Intel's Arc Pro A40, A30, and Arc Pro A30M for laptops were announced back in August last year, these are still only available to OEMs, and it appears that Intel is not focused on driver updates for its Arc Pro series as it is for its gaming Arc series graphics card lineup. The latest Arc Pro 31.0.101.4092 WHQL driver is the first driver update in 4 months.

The previous driver was released back in December last year, and while we do not know how popular Intel Arc Pro series is, since there are currently only two desktop and one mobile graphics card, four months are still a long time between driver updates. The latest one focuses on certification for professional applications, including various Autodesk software, Siemens, Vectorworks, Dassault Systèmes Solidworks, and others. It also includes several fixes for some of those applications.

Intel's next-generation Arc "Battlemage" GPU is expected to numerically-double its shader counts, according to a report by RedGamingTech. The largest GPU from the Arc "Battlemage" series, the "BMG-G10," aims to power SKUs that compete in the performance segment. The chip is expected to be built on a TSMC 4 nm-class EUV node, similar to NVIDIA's GeForce "Ada" GPUs, and have a die-size similar to that of the "AD103" silicon powering the GeForce RTX 4080.

Among the juiciest bits from this report are that the top "Battlemage" chip will see its Xe Core count doubled to 64, up from 32 on the top "Alchemist" part. This would see its execution unit (EU) count doubled to 1,024, and unified shader counts at 8,192. Intel is expected to give the chip clock speeds in excess of 3.00 GHz. The Xe Cores themselves could see several updates, including IPC uplifts, and support for new math formats. The memory sub-system is expected to see an overhaul, with a large 48 MB on-die L2 cache. While the memory bus is unchanged at 256-bit wide, the memory speed could see a significant increase up from the 16-17.5 Gbps on the Arc A770. As for when customers can actually expect products, the RedGamingTech report puts launch of the Arc "Battlemage" series at no sooner than Q2-2024. The company is expected to launch refreshed "Alchemist+" GPUs in 2023.

Intel Graphics today released the latest Arc GPU Graphics Drivers. Version 101.4255 WHQL comes with day-zero Game On driver optimization for "Resident Evil 4 Remake." The drivers also improve performance for "Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy," D5 Render, Blender in material preview viewport mode, and "Counter Strike: Global Offensive" on Arc Laptop GPUs. Among the fixed issues for Arc GPUs is display corruption noticed in "Conqueror's Blade" in the game's in-built benchmark mode; and "Portal with RTX" experiencing a crash when loading to gameplay. For Iris Xe iGPUs, "Overwatch 2" seeing a lag or freeze during game launch, has been fixed. An application crash during gameplay for "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" has been fixed, too.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4255

The Intel Arc A750 "Alchemist" graphics card now starts at a mouth-watering price of just $229, a price that puts it 7% below the MSRP Intel Graphics set for the SKU, with the reference-design A750 being sold at $250. The new low price is commanded by a custom-design ASRock Arc A750 Challenger, a card that combines Intel's second-fastest GPU with a simple 2-slot, twin-fan cooling solution. Intel has been busy with Game On driver updates for the Arc A-series GPUs, besides a recent massive update to the cards' DirectX 11 and DirectX 9 gaming performance. The company claims that the A750 and A770 offer tremendous performance/Dollar gains over the competing NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 in the mainstream segment, aimed at people who play at 1080p and 1440p. Meanwhile the dark horse in this segment is the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, with similar real-world prices to the A750, but performance that trades blows with the RTX 3060.

Intel Graphics today released the latest version of Arc GPU Graphics Drivers. Version 101.4148 beta comes with Game On (day-zero) optimization for Deceive Inc., and Diablo 4 (beta); and optimization for Sons of The Forest. It fixes an issue where Riftbreaker (DX12) Xbox Game Pass version exhibits a rare black line display corruption; and lower than expected performance for Resident Evil 4 Remake Chainsaw Demo (DX12). The company also took the opportunity to highlight that with recent price cuts for the Arc A750 down to $249, it offers anywhere between 54% to 76% higher performance-per-Dollar than the competing GeForce RTX 3060.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4148 beta

Over the past couple days ASRock has been busy slashing prices on their lineup of Arc graphics cards. Currently (on Newegg at least) you can now find their Challenger Arc A380 for $120, down from $150, the Challenger Arc A750 8 GB at $240, down from $290, and the flagship Phantom Gaming Arc A770 8 GB at $270, down from $320. The new pricing may be in response to prior price drops by Intel, and possibly hints at more to come.

