The PCI resizable-BAR feature is an absolute must for Intel Arc "Alchemist" graphics cards to perform as advertised, to the extent that Intel recommends sticking to "other vendors" (NVIDIA, AMD), for those on machines that lack resizable-BAR or prefer it disabled. In our testing of the Arc A380, we found a big performance gap between resizable-BAR being enabled and disabled. The company said that while it is working on driver optimizations that improve performance for machines lacking resizable-BAR, its general advice for those on older platforms is to stick with other vendors.

Resizable-BAR enables the software to see the entire video memory of a graphics card as a single large addressable block, rather than through 256 MB apertures. AMD and NVIDIA's driver architectures have optimized their memory-management to cope with these apertures through the advent of PCI-Express, but Intel Arc hasn't. Its memory-management model relies on large bursts of memory transfers, for which it needs resizable-BAR. The performance penalty for lacking it could be as high as 40 percent. In related news, Intel Graphics confirmed that the Arc A770 will be available both in 16 GB and 8 GB memory variants at launch—which is still slated for Soonuary, 2022.

Intel on Thursday posted an article that dives deep into the ray tracing architecture of its Arc "Alchemist" GPUs, which are particularly relevant with performance-segment parts such as the Arc A770, which competes with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060. In the article, Intel posted ray tracing performance numbers that put it at-par with, or faster than the RTX 3060, which which it has traditional raster performance parity. In theory, this would make Intel's ray tracing tech superior to that of AMD RDNA2, because while the AMD chips have raster performance parity, their ray tracing performance do not tend to be at par with NVIDIA parts at a price-segment level.

The Arc "Alchemist" GPUs meet the DirectX 12 Ultimate feature-set, and its ray tracing engine supports DXR 1.0, DXR 1.1, and Vulkan RT APIs. The Xe Core is the indivisible subunit of the GPU, and packs its main number-crunching machinery. Each Xe Core features a Thread Sorting Unit (TSU), and a Ray Tracing Unit (RTU). The TSU is responsible for scheduling work among the Xe Core and RTU, and is the core of Intel's "secret sauce." Each RTU has two ray traversal pipelines (fixed function hardware tasked with calculating ray intersections with intersections/BVH. The RTU can calculate 12 box intersections per cycle, 1 triangle intersection per cycle, and features a dedicated cache for BVH data.

Intel Graphics in an interview with PC Gamer on the sidelines of the 2022 IFA Berlin, claimed that the real-time ray tracing architecture of the Xe-HPG graphics architecture in the Arc A770 "Alchemist" graphics card is "competitive or better than" the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, and that the company plans to launch the card at an attractive price-point, to grab a slice of the very top of the gaming graphics market bell-curve. The RTX 3060 is a very successful GPU, especially with graphics card prices on the chill, and AMD is already competing with its Radeon RX 6650 XT, which can be spotted at lower prices. The RTX 3060 has been in the crosshairs of Intel Graphics marketing, in recent performance reveals for the A770.

"When you have a title that is optimized for Intel, in the sense that it runs well on DX12, you're gonna get performance that's significantly above an [RTX] 3060," said Tom Petersen with Intel Graphics. "When you have a title that is optimized for Intel, in the sense that it runs well on DX12, you're gonna get performance that's significantly above an [RTX] 3060. And this is A750 compared to a 3060, so 17%, 14%, 10%. It's going to vary of course based on the title," he said. "We're going to be a little bit faster but depending on your game and depending on your settings, it's trading blows, and that's the A750. Obviously, A770 is going to be a little bit faster. So when you add in DX11, you're gonna see our performance is a little less trading blows, and we're kind of behind in some cases, ahead in some cases, but more losses than wins at DX11," he added. While Intel is still non-committal about a launch date, although it stated that the Arc A770 and A750 will launch with an attractive "introductory pricing."

Intel today launched its Arctic Sound M line of data-center GPUs. These are not positioned as HPC processors like the "Ponte Vecchio," but GPUs targeting cloud-compute providers, with their main applications being in the realm of visual processing, media, and AI inferencing. Their most interesting aspect has to be the silicon, which are the same 6 nm "ACM-G11" and "ACM-G10" chips powering the Arc "Alchemist" client graphics cards, based on the Xe-HPG architecture. Even more interesting is their typical board power values, ranging between 75 W to 150 W. The cards are built in the PCI-Express add-on card form-factor, with their cooling solutions optimized for rack airflow.

