Intel launched a new high-performance graphics card brand Intel Arc

It’s no secret that Intel is doing discrete graphics cards. Recently, Intel announced a new high-performance graphics card product brand, Intel Arc, which is designed for the consumer and covers three aspects: hardware, software, and services. Intel Arc’s hardware products will involve multiple generations. The upcoming release is the Alchemist graphics card (DG2) based on the Xe HPG micro-architecture. The subsequent generations of products are codenamed Battlemage, Celestial, and Druid.

Roger Chandler, Intel vice president, and general manager of Client Graphics Products and Solutions said:

Today marks a key moment in the graphics journey we started just a few years ago. The launch of the Intel Arc brand and the reveal of future hardware generations signifies Intel’s deep and continued commitment to gamers and creators everywhere. We have teams doing incredible work to ensure we deliver first-class and frictionless experiences when these products are available early next year.

Intel Xe is a scalable graphics and computing architecture designed to provide superior performance and functionality for integrated and discrete graphics, data centers, and supercomputers. The upcoming Intel Arc graphics products are based on the Xe HPG microarchitecture, which combines the advantages of Intel Xe LP, HP, and HPC microarchitectures, and will provide excellent scalability and computing efficiency through advanced graphics capabilities.

The first-generation Intel Arc product, code-named Alchemist, will support hardware-based ray tracing and artificial intelligence-driven super sampling, providing full support for DirectX 12 Ultimate. Alchemist products are expected to be available in the first quarter of 2022, and more details will be announced later this year.