With its new price ASRock's Arc A770 8 GB in particular is placed in a more advantageous position against NVIDIA's RTX 3060 which has only recently seen reduced prices and still lists for well above $300, even $400 for some partner models. AMD is still placed quite competitively thanks to ASRock themselves listing their RX 6600 XT offerings for $275, making the choice between the RX 6600 XT and Arc A770 8 GB a more difficult one. The RX 6650 XT could also be considered as it regularly appears for $290, a mere $20 more than the revised A770 8 GB pricing, and provides a measurable (if minimal) uplift in performance.

After GUNNIR showed the same product back in January, ADLINK is now offering both Intel Arc A-series GPUs in MXM form factor. The MXM (Mobile PCI Express Module) is a standardized form factor that is used mostly in laptops and some small form factor PCs. Product pages confirm that ADLINK offers both the Intel Arc A370M and the Intel Arc A350M in MXM form factor.

According to specifications The ADLINK MXM-AXe, as the product is called, is MXM 3.1 Type A based on Intel Arc GPU, packing 8 Xe-cores, 128 Execution Units, 4 GB of GDDR6 memory, and TDP of 35-50 W, which is pretty much standard for the Arc A370M GPU. The company also offers the same product with A350M GPU with TDP of 25-35 W. With decent power efficiency, full AV1 hardware encoding, and support for up to four 4K displays, such a GPU would be perfect for small form factor machines, and could be even a decent upgrade for some laptops.

Intel Graphics today released the Arc Graphics GPU drivers 31.0.101.4146 WHQL. These work with Arc A-series discrete GPUs, Iris Xe MAX discrete GPU, and the Iris iGPUs found in Intel Core processors from the 11th Gen onward. For Arc A-series GPUs, the drivers add optimization for "Destiny 2: Lightfall" and "Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty," along with several performance improvements for "Halo Infinite" (DX12). Besides performance improvements, several color-corruption bugs with the game have been fixed for Arc A-series GPUs; and an application crash noticed with "Red Dead Redemption 2" in Vulkan API mode with fullscreen. Texture corruption issues with DiRT 5, and "Total War: Warhammer 40,000: Darktide," have been fixed.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc Graphics Drivers 31.0.101.4146 WHQL

Intel became the first of the three discrete GPU makers to release a day-0 graphics driver for "Hogwarts Legacy." The new Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers version 101.4123 beta comes with optimization for the hotly anticipated Harry Potter universe-based RPG, as well as the survival horror "Returnal," so gamers on Intel Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs can get gaming the moment the game goes live. The company didn't release any fixes for outstanding issues with this particular release, but identified a bunch of new issues with its driver and the Arc Control app.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4123 betaUpdate 14:02 UTC: Today's release of NVIDIA GeForce software (version 528.49, lacks "Hogwarts Legacy" optimization.

Update 14:55 UTC: We asked NVIDIA whether a driver update with game-ready support is planned and if there's any estimate when it will come out. The company answered that it had no comment on these questions.

Intel in an interview with Hardwareluxx shed more light on its second generation Xe graphics architecture, codenamed "Battlemage." There will be two key variants of "Battlemage,"—Xe2-LPG and Xe2-HPG. The Xe2-LPG (low-power graphics) architecture is a slimmed-down derivative of "Battlemage" that's optimized for low-power. It is meant for iGPUs (integrated graphics), particularly upcoming "disaggregated" Intel Core processors in which the iGPU exists on Graphics Tiles (chiplets). The iGPU powering the upcoming Core "Meteor Lake" processor is rumored to meet the full DirectX 12 Ultimate feature-set (something Xe-LP doesn't), and so it's likely that Xe2-LPG is getting its first outing with that processor. The Xe2-HPG (high performance graphics) architecture is designed squarely for discrete GPUs—either desktop graphics cards, or mobile discrete GPUs hardwired into laptops.

In the interview, Intel talked about how its first-generation Xe graphics IP had at least four separate product verticals based on the scalability of the product, and the specific application (Xe-LP for iGPUs and tiny dGPUs, Xe-HPG for client- and pro-vis discrete GPUs, Xe-HPC for scalar compute processors, and Xe-HP for data-center graphics). The company eventually axed Xe-HP as it felt the Xe-HPG and Xe-HPC architectures adequately addressed this segment. With AXG (accelerated compute group) being split up between the CCG (client computing group) and DCG (data-center group); Xe2-LPG and Xe2-HPG will be developed primarily under CCG, with a client and pro-visualization focus; while Xe-HPC will be developed as a scalar-compute architecture by DCG, which effectively leaves the Intel Arc Graphics team with just two verticals—to deliver a feature-rich iGPU for its next-generation Core processors, and a performance discrete GPU lineup so it can eat away market-share from NVIDIA and AMD—hopefully with better time-to-market.