The marketing name for these cards is simply Intel Data Center GPU Flex, with two models being offered: The Data Center GPU Flex-140, and Flex-170. The Flex-170 is a full-sized add-on card based on the larger ACM-G10 silicon, which has 32 Xe Cores (4,096 unified shaders), whereas the Flex-140, interestingly, is a low-profile dual-GPU card with two smaller ACM-G11 chips that each has 8 Xe Cores (1,024 unified shaders). The two chips appear to be sharing a PCIe bridge chip in the renders. Both models come with four Xe Media Engines that pack AV1 encode hardware-acceleration, XMX AI acceleration, real-time ray tracing, and GDDR6 memory.

ASRock's Arc A380 "Alchemist" graphics card is now available for purchase on US retailer Newegg for USD $139.99. The card is sold and shipped by Newegg from the US-based warehouses, and isn't a marketplace listing that imports them from foreign retailers. The ASRock A380 Challenger is a close-to-reference card that runs the A380 at slightly overclocked speeds, draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, and uses a simple aluminium monoblock fan-heatsink to cool the GPU. Based on the Xe-HPG graphics architecture, the Arc A380 features 1,024 unified shaders, meets DirectX 12 Ultimate API specs (which includes ray tracing), and comes with readiness for the XeSS performance enhancement. The card has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 96-bit memory bus.

Intel has been in the firing lines for the consecutive delays and general lack of clarity surrounding the launch of its Arc Alchemist family of discrete GPUs. Staggered availability has meant that the only currently available Arc GPU - the A380 - is still only available in the Chinese market, where the Internet café game is still strong. Intel drivers in particular have been fraught with bugs and as we know, software can bring even the most competent hardware to its knees. So there's maybe an echo of warning bells to the real state of Arc's software suite when Intel admits to having detected 43 different GPU driver bugs... While watching a review video from Gamers Nexus.

We've conducted our own review of Intel's Arc A380 (after importing it from China), and we did call to attention how we "encountered numerous bugs including bluescreens, corrupted desktop after startup, random systems hangs, system getting stuck during shutdown sequences, and more." Only AMD and NVIDIA seem to have an idea on just how complex the matter of breaking into and maintaining a position in this particular product segment takes. Intel itself is still in the process of learning just what that takes, as its own VP and general manager of the Visual Computing Group, Lisa Pearce, penned in a blog post.

Intel Arc Alchemist graphics cards span both gamer and creator/professional user market sector, where we witnessed Intel announce gamer and pro-vis GPU SKUs. Today, we are seeing the usage of the flagship Arc Alchemist SKU called A770 in Blender rendering with ray tracing enabled. The GPU is designed to have a DG2-512 GPU with 512 EUs, 4096 Shading Units, 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, and 32 Xe cores for ray tracing, be a powerhouse for games, and handle some professional software as well. At SIGGRAPH 2022, Bob Duffy, Intel's Director of Graphics Community Engagement, showcased a system with Arc A770 GPU running Blender Cycles with ray tracing and denoising.

While we don't have any comparable data to showcase, the system managed to produce a decent rendering in Blender 3.3 LTS release, using Intel's oneAPI. The demo scene had 4,369,466 vertices, 8,702,031 edges, 4,349,606 faces, and 8,682,950 triangles, backed by ray tracing and live denoising. We are yet to see more detailed benchmarks and how the GPU fares against the competition.

So you thought your Arc A380 graphics card, or the Gen12 Xe iGPU in your 12th Gen Core processors were good enough to munch through your older games from the 2000s and early 2010s? Not so fast. Intel Graphics states that the Xe-LP and Xe-HPG graphics architectures, which power the Gen12 Iris Xe iGPUs and the new Arc "Alchemist" graphics cards, lack native support for the DirectX 9 graphics API. The two rely on API translation such as Microsoft D3D9On12, which attempts to translate D3D9 API commands to D3D12, which the drivers can recognize.

Older graphics architectures such as the Gen11 powering "Ice Lake," and Gen9.5 found in all "Skylake" derivatives, feature native support for DirectX 9, however when paired with Arc "Alchemist" graphics cards, the drivers are designed to engage D3D9On12 to accommodate the discrete GPU, unless the dGPU is disabled. API translation can be unreliable and buggy, and Intel points you to Microsoft and the game developers for support, Intel Graphics won't be providing any.

