Intel is well underway to capture a portion of the ever-growing GPU market with the release of its first card in its Arc range, the Alchemist, which is poised to take on the likes of Nvidia’s GeForce series and AMD’s Radeon lineup.
Not content to simply release a single card, Intel, which is capable of producing its own silicon, has plans to release more cards in the Arc range, including a newly announced SKU that could sit between its planned mid-range and high-end cards.
Tom’s Hardware reports that there are already three Arc SKUs planned for release sometime in the near future. The base model features 1,024 cores (DG2-128), the mid-range 3,072 (DG2-384), and the high-end with 4,096 cores (DG2-512).
The newly revealed DG2-448 sits between the mid-range and high-end SKUs. The publication says its name relates to the amount of Vector Engines it has. The GPU is expected to have some 3,584 cores.
Tom’s Hardware reports:
A multi-die strategy is optimal for any GPU manufacturer to ensure damaged wafers are not gone to waste, improving the efficiency of the fabs. However, this also means fully enabled wafers will be rare and harder to come by. If true, then we could see far more DG2-448 Arc GPUs in the wild than DG2-512s.
For reference, Nvidia has still not produced a graphics card with a fully enabled GA102 core; its highest core count GPU die to date. This puts into perspective how difficult producing fully enabled dies can be without defects occurring along the manufacturing line.
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For now, it appears the DG2-512 will act as Intel’s RTX 3080 SKU. Thus, we can expect the DG2-512 to be a top-tier flagship GPU, with low yields. On the other hand, the DG2-448 could act as Intel’s RTX 3070, featuring far greater yields thanks to disabled cores, allowing for the use of defective wafers.
The VRAM of the new card is likely to sit somewhere between 8GB to 12GB, putting it on par with the Nvidia RTX 3060, which features 12GB of memory and 3584 cores, identical in number to the Intel version. However, the overall performance may well exceed the RTX 3060 and be more comparable to the RTX 3070 or 3070 Ti due to its power.
Regardless of where it sits, Intel’s entry into the GPU market is a welcome one in a world beset by supply shortages and scalper prices.
