Tuesday, May 10th 2022

Intel Confirms: Arc Mobile Rollout Facing Delays, Desktop Debut On Track for Q2-2022

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:

Question #1: Can you update us on the status of your Intel Arc graphics mobile products?

We have been working closely with OEM partners to get Intel Arc graphics mobile designs fully launched. First was Samsung who started with availability in Korea and is expanding globally. We planned to have broader OEM availability at this point; however, we have had some software readiness delays and, together with COVID lock downs impacting global supply chains, OEM designs are only this month becoming more widely available.

Despite the constraints, our OEM partners have announced laptops with Intel Arc 3 graphics - including Samsung, Lenovo, Acer, HP, and Asus - and we are working with our partners to help them get these products into market ASAP. Laptops with Intel Arc 5 and Arc 7 graphics will start becoming available in early summer.

Question #2: When are the desktop cards with Intel Arc graphics coming?

Unlike notebook designs, desktop systems have a vast set of combinations, including memory, motherboards, and CPUs. To initially limit some of this variation, we will launch working with system builders and OEMs with specific configurations.

We will release our entry-level Intel Arc A-series products for desktops (A3) first in China through system builders and OEMs in Q2. Etail and retail component sales will follow shortly in China as well. Proximity to board components and strong demand for entry-level discrete products makes this a natural place to start. Our next step will be to scale these products globally.

Roll-out of Intel Arc A5 and A7 desktop cards will start worldwide with OEMs and system integrators later this summer, followed by component sales in worldwide channels.

This staggered approach gives us confidence at each step that we can effectively serve our customer base.

Question #3: In an earlier blog you mentioned a driver toggle for certain benchmark specific optimizations. What is the status of that?

Apologies for not updating the community on this earlier. During our evaluation of this feature, we decided to go a step further and implement a system to allow users to control collections of our driver-based optimizations, including memory management options, constant folding, and others. We will collect related toggles into groups to allow end user customization. This has required additional development time, but we believe this will be the best solution for our Intel Arc graphics customers, and we'll circle back in the next few weeks on when we expect to post the first driver with this capability.
Source: Intel
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57 Comments on Intel Confirms: Arc Mobile Rollout Facing Delays, Desktop Debut On Track for Q2-2022

#26
mechtech
It's not your foundry Intel, it's the TSMC, get in line like everyone else.
Posted on Reply
#27
80251
Vya DomusAm I the only one that is having trouble keeping track of these things ? ARC, Alchemist 3-series, 5-series, 7-series, DG1 Xe Iris, Ponte Vecchio, you'd never guess these things are related to each other in some way in a million years as an average consumer. Not to mention they used to have alternative names for each one of those types of GPU for some reason like Xe-LP, Xe-HPC, etc, what a nightmare.

I wonder if it's on purpose so that you're always confused about which of them gets delayed. :roll:
Perhaps Intel is engaging in the ages old game of: if you can't dazzle 'em with data, baffle 'em with bullsh!t.

Is the Intel Arc (aka. Alchemist?) an Intel only franchise or will there be AIB's?
Posted on Reply
#28
thestryker6
Chrispy_Q2 means pushed back to December.

Honestly, nobody is surprised at this point. Intel have been postponing Xe Arc dGPU launch by about 1 year per year of actual elapsed time since, uh, 2018?

I remember Intel demoing Xe dGPU prototype for "imminent launch" at CES 2018, with Raja comparing it to a 1050Ti/1060 at the time. It was running Destiny 2, something I remember because I was playing it a lot in 2017.

Here we are, four years later, getting ready for the Xe dGPU's "imminent launch".

Does anyone remember the Infineon Labs Phantom gaming console? Yeah....
The 2018 demonstration you're "remembering" was the laptop dGPU debut from CES 2020.
Vya DomusAm I the only one that is having trouble keeping track of these things ? ARC, Alchemist 3-series, 5-series, 7-series, DG1 Xe Iris, Ponte Vecchio, you'd never guess these things are related to each other in some way in a million years as an average consumer. Not to mention they used to have alternative names for each one of those types of GPU for some reason like Xe-LP, Xe-HPC, etc, what a nightmare.

