating. ASRock has stayed in the safe zone by sticking with the default base clock of 2.0 GHz, as opposed to the sibling Challenger ITX 6 GB OC model's slightly more ambitious 2.25 GHz.

The specifications are typical A380—you get 6 GB of GDDR6 VRAM with a 96-bit memory bus, granting a bandwidth going up to 186 GB/s (memory is clocked at 15.5 Gbps), although the selection of ports has been reduced in number due to the card's small stature. Only single DisplayPort 2.0 and HDMI 2.0b connections here. ASRock's product page for their Arc A380 Low Profile model includes the usual yammering about the GPU's "next-gen gaming" capabilities thanks to Intel's Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) technology, but the card is better suited for compact budget builds and users who require a decent level of AV1 encoding (for the price—not announced at the time of writing).

Newegg has reduced the asking price for Intel's Arc A750 Limited Edition 8 GB graphics card - this reference model is now available at an all-time low of $199. It is too early to tell whether this a permanent discount or just a seasonal sale - but the online retailer could be reacting (in advance) to the launches of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4060 (in July) and 4060 Ti models, as well as AMD's Radeon RX 7600 GPU lineup later this week.

Team Blue is putting a lot of effort into getting the hardware buying public to adopt its first generation of A-series/Alchemist discrete graphics cards - including the premiere of a slightly bizarre marketing campaign last week, called "Arc Balanced Builds." Intel has been navigating a market long dominated by NVIDIA and AMD, where plenty of folks have welcomed a third player on the field - but the Arc series experienced a much delayed and rough launch process last year. Intel has seemingly committed to next generation graphics technologies, with its Battlemage and Celestial architectures speculated to be in-progress at the company's AXG division.

Intel has appointed Deepak Patil as the new corporate vice president and general manager of its Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) group. Patil is set to succeed Raja Koduri in this leadership role - company CEO Pat Gelsinger was the first person to announce news (last month) of Koduri's departure from Intel. At the time of his leaving Team Blue, Koduri's official job title was "Executive Vice President and Chief Architect" so the wording of his successor's executive ranking is slightly different. Patil is the current chief technology and strategy officer at the Intel Data Center and AI Group, and was previously senior vice president at Dell APEX USA. He will be taking over directly from interim AXG division leader Jeff McVeigh.

The official Intel statement regarding its new leadership appointment states: "Intel will deliver competitive accelerated computing products and build scalable systems with easy-to-program software on a predictable cadence. Deepak Patil will serve as the CVP and General Manager of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) group. Deepak recently held the position of DCAI Chief Technology and Strategy Officer. Having held senior engineering leadership positions across the high-tech industry, including being a founding member of Microsoft Azure and leading Dell's APEX as-a-service business, he understands the important role that software and open ecosystems play in enabling application developers and service providers to bring innovative solutions to market, at scale."

Gunnir unveiled its top-end Intel Alchemist card closer to the start of this year - and this week the Chinese company has started selling a white edition of the Arc A770 Photon 16G OC graphics card. It has been reported that this is a world first - no other Alchemist card on the market features a custom cooler finished in white. Gunnir's standard Photon OC model - fitted with a dark gray-ish triple-fan design - has been available for a few months, and a snazzy blue Flux OC model also exists but is restricted to 8 GB VRAM.

Regardless of color choices, Gunnir's range topping Photon OC cards feature the best mainstream graphics hardware that Team Blue has to offer - namely an Alchemist SKU as seen in the (reference design) Arc A770 Limited Edition 16 GB model. Intel's board partners are having a tough time shifting their Arc lineup of graphics cards - discerning customers are wary of relatively immature architectures - and Gunnir has chosen to introduce a seasonal price cut across the Alchemist range. The promotion offers Chinese customers (via Gunnir's JD.com store) discounts on A380 (max. 33%), and A770 (max. 13%) GPUs.

Sparkle, a Taiwanese computer electronics maker, is again entering the GPU market after almost ten years of inactivity in the space. A while back, Sparkle was one of NVIDIA's original Add-In Board (AIB) partners and helped them launch the GeForce 7900 PCI GPU. The company continued to make NVIDIA-based GPUs until GTX 700 series in 2013. After a decade, Sparkle is back again with ambitions to be Intel's AIB partner and announced not one but three graphics cards to start. Called A750 Titan, A750 Orc, and A380 Elf, these cards feature triple-fan, dual-fan, and single-fan coolers, respectively.