Jon Peddie Research (JPR) provides some of the most authoritative and informative market-research into the PC graphics hardware industry. The firm just published a scathing editorial on the future of Intel AXG (Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics), the business tasked with development of competitive discrete GPU and HPC compute accelerators for Intel. Founded to much fanfare in 2016 and led by Raja Koduri since 2016; AXG has been in the news for the development of the Xe graphics and compute architecture, particularly with the Xe-HP "Ponte Vecchio" HPC accelerator; and the Arc brand of consumer discrete graphics solutions. JPR reports that Intel has invested several billions of Dollars into AXG, to little avail, with none of its product lines bringing in notable revenues for the company. Xe-LP based iGPUs do not count as they're integrated with client processors, and their revenues are clubbed with CCG (Client Computing Group).

Intel started reporting revenues from the AXG business since Q1-2021, around which time it started selling its first discrete GPUs as the Intel DG1 Xe MAX, based on the same Xe-LP architecture powering its iGPUs. The company's Xe-HPG architecture, designed for high-performance gaming, was marketed as its first definitive answer to NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon. Since Q1-2021, Intel has lost $2.1 billion to AXG, with not much to show for. The JPR article suggests that Intel missed the bus both with its time-to-market and scale.

Intel has today unveiled another addition to its discrete Arc Alchemist graphics card lineup, with a slight preference to the professional consumer market. Intel has prepared three models for creators and entry pro-vis solutions, called Intel Arc Pro graphics cards. All GPUs are AV1 accelerated, have ray tracing support, and are designed to handle AI acceleration inside applications like Adobe Premiere Pro. At the start, we have a small A30M mobile GPU aimed at laptop designs. It has a 3.5 TeraFLOP FP32 capability inside a configurable 35-50 Watt TDP envelope, has eight ray tracing cores, and 4 GB of GDDR6 memory. Its display output connectors depend on OEM's laptop design.

Next, we have the Arc A40 Pro discrete single-slot GPU. Having 3.5 TeraFLOPs of FP32 single-precision performance, it has eight ray tracing cores and 6 GB of GDDR6 memory. The listed maximum TDP for this model is 50 Watts. It has four mini-DP ports for video output, and it can drive two monitors at 8K 60 Hz, one at 5K 240 Hz, two at 5K 120 Hz, or four at 4K 60 Hz refresh rate. Its bigger brother, the Arc A50 Pro, is a dual-slot design with 4.8 TeraFLOPs of single-precision FP32 computing, has eight ray tracing cores, and 6 GB of GDDR6 memory as well. It has the same video output capability as the Arc A40 Pro, with a beefier cooling setup to handle the 75 Watt TDP. All software developed using the OneAPI toolkit can be accelerated using these GPUs. Intel is working with the industry to adapt professional software for Arc Pro graphics.

According to sources close to Igor Wallossek from Igor's lab, Intel's upcoming Arc Alchemist discrete graphics card lineup is in trouble. As the anonymous sources state, certain add-in board (AIB) partners are having difficulty adopting the third GPU manufacturer into their offerings. As we learn, AIBs are sitting on a pile of NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. This pile is decreasing in price daily and losing value, so it needs to be moved quickly. Secondly, Intel is reportedly suggesting AIBs ship cards to OEMs and system integrators to start the market spread of the new Arc dGPUs. This business model is inherently lower margin compared to selling GPUs directly to consumers.

Last but not least, it is reported that at least one major AIB is stopping the production of custom Arc GPUs due to quality concerns. What this means is yet to be uncovered, and we have to wait and see which AIB (or AIBs) is stepping out of the game. All of this suggests that the new GPU lineup is on the verge of extinction, even before it has launched. However, we are sure that the market will adapt and make a case for the third GPU maker. Of course, these predictions should be taken with a grain of salt, and we await more information to confirm those issues.

Intel Graphics, with its latest Graphics Drivers 31.0.101.3222, changed the coverage of its latest driver updates. The company would be providing game optimizations and regular driver updates only for its Gen12 (Iris Xe), and Arc "Alchemist" graphics products. Support for Gen9, Gen9.5, and Gen11 iGPUs integrated with 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th generations of Intel processors, namely "Skylake," "Kaby Lake," "Coffee Lake," "Ice Lake," and "Cascade Lake," will be relegated to a separate, quarterly driver update cycle, which only covers critical updates and security vulnerabilities, but not game optimizations.