I wonder if it's on purpose so that you're always confused about which of them gets delayed. :roll:
Kind of like RTX 30xx, Ampere, GA102, GA104, GA106 and their specific derivatives. Guessing this is just another troll post like the majority of the ones in this news piece as Intel seems to be the popular target these days.

Missing the targets they've officially announced is disappointing, but seemingly par for the course these days. It just seems like they should have been more cautious with the release window since they obviously didn't have everything ready to go yet. On the lower end laptop side it sounds a lot like software holding them back as they've got what will be retail units for testing (see the PC World test on the A370m).
Posted on Reply
#29
Vayra86
phanbueyIt's the same anti-AMD idiots that doubted Zen after AMD spent half a decade selling steamy bulldozer piles.
Wrong
thestryker6The 2018 demonstration you're "remembering" was the laptop dGPU debut from CES 2020.


Kind of like RTX 30xx, Ampere, GA102, GA104, GA106 and their specific derivatives. Guessing this is just another troll post like the majority of the ones in this news piece as Intel seems to be the popular target these days.

Missing the targets they've officially announced is disappointing, but seemingly par for the course these days. It just seems like they should have been more cautious with the release window since they obviously didn't have everything ready to go yet. On the lower end laptop side it sounds a lot like software holding them back as they've got what will be retail units for testing (see the PC World test on the A370m).
Time to market is everything. Even AMD saw how that worked in the GPU space not too long ago., losing the entire top half of the stack to Nvidia.

The starting point for Alchemist right now is far worse than what Polaris at the time was for AMD. They havent got mature drivers, they havent got a competitive (small) die for the performance on tap, they havent got volume in stock and the whole stack stops at midrange performance of 2020. Meanwhile AMD and Nvidia are going to relegate that midrange (~ 3060, the optimistic take on Intel's numbers) to entry level come the next release which is by now, likely to happen earlier. People think Intel might compete on price, but I think they wont even be able to.
Posted on Reply
#30
80251
@Vayra86,
That's a disappointing take on Intel's entry into dGPU marketplace, but probably accurate. I just hope Intel can weather the storm of being relegated to entry level(?) or midrange(?) competition and become a real competitor to the existing duopoly.
Posted on Reply
#31
Vya Domus
thestryker6Kind of like RTX 30xx, Ampere, GA102, GA104, GA106
Kind of not like that because those are chip codenames not actual product names, so you guessed wrong.
Posted on Reply
#32
Vayra86
80251@Vayra86,
That's a disappointing take on Intel's entry into dGPU marketplace, but probably accurate. I just hope Intel can weather the storm of being relegated to entry level(?) or midrange(?) competition and become a real competitor to the existing duopoly.
Yeah me too, but this needs long term commitment, and so far, Intel hasn't been committed for any longer than one-off products. It happened a few times before...

I mean would you EVER trust a company that releases a product every once in a while, and not in a somewhat fixed cadence? If there is no constant flow of refreshes and improvements, the whole support chain is a dead end too. That also applies to game developers, they won't trust and thus won't be willing to optimize for Intel, which is what Intel is experiencing right now.

Nvidia and AMD's drivers aren't just 'the drivers' but a huge box of tweaks applied over decades to virtually every game on the market, to keep their GPUs competitive in the marketplace, and quite often they got to that point by working with studios all over the place - actual engineers doing actual work in tandem with devs. Intel can at the very best apply some catch-all, blunt instruments to mimic that, but it will never EVER get to the level of refinement its competition has built up over time. The devil is in the details between camp green and red. Here comes Intel, with a sledgehammer-like object trying to wrestle control from two giants that turned sledgehammers into toothpicks a decade ago.