The first in line is the Sparkle A750 Titan, a triple-fan, 2.5-slot design based on Intel Arc A750 GPU. Featuring 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, this top-end A750 SKU is clocked at 2300 MHz, up from the factory's 2050 MHz frequency. Titan's smaller brother is Sparkle A750 Orc, a dual-fan, "2.2"-slot (we assume smaller than two and a half and bigger than two slots) GPU with the same A750 GPU; however, it clocked slightly lower at 2200 MHz. Both models feature single HDMI 2.0 and 3x DisplayPort 2.0 output ports and require two 8-pin PCI power connectors. Lastly, we have the Sparkle A380 Elf, a half-length, ITX-sized GPU that fits in two slots and has a single-fan cooler. It is based on Intel Arc A380 and has identical specifications without factory overclocks applied. Pricing and availability are currently unknown.

NTT-X, a retailer in Japan is advertising a strange promotion to its moneyed customers - a free Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition GPU with every purchase of an ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB OC Edition graphics card. You would normally expect a couple of extra digital download codes for video games as some sort of bonus incentive, but NTT-X has chosen a non-traditional approach to getting fancy silicon into clients' hands. The shop is selling the high-end ASUS card for just over $2300 (converted from the value in Japanese Yen), and mid-range Intel board will set you back roughly $350 (when sold separately). It seems that PC hardware prices in Japan tend to be higher when compared to USA market trends.

It is not really clear if this particular hardware outlet is experiencing slow sales for top-end RTX GeForce 40 series cards simply because of high asking prices, or it is having difficulty in shifting the Alchemist card due to wavering hardware buyer perception. Super enthusiasts with plenty of cash to spare on cutting edge tech will tend to purchase the best stuff available - perhaps NTT-X are offering their target audience a chance to construct a secondary or tertiary computer. These additional PCs could host the promotional Intel Arc A750 graphics card, with the retailer gaining further sales via customers buying more components for another build, be it for a compact computer or home theater/media center PC.

CD Projekt RED, the developer of Cyberpunk 2077, has advertised including various super sampling technologies like NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR, and now Intel XeSS supersampling. With the inclusion of XeSS version 1.1, Intel's Arc Alchemist graphics cards can record a significant performance uplift. Thanks to the Intel game blog, we compare XeSS enabled versus XeSS disabled, measuring the ability to play Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p Ultra settings with medium ray tracing enabled. The FPS comparison was conducted with Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition GPU, which was paired with Intel Core i9-13900K and 32 GB of RAM.

With XeSS off, the A750 GPU struggled and only reached 39 FPS. However, with XeSS set to performance, the number jumped to 67 FPS, making for a smooth user experience and gameplay. This is a 71% performance uplift, enabled by a new update in the game. Interestingly, Intel XeSS is computed on Arc's XMX Units, while NVIDIA and AMD compute their super sampling on shader units.

The Meteor Lake codename has been linked to the fourteenth generation of Intel's Core lineup for a while, following several significant leaks in 2022 and 2023. According to newly unearthed internal documentation and benchmark data, Intel has confirmed that the Meteor Lake family of CPUs will form its upcoming 14th Gen Core lineup - with laptop variations expected to arrive mid-2023 and heavily speculated desktop units in the fourth quarter, although a middle of the year refresh of Raptor Lake could push the entire Meteor Lake range's release window into 2024.

Meteor Lake is anticipated to be Intel's debuting of a "disaggregated" design - the most advanced laptop CPU variant features a top-of-the-line 6P+8E core configuration. Intel is solely responsible for fabrication of an IOE (I/O) tile (the company's own term for a chiplet) with PCIe 5.0 plus Thunderbolt 4, as well as an SoC tile. The GPU part of the design is rumored to be based on their own Arc Alchemist architecture, and TSMC has been contracted to manufacture this graphics tile - not a big surprise since Intel has also placed substantial manufacturing orders for discrete Arc cards with the Taiwanese foundry.