Intel's regular Graphics Driver cycle that includes Day-0 optimizations timed with new game releases, will only cover the Gen12 Xe iGPUs found in 11th Gen "Tiger Lake," "Rocket Lake," and 12th Gen "Alder Lake" processors; besides the DG1 Iris Xe graphics card; and Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs. Version 31.0.101.3222 appears to be a transitioning point, and so it has drivers from both branches included within a 1.1 GB package (the main branch supporting game optimizations for new GPUs, and the legacy branch for the older iGPUs). You can grab this driver from here.

ASRock has signed up as one of Intel's board partners for its Arc "Alchemist" graphics cards, and is ready with its custom-design Arc A380 Challenger card, pictured below. The company joins the likes of China's Gunnir, in bringing to market some of the first graphics cards from the yet-elusive GPUs from Intel. The ASRock-branded custom A380 card surfaced on Chinese social-media site Bilibili, revealing a cost-effective design, with a simple aluminium mono-block fan-heatsink. The board draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, and like Gunnir's A380 card, has a spartan-looking PCB. There's still no word on global availability, and ASRock could stick to the China-first rollout of Arc.

Intel's upcoming family of Arc Alchemist mobile graphics cards is just around the corner, and we are already starting to spot the company's reference systems utilizing the latest dedicated graphics. Thanks to the findings of @momomo_us, we have information that Intel is readying the NUC X15 laptop reference system codenamed "Alder Country." There are two SKUs, LAPAC71G and LAPAC71H, each with similar CPU and GPU configurations. Carrying an Intel Core i7-12700H processor with 14 cores and 20 threads, the CPU is paired with either Arc A550M on the LAPAC71G SKU or Arc A730M on LAPAC71H SKU.

As a reminder, Intel already made such NUC X15 reference laptop designs with Tiger Lake processors. However, they came with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 graphics instead of Intel Arc Alchemist. Implementations of NUC X15 appeared with partners such as ADATA XPG Xenia laptop. We could expect to see more OEMs adapt Alder Country if the performance of Arc Alchemist graphics proves good.

Intel's Arc Alchemist graphics cards launched in laptop/mobile space, and everyone is wondering just how well the first generation of discrete graphics performs in actual, GPU-accelerated workloads. Tellusim Technologies, a software company located in San Diego, has managed to get ahold of a laptop featuring an Intel Arc A370M mobile graphics card and benchmark it against other competing solutions. Instead of using Vulkan API, the team decided to use D3D12 API for tests, as the Vulkan usually produces lower results on the new 12th generation graphics. With the 30.0.101.1736 driver version, this GPU was mainly tested in the standard GPU working environment like triangles and batches. Meshlet size is set to 69/169, and the job is as big as 262K Meshlets. The total amount of geometry is 20 million vertices and 40 million triangles per frame.

Using the tests such as Single DIP (drawing 81 instances with u32 indices without going to Meshlet level), Mesh Indexing (Mesh Shader emulation), MDI/ICB (Multi-Draw Indirect or Indirect Command Buffer), Mesh Shader (Mesh Shaders rendering mode) and Compute Shader (Compute Shader rasterization), the Arc GPU produced some exciting numbers, measured in millions or billions of triangles. Below, you can see the results of these tests.

One of the biggest dividends of the Arc discrete graphics lineup for Intel is getting to use its own GPUs in its NUC desktops. The next-generation NUC 12 "Serpent Canyon" desktop sees the 11th Gen Core "Tiger Lake" quad-core + RTX 2060 "Turing" combination replaced by advanced 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" 6P+8E processor, and the Arc "Alchemist" A770M discrete GPU. Intel's choice of mobile versions of "Alchemist" and "Alder Lake" may have to do with not just lower TDP, but possibly also an implementation of the Intel Deep Link feature.

The A770M maxes out the 6 nm ACM-G11 silicon, packing 32 Xe Cores (512 execution units, or 4,096 unified shaders), and has 16 GB of 256-bit GDDR6 memory. When paired with the 14-core "Alder Lake-H" processor, the duo could make for a formidable performance-gaming and creator machine. "Serpent Canyon" also sees the integration of Thunderbolt 4, SDXC UHS-II, Wi-Fi 6E, and 2.5 GbE interfaces, along with a number of USB 3.2 ports. Although its marketing images are leaked to the web on Chinese social media, there's no release date for the thing yet, but it could be just around the corner.