Even now, the postponing of product... Intel is still betting on some sliver of margins but that chance slips out of their fingers much faster by delaying product. No product is worse than 'a' product in the hands of gamers, because they'll never get started on building that commitment. Are we really smarter than Intel by saying and seeing this? Yes, and for the simple reason the company is stuck between rock and hard place, every choice they make right now is already going into the red numbers big time. If they're not committed to that for now and the next 2-4 generations of GPU, they might as well stop today. They do seem to have planned ahead though, but that planning is also moving further away from us by postponing the initial stuff, making it less realistic, even as a business case on its own.
Posted on Reply
#33
r9
eidairaman1Larrabee


To be thinking intel being a savior for us is a big mistake, their prices will be right up there with nvidia and AMD.
Save me Intel so I have sinned. :D
AMD and Nvidia realized that there is no need for them to go into price wars.
Nvidia releases the new product first and set price then AMD release theirs and they price them exactly to relation to NVIDIA so if their card in class is 5% faster it will cost 5% more.
All I'm saying is that with 3 players that might not be so easy to do.

If AMD and NVIDIA learned any lesson from this is how not to get caught.
Posted on Reply
#34
thestryker6
Vya DomusKind of not like that because those are chip codenames not actual product names, so you guessed wrong.
Xe-LP, Xe-HPC, Xe-HPG, Alchemist and Ponte Vecchio are all codenames so you're just mostly wrong rather than trolling I apologize.
Vayra86Time to market is everything. Even AMD saw how that worked in the GPU space not too long ago., losing the entire top half of the stack to Nvidia.

The starting point for Alchemist right now is far worse than what Polaris at the time was for AMD. They havent got mature drivers, they havent got a competitive (small) die for the performance on tap, they havent got volume in stock and the whole stack stops at midrange performance of 2020. Meanwhile AMD and Nvidia are going to relegate that midrange (~ 3060, the optimistic take on Intel's numbers) to entry level come the next release which is by now, likely to happen earlier. People think Intel might compete on price, but I think they wont even be able to.
I completely agree with you with regards to the retail discrete market. However you cannot forget the massive OEM access Intel has and they'll be able to move every part they can make whether it's positioned well or not. I'd like to dream that we're going to get a third player, but it certainly doesn't look like it's going to be this generation.
Posted on Reply
#35
Vya Domus
thestryker6Xe-LP, Xe-HPC, Xe-HPG, Alchemist and Ponte Vecchio are all codenames
It seems you mostly can't read, those are not chip codenames. Nvidia never refers to or advertises their products as "GA102" or whatever. So no, again, not "like that".
Posted on Reply
#36
Chrispy_
thestryker6The 2018 demonstration you're "remembering" was the laptop dGPU debut from CES 2020.
No I distinctly remember that one you're talking about too - that was where Steve Burke and someone else were taking bets on guessing the framerate because Intel didn't have FRAPS or any other counter running for whatever dumb reason. IIRC it was a little under 30fps and those heroic nerds decided to do a frametime analysis on the recorded footage to work that out!
Posted on Reply
#37
ModEl4
So probably we will have the following?

Desktop ARC3:
June - China OEMs
July - China retail
August - Worldwide OEM
September - Worldwide retail

Desktop ARC5/ARC7:
ARC3 plus one month (at least)

So worldwide retail ARC5/ARC7 missing even the Q3 deadline? (and possibly mobile ARC5/ARC7 missing the back-to-school period? (worldwide))

At this rate, for desktop they may as well wait for Intel's/AMD's next gen products to launch first and at least announce competitive SRPs according to next gen, while at the same time using the mean time to polish the drivers/software.
Posted on Reply
#38
phanbuey
Vayra86Wrong
We'll see. I've been right so far on AMD @ $2.50, and apple M1 to desktop replacing x86...

I'm feeling the new intel - the prior attempts were under different, and poor, leadership that was complacent. The culture of the company is shifting back to engineering under Pat and they are gunning for the GPU segment with lessons from the failures of past products.

Is it going to be pretty, and on time, led by Raja, the first release out of the gate? Hell no... lol- it's going to be a mediocre product late to market, but it will come, and then the second, and then the third. Intel needs this not for just gamers but to compete in HPC space and there will be no stopping; battlemage will probably end up being what Alchemist was supposed to be, but I'm not seeing that any of these things will stop them. They're trending in the right direction.