Intel cut the baseline prices of its Arc A750 performance-segment graphics card. The card now starts at USD $249, down from its launch price of $289 for the first-party reference-design card. Among the handful custom-design board partners for the A750 are Acer, Gunnir, and ASRock. The A750 targets maxed-out AAA gaming at 1080p, although the card is capable of higher resolutions with the Intel XeSS performance enhancement.

Based on the 6 nm ACM-G10 silicon, the A750 is endowed with 3,584 unified shaders across 28 Xe Cores or 448 EUs, 224 TMUs, 112 ROPs, and 8 GB of 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory across the chip's full 256-bit wide memory interface (512 GB/s memory bandwidth). The card has a typical board power of 225 W, draws it from a combination of 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power connectors; and has modern display outputs that include HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 2.1. The Arc "Alchemist" family of GPUs meets the full DirectX 12 Ultimate feature-set, including real-time ray tracing. They also have regular driver updates with day-zero optimization for big game releases.Many Thanks to TumbleGeorge for the tip.

Intel Graphics today released the latest version of its Arc GPU Graphics Drivers. Version 101.4090 beta comes with launch-day optimization for "Forspoken." The company also fixed a couple of issues with this release. For Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs, an application freeze issue with "A Plague Tale: Requiem" has been fixed. Box corruptions noticed in "Need for Speed: Unbound," have also been fixed. For Intel Core processors with Xe LP-based iGPUs, a screenspace corruption issue with NFS: Unbound has been fixed; besides an intermittent application crash with Total War: Warhammer III in DirectX 11 mode, and color corruption in Battlefield: 2042. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4090 beta

A Chinese OEM put a desktop Intel Arc "Alchemist" A380 GPU on an MXM board for notebooks and mobile workstations with upgradable graphics. This isn't the mobile A380M, but rather the desktop A380 that has been designed into an MXM 3.1 type-A board that's capable of PCIe Gen 4 x8. The 6 nm ACM-G11 ASIC is flanked by three GDDR6 memory chips that make the board's 6 GB of memory across its 96-bit memory bus. What's interesting about this board is its tight power limits, which are set at 50 W, that can draw up to 75 W. The card puts out three HDMI and one DP outputs. Its cooling solution mount-hole spacing appears to match that of the popular GeForce GTX 1050 Ti.

GUNNIR, the Chinese Intel Arc board partner, unveiled a 16 GB version of its Arc A770 Photon graphics card with specs that partially match Intel's A770 16 GB Limited Edition. Custom-design versions of the A770, such as the one from ASRock Phantom Gaming, only come with 8 GB of memory. The card comes with GUNNIR's heaviest dual-slot, triple-fan cooling solution. While the card offers an overclocked GPU, with the A770 running at 2.40 GHz (compared to 2.10 GHz reference), the memory runs at the same 16 Gbps GDDR6-effective speed as the A770 8 GB version, and not the 17.5 Gbps that the A770 16 GB Limited Edition comes with. This leaves you with a still-respectable 512 GB/s of memory bandwidth on tap. The card draws power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. GUNNIR is pricing the card at RMB ¥3,199 ($470).

SUS IoT, the global AIoT solution provider, today announced PE3000G—the industry's first edge AI system to support Mobile PCI Express Module (MXM) GPUs from both NVIDIA and Intel. Specifically, the all-new industrial PC works seamlessly with NVIDIA Ampere/Turing or Intel Arc A-series MXM GPUs. Powered by a 12th Gen Intel Core processor and up to 64 GB of DDR5 4800 MHz memory, and combining a proven power design, guaranteed and fanless thermal performance, and superior physical and mechanical ruggedness, PE3000G brings unprecedented longevity, computing power, flexibility and reliability to AI computing at the edge—making it an ideal option for scenarios where resilience, longevity and both CPU and GPU scalability are paramount.