Intel officially launched the Arc A380 "Alchemist" entry-mainstream desktop graphics card in China, priced at RMB ¥1,030, including VAT, which roughly converts to USD $153. The Arc A380 "Alchemist" is based on the Xe-HPG graphics architecture, and the smaller DG2-128 (ACM-G11) silicon, which is built on the TSMC N6 (6 nm) silicon fabrication process.

The A380 desktop GPU is endowed with 8 Xe Cores, or 128 EU (execution units), which work out to 1,024 unified shaders. The chip features a 96-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface, running 6 GB of memory. Despite these hardware specs, you get full DirectX 12 Ultimate capability, including ray tracing, and the XeSS performance enhancement. There are also several content-creation accelerators, including Intel XMX, and AV1 hardware-encode capabilities.

A part of the process of building a graphics card is designing compatibility to execute the latest graphics APIs like DirectX, OpenGL, and Vulkan. Today, we have confirmation that Intel's Arc Alchemist discrete graphics cards will be compatible with Vulkan's latest iteration - version 1.3. In January, Khronos, the team behind Vulkan API, released their regular two-year update to the standard. Graphics card vendors like NVIDIA and AMD announced support immediately with their drivers. Today, the Khronos website officially lists Intel Arc Alchemist mobile graphics cards as compatible with Vulkan 1.3 with Intel Arc A770M, A730M, A550M, A370M, and A350M GPUs.

At the time of writing, there is no official announcement for the desktop cards yet. However, given that the mobile SKUs are supporting the latest standard, it is extremely likely that the desktop variants will also carry the same level of support.

With its Arc "Alchemist" graphics solutions, Intel is introducing a new in-house display refresh-rate technology alongside support for VESA Adaptive Sync, which it calls Smooth Sync. This feature is targeted at notebooks and desktops with fixed-refresh rate displays, which lack support for Adaptive Sync. The technology works to counteract the screen-tearing effect caused by the GPU putting out frames at a higher rate than the display's refresh rate, letting gamers set V-sync to "off" in their games, and enjoy the lowest possible input latencies.

The way Intel Smooth Sync seems to work, is that V-sync is disabled in game, the GPU puts out the maximum frame-rate that it can, and then a lightweight dithering filter blurs off the screen-tear zone on the display. The idea is that this filter imposes a far less latency cost than V-sync, so even budget-segment notebooks with fixed refresh-rate displays can enjoy the benefits of low-latency gaming, without the screen-tear. Smooth Sync is a software-level feature that's part of the latest Arc graphics drivers, and will work with Arc "Alchemist" graphics processors.

Intel Arc A730M "Alchemist" discrete GPU made headlines yesterday, when a notebook featuring it achieved a 3DMark TimeSpy score of 10,138 points, which would put its performance in the same league as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. The same source has taken the time to play some games, and come up with performance numbers that would put the A730M in a category lower than the RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.

The set of games tested is rather small—F1 2020, Metro Exodus, and Assassin's Creed Odyssey, but the three are fairly "mature" games (have been around for a while). The A730M is able to score 70 FPS at 1080p, and 55 FPS at 1440p in Metro Exodus. With F1 2020, we're shown 123 FPS (average) at 1080p, and 95 FPS avg at 1440p. In Assassin's Creed Odyssey, the A730M yields 38 FPS at 1080p, and 32 FPS at 1440p. These numbers roughly translate to the A730M being slightly faster than the desktop GeForce RTX 3050, and slower than the desktop RTX 3060, or in the league of the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU. Intel is already handing out stable versions of Arc Alchemist graphics drivers, and the three are fairly old games, so this might not be a case of bad optimization.

The ambitious performance enhancement by Intel Graphics rivaling NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR, the Intel XeSS (Xe Super Sampling,) will debut on May 20, 2022, with a patch for "Dolmen," developer Massive Work Studio announced. This matches our report from March 2022 that referenced an "early Summer" debut. This would mean Intel Graphics has a driver release planned very soon, for its Xe LP-based iGPUs and Iris Xe MAX discrete GPU; as well as the first round of Arc 3 "Alchemist" mobile graphics, which will launch with XeSS support.