The parallel stands: AMD was YEARS behind intel in the CPU space, and had no top stack to compete with nvidia, had horrible track record with vendors of delivering and with game developers for bad drivers and support utilities etc. They were leasing back their campus just to stay financially afloat. But they were engineering focused and were trending in the right direction.

The first versions of Zen were brushed off by many; just like Alchemist will be. And Intel will be in the same place in the GPU space: years behind with a relatively sucky product, the second one will suck slightly less, but once they apply disaggregated packaging and the designs from the cpu space we will have a very interesting product.
Posted on Reply
#39
Steevo
I feel bad for them, they can’t seem to get anything quite right, between too high of power consumption on CPUs, flexing sockets, failure to launch and perform GPUs, getting countries to suck their balls for a foundry just doesn’t do it for them like it used to, their stuck process node, screwing AMD by buying up TSMC allocation for imagined products, bribing vendors to not use AMD…..

They sound like a junky who can’t get a fix and is about to start with the autoerotic asphyxiation…..
Posted on Reply
#40
TheoneandonlyMrK
phanbueyWe'll see. I've been right so far on AMD @ $2.50, and apple M1 to desktop replacing x86...

I'm feeling the new intel - the prior attempts were under different, and poor, leadership that was complacent. The culture of the company is shifting back to engineering under Pat and they are gunning for the GPU segment with lessons from the failures of past products.

Is it going to be pretty, and on time, led by Raja, the first release out of the gate? Hell no... lol- it's going to be a mediocre product late to market, but it will come, and then the second, and then the third. Intel needs this not for just gamers but to compete in HPC space and there will be no stopping; battlemage will probably end up being what Alchemist was supposed to be, but I'm not seeing that any of these things will stop them. They're trending in the right direction.

The parallel stands: AMD was YEARS behind intel in the CPU space, and had no top stack to compete with nvidia, had horrible track record with vendors of delivering and with game developers for bad drivers and support utilities etc. They were leasing back their campus just to stay financially afloat. But they were engineering focused and were trending in the right direction.

The first versions of Zen were brushed off by many; just like Alchemist will be. And Intel will be in the same place in the GPU space: years behind with a relatively sucky product, the second one will suck slightly less, but once they apply disaggregated packaging and the designs from the cpu space we will have a very interesting product.
You sound like raja kadouri three years ago.

Difference= zen 1 came out the first year it was due not the third.

The parallel fails AMD released just another CPU as they already had and did (zen1)

Unless we count the 740 or larrabee Intel released zip didly squat.
Posted on Reply
#41
80251
Vayra86Yeah me too, but this needs long term commitment, and so far, Intel hasn't been committed for any longer than one-off products. It happened a few times before...

I mean would you EVER trust a company that releases a product every once in a while, and not in a somewhat fixed cadence? If there is no constant flow of refreshes and improvements, the whole support chain is a dead end too. That also applies to game developers, they won't trust and thus won't be willing to optimize for Intel, which is what Intel is experiencing right now.

Nvidia and AMD's drivers aren't just 'the drivers' but a huge box of tweaks applied over decades to virtually every game on the market, to keep their GPUs competitive in the marketplace, and quite often they got to that point by working with studios all over the place - actual engineers doing actual work in tandem with devs. Intel can at the very best apply some catch-all, blunt instruments to mimic that, but it will never EVER get to the level of refinement its competition has built up over time. The devil is in the details between camp green and red. Here comes Intel, with a sledgehammer-like object trying to wrestle control from two giants that turned sledgehammers into toothpicks a decade ago.