"PE3000G is ASUS IoT's response to the burgeoning demand for accelerating AI inference and extreme deployment in industrial settings," commented KuoWei Chao, General Manager of the ASUS IoT business unit. "With robust power, thermal and mechanical design, it pushes versatile edge-AI-inference applications to business-critical applications. PE3000G is an ideal fit to accelerate edge AI inference in SWaP-constrained applications, such as machine vision in factory automation, outdoor surveillance system and AI-inference systems for autonomous vehicles."

Acer today announced refreshed models of its Aspire all-in-ones and laptops, designed to support families' day-to-day productivity and entertainment needs, while adding a touch of style to the home environment. The sleek Acer Aspire S all-in-one PCs come in both 27-inch and 32-inch models and are equipped with up to the latest 13th Gen Intel Core processors and Windows 11 to empower a seamless computing experience. Providing efficiency and reliability for multi-tasking users working from home, the Aspire 5 Series laptops come with the latest 13th Gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs, while the lightweight Aspire 3 Series notebooks deliver ready-to-go performance.

Acer also introduced the newest member of its smart speaker family with the Acer Halo Swing Smart Speaker with Google Assistant, DTS Sound and features a LED dot display, bringing users quality audio and dazzling lights everywhere they go.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular PC graphics information, monitoring, and diagnostics utility. Version 2.52.0 adds support for AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, RX 7900 XT, RX 6300 OEM; NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, and a few rare "Ampere" based GPUs in circulation these days, including the RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB, RTX 3070 Ti based on GA102 silicon, RTX 3050 based on GA107, and the PCIe AIC version of the A800 80 GB accelerator. Detection is improved for the Xe LP-based iGPU of Intel Core "Raptor Lake" processors. NVIDIA GPUs with ECC memory now have ECC status reported in the Advanced panel. On GPUs where the boost frequency can't be read, the base frequency will be used to calculate fillrates. Clock speed detection for Intel Arc "Alchemist" GPUs has been improved. Vendor detection has been added for several new graphics card brands such as Corsair (gaming notebooks), Maxsun, and Wingtech.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.52.0

Intel Arc "Alchemist" graphics architecture was originally developed as a forward-facing PC GPU architecture with many of the contemporary graphics technologies, including full DirectX 12 Ultimate support, however, the GPU curiously lacks hardware support for DirectX 9. Released 20 years ago, DirectX 9 continued to power AAA PC titles well into the 2010s as game console development lagged (the era of Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3), and most e-sports titles of the time included either native or fallback DirectX 9 support for those on older GPUs. This is a problem for Intel, as many of the currently-popular e-Sports titles may still use DirectX 9, and so the Intel Graphics team set out to individually optimize DirectX 9 titles with each new Arc GPU driver release.

While Arc GPUs lack DirectX 9 support, foolproof API translation technologies exist, which convert DirectX 9 API instructions into DirectX 12. This is not fundamentally unlike how 32-bit applications work on 64-bit Windows (using WOW64 machine-architecture translation). This, however, requires per-game optimization to ensure any engine-level special features are correctly translated. With the latest 101.3959 Beta drivers, Intel optimized popular DirectX 9 titles "League of Legends," "Counter Strike: Global Offensive," "Starcraft 2," "Payday 2," "Guild Wars 2," "Stellaris," "NiZhan," and "Moonlight Blade." The company seems to be going about this the smart way, by relying on market analysis for selecting the games in need of optimization (understanding what DirectX 9 games are still being played).

Intel Graphics today released the Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers, version 31.0.101.3959 beta. These bring game optimization for "World of Warcraft: Dragonflight," "Warhammer 40,000: Darktide," "The Callisto Protocol," "Marvel's Midnight Suns," and "Fortnite Chapter 4." The drivers also improve DirectX 9 game experience for a number of games (Arc GPUs lack native support for D3D9 and rely on API translation). These games include the likes of "Starcraft 2," "Payday 2," and CS:GO. Among the issues fixed with this release include ghosting and corruption noticed in "Victoria 3" in DirectX 11 mode; texture corruption with "Hearts of Iron IV," flickering noticed with "Stellaris" and "Sonic Frontiers." Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 31.0.101.3959 beta

EK, the premium liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is introducing the ultimate water cooling solution for Intel Arc A750 and A770 graphics cards. These new Intel GPUs get a premium Vector² water block solution with a passive backplate. The EK-Quantum Vector² ARC A750/A770 are single-package liquid cooling solutions consisting of a Vector² series water block and a black-anodized aluminium backplate. Its aesthetics are dominated by minimalist straight lines and the backplate coming around the side of the GPU to cover the PCB completely.

