Rumors of a later desktop launch of Intel Arc

Despite the recently fallen GPU prices, there is still a long way to go before the GPU market is normal. Intel intends to enter the desktop GPU market as the third participant in the near future and represent serious competition for AMD and Nvidia. But the original launch plans and expectations of the market observers do not seem to be able to be met. Read more about this below.

The usually well-informed leaker "Moore's Law is Dead" discussed the launch of Intel's Arc Alchemist GPU series in his last video and according to his sources in the industry no longer expects a launch this quarter - at least for the desktop area. https://twitter.com/mooreslawisdead/status/1491589233252835335?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1491589233252835335%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pcgameshardware.de%2FIntel-Arc-Grafikkarte-267650%2FNews%2Fintel-arc-geruechte-um-verspaeteten-launch-nehmen-zu-1388959%2F

After Intel had already removed the announcement of the graphics cards for the first quarter from its English-language websites at the beginning of January, the company confirmed at CES that the first products in the Arc series should be released at the end of the quarter. In the CES presentations, however, only laptop chips were mentioned, so Intel has made truthful statements, but the urgently needed and longingly awaited desktop graphics cards will probably come later.

The leaker's sources do not agree on a specific leek date and are aiming for April to June. However, several sources are certain that Intel would like to publish more information about this at a gaming convention beforehand. Unfortunately, which convention is meant by this remains open, but the E3 as one of the largest game fairs in the world in the second quarter would be ideal - if it takes place digitally at all.

If Intel's launch is pushed back that far, the new cards may have to compete directly against AMD's RDNA-2 refresh RX 6x50 with faster memory and Nvidia's possibly 16 GB graphics memory upgraded version of the Geforce RTX 3070 Ti. The sources do not justify the "delays" with a shortage of chips, but with the software and driver development for the new GPUs.

In other news, a patent filed by Intel describes a multi-GPU rendering approach that would be appropriate for a graphics card with multiple computing chips. It is possible that Intel is already planning the first graphics cards with an MCM GPU.

With the Arc Alchemist graphics cards, Intel wants to enter the GPU market this year and thus establish itself as a competitor to Nvidia and AMD. In the beginning, classic graphics cards with only one chip should come onto the market. However, a patent filed by Intel suggests that the company already has multi-chip solutions in mind.