Much like FSR and DLSS, XeSS works with a supported game to render raster 3D scenes at a lower resolution than the display resolution, and upscales them using a sophisticated algorithm that minimizes image quality loss, with a net gain in frame-rates. XeSS will play a particularly big role in Intel's plans to grab a slice of the gaming graphics market with its Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs. XeSS appears to work similar to AMD FSR 2.0, with its upscaler using motion-vectors and temporal data from the game engine to reconstruct details in the outbound frames. Also, much like FSR, XeSS will be open to GPUs from other brands.Update May 17th: The Dolmen Twitter handle just put out an update that XeSS support is coming "this Summer," implying that it will not release on May 20 as earlier reported.

Intel Graphics on Monday, in a blog post by Lisa Pearce, VP and GM for the Visual Compute Group, answered three important questions around the launch timelines of its elusive Arc Graphics "Alchemist" discrete GPUs for notebooks and desktops. The already-launched Arc mobile GPUs are already being installed on gaming notebooks in production, but Intel blames COVID and the supply-chain crisis in East Asia for delays. Arc 3-series notebooks should be available "ASAP," while Arc 5-series and 7-series powered notebooks should start becoming available in "early Summer." Intel maintains a Summer 2022 launch timeline for desktop Arc graphics cards, and stated that the company will launch entry-level Arc 3-series discrete GPUs first, as OEM-exclusives in Q2-2022, followed by retail availability exclusively in China, with general worldwide availability expected "later this Summer."An excerpt from the blog post follows:

With its desktop graphics card lineup still elusive, the company is planning a new entry-level SKU positioned below the Arc A380 and A350M. Called A310, this chip will be based on a heavily cut-down version of the DG2-128 (ACM-G11) silicon, and offer performance levels somewhere between the Iris Xe MAX (DG1) desktop discrete GPU, and the A350M, with the design goal being to compete with AMD's Radeon RX 6400 and NVIDIA's GTX 1650 in the entry-level space.

At this point the core configuration of the A310 is not known. It is speculated to feature 64 to 96 execution units (EU) out of the 128 present on the ACM-G11 silicon. 4 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 64-bit wide memory bus, could remain standard fare for this card. All of the media-acceleration features of "Alchemist" could be featured, including AV1 decode and encode. The A310 could make for a good combo with future Intel workstation or HEDT platforms with non-gaming visual requirements. The ACM-G11 is built on the 6 nm silicon fabrication process, and so the A310 could come with a low power footprint that doesn't need additional power connectors.

Supply issues seem to continue to affect Intel's ambitious desktop GPU launch plans, with the Arc "Alchemist" line of desktop discrete GPUs now launching at "late Q2 or early Q3," sources tell VideoCardz. This would put the launch toward the end of June, or some time in July. This follows a similar trend with availability of notebooks powered by Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs, which are expected to be available in June, despite a March product launch.

A mid-year launch risks putting Intel's nascent dGPU lineup perilously close to AMD's RX 6x50 refresh, and NVIDIA's RTX 40-series "Ada Lovelace" graphics cards, expected to debut across the second half of 2022. At launch, Intel's desktop graphics card lineup will include as many as five SKUs, including the Arc A380, the Arc A580, the Arc A770, and the flagship Arc A780, which is probably a Limited Edition SKU. With the rumored performance numbers we're seeing, These SKUs have the potential to impress gamers, provided they aren't obsolete at launch by next-generation models from NVIDIA and AMD.

Last month, Intel released its Arc Alchemist lineup for mobile/laptop configurations. As expected, being the first discrete GPU that the company made, there are some hiccups here and there that happen along the way. Today, we have an interesting case of Intel Arc A350M getting a heavy performance boost with Dynamic Tuning Technology (DTT) disabled. The DTT is Intel's solution to automatically and dynamically allocate power between an Intel processor and an Intel Discrete Graphics Card to optimize performance and improve battery life. This is essentially a competing tech for AMD SmartShift and NVIDIA Dynamic Boost implementations. Thanks to a South Korean YouTuber, BullsLab, we have information that disabling DTT in drivers helps Arc 350M GPU reach higher performance targets.

He found when disabling DTT in drivers that the gaming performance improved significantly and that the Arc 350M was outputting 30-80 more frames per second. This is no slight improvement and shows that the drivers are still not yet mature. Creating a discrete graphics card is not an easy task, as noted here; however, we hope to see Intel put out more fixes in the coming weeks and hopefully end this strange behavior.Below, you can see the YouTube video with benchmarks.