The Vector² cooling engine combines the jet plate with a 3D-machined Plexi insert to improve flow distribution and thermal performance. This cooling engine is based on an Open Split-Flow cooling engine design, which proved to be a superior solution for GPU water blocks. It is characterized by low hydraulic flow restriction, meaning it can be used with weaker water pumps or pumps running on low-speed settings and still achieve top performance. EK took great care to achieve a symmetrical flow domain by utilizing an internal bridge to secondary components. This was done to ensure the cooling of secondary components without sacrificing flow distribution over the GPU core.

Intel released the XeSS Unreal Engine plugin, letting game developers integrate the performance enhancement technology with their Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5 powered games, simulators, and 3D visualization applications. The plugin lets Unreal Engine take advantage of XeSS not just on Intel Arc "Alchemist" GPUs, where they benefit from the accelerated XMX code-path; but also AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, where the technology takes advantage of the slower yet functional DP4a code-path. XeSS is technically a second-generation super-resolution technology that Intel claims is on-par with AMD FSR 2.x and NVIDIA DLSS 2. Integrating it is as straightforward as adding AMD FSR support. Those interested can grab the plugin from the GitHub source link, below.

Intel Corporation today reported third-quarter 2022 financial results. "Despite the worsening economic conditions, we delivered solid results and made significant progress with our product and process execution during the quarter," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. "To position ourselves for this business cycle, we are aggressively addressing costs and driving efficiencies across the business to accelerate our IDM 2.0 flywheel for the digital future."

"As we usher in the next phase of IDM 2.0, we are focused on embracing an internal foundry model to allow our manufacturing group and business units to be more agile, make better decisions and establish a leadership cost structure," said David Zinsner, Intel CFO. "We remain committed to the strategy and long-term financial model communicated at our Investor Meeting."

Intel Arc A770 "Alchemist" graphics card has an idle power-draw problem. It pulls 44 W (card-only) power when idling. This used to be acceptable some 15 years ago, but GPU idle power-draw has come a long way since. The reigning Goliath GeForce RTX 4090 pulls just 21 W when idling, and the RTX 3070, the card the A770 was extensively compared against, only pulls 9 W—that's 7 LED downlights worth power-difference between the A770 and RTX 3070. Intel has a workaround to this problem: enable the PCI-Express active state power management (ASPM) setting to L1 mode in your motherboard's UEFI BIOS setup program.

The Intel Xe-HPG "Alchemist" graphics architecture reportedly uses PCIe Gen 2-era L0 and L1 ASPM, which needs to be forced via software settings. To do this, find the PCIe ASPM settings in your BIOS setup, and enable them with the "L1" setting. You then make your way to Power Options in the Windows Control Panel, edit your active power scheme, and manually set the PCI-Express "Link state power-management" to "Maximum." This affects the power-management behavior and performance of all PCIe devices in your system, including NVMe SSDs, not just the graphics card. Intel did not put out its power-draw numbers for this workaround, but we intend to test it as soon as we can.

Intel announced the general availability of the Arc A770 and A750 performance-segment desktop graphics cards. This includes Intel's reference-design Limited Edition cards, and custom-design ones by the likes of ASRock, Gunnir, and Acer, among other OEMs. The A750 has a baseline price of USD $289, the A770 8 GB at $329, and the A770 16 GB at $349.

Based on the Xe-HPG "Alchemist" graphics architecture, the A750 and A770 are carved out of the same 6 nm ACM-G10 silicon. The A750 is configured with 28 Xe Cores, 448 EU, or 3,584 unified shaders; whereas the A770 maxes it out with 32 Xe Cores, 512 EU, or 4,096 unified shaders. Both cards get 256-bit wide GDDR6 memory interfaces, and while the A750 uses 16 Gbps memory (512 GB/s bandwidth); the A770 has 17.5 Gbps (560 GB/s).

ASRock is shaping up to be the first major custom-design Intel Arc "Alchemist" board partner with a footprint in the EU and North America. The company is ready with a pair of custom-design Arc A770 products based on its key gamer-focused brands. The first of these is the ASRock A770 Phantom Gaming OC. This card features a meaty triple-slot Phantom Gaming cooling solution, complete with RGB LED illumination. It should also feature the company's highest state of tuning for the A770. The next of the custom-design cards is the Arc A750 Challenger. This card features clean 2-slot, dual-fan design, and a factory-overclock. It's also likely that ASRock is extending the Challenger OC treatment to the A770.