Even now, the postponing of product... Intel is still betting on some sliver of margins but that chance slips out of their fingers much faster by delaying product. No product is worse than 'a' product in the hands of gamers, because they'll never get started on building that commitment. Are we really smarter than Intel by saying and seeing this? Yes, and for the simple reason the company is stuck between rock and hard place, every choice they make right now is already going into the red numbers big time. If they're not committed to that for now and the next 2-4 generations of GPU, they might as well stop today. They do seem to have planned ahead though, but that planning is also moving further away from us by postponing the initial stuff, making it less realistic, even as a business case on its own.
Maybe Intel can cater to cryptominers instead of gamers? I've read the Radeon VII is still in demand by cryptominers.
Posted on Reply
#42
phanbuey
TheoneandonlyMrKYou sound like raja kadouri three years ago.

Difference= zen 1 came out the first year it was due not the third.

The parallel fails AMD released just another CPU as they already had and did (zen1)

Unless we count the 740 or larrabee Intel released zip didly squat.
zip didly squat yes? They definitely don't make graphics, ur right...

Posted on Reply
#43
Vayra86
thestryker6I completely agree with you with regards to the retail discrete market. However you cannot forget the massive OEM access Intel has and they'll be able to move every part they can make whether it's positioned well or not. I'd like to dream that we're going to get a third player, but it certainly doesn't look like it's going to be this generation.
Oh they will move units, of that we can be certain, but discrete is what matters in terms of competition. Shitty laptops will always be shitty vendor lock ins, even with three players, and its pretty easy to make a bad laptop, whether they can even push Intel GPUs in there on top of the throttling monsters they already are is the question :)
phanbueyzip didly squat yes? They definitely don't make graphics, ur right...

Gosh, so that is what ten years of selling all CPUs with an IGP looks like, who could've thunk it. The real question is, who games on an Intel IGP, and what do they game on it. I think the much safer take away from that pie chart is that about a quarter of the PC market is comprised of actual gaming PCs - and that's already being generous because lots of laptop dGPU is also just there because its there. Intel's IGP is primarily used for desktop view, some video, and lots of browser. I get your earlier post about them probably sticking to it, and I think earlier on I essentially said the same thing. They will fail the first time, and they'll need to keep going at it for a second, third and onward. But 'don't make graphics', no they definitely didn't do a whole lot of work in the gaming graphics space. No pioneering of any kind even though you would think with such a massive market share, they'd be the first to push that IGP for gaming ;)
Posted on Reply
#44
Unregistered
phanbueyzip didly squat yes? They definitely don't make graphics, ur right...

Bet's on reply's saying that does not count
Posted on Edit | Reply
#45
phanbuey
Vayra86Oh they will move units, of that we can be certain, but discrete is what matters in terms of competition. Shitty laptops will always be shitty vendor lock ins, even with three players, and its pretty easy to make a bad laptop, whether they can even push Intel GPUs in there on top of the throttling monsters they already are is the question :)


Gosh, so that is what ten years of selling all CPUs with an IGP looks like, who could've thunk it. The real question is, who games on an Intel IGP, and what do they game on it. I think the much safer take away from that pie chart is that about a quarter of the PC market is comprised of actual gaming PCs - and that's already being generous because lots of laptop dGPU is also just there because its there. Intel's IGP is primarily used for desktop view, some video, and lots of browser. I get your earlier post about them probably sticking to it, and I think earlier on I essentially said the same thing. They will fail the first time, and they'll need to keep going at it for a second, third and onward. But 'don't make graphics', no they definitely didn't do a whole lot of work in the gaming graphics space. No pioneering of any kind even though you would think with such a massive market share, they'd be the first to push that IGP for gaming ;)
Point is - they do make a GPU, they do have market share, this isn't their first GPU and it certainly isn't 'diddly squat zip'. 10 years of selling IGPs and developing for DirectX/Ogl/Vulcan compliance is not nothing.

does UHD 770 suck absolute balls for gaming? yes! But it DOES run games.
Posted on Reply
#46
Vayra86
phanbueyPoint is - they do make a GPU, they do have market share, this isn't their first GPU and it certainly isn't 'diddly squat zip'. 10 years of selling IGPs and developing for DirectX/Ogl/Vulcan compliance is not nothing.

does UHD 770 suck absolute balls for gaming? yes! But it DOES run games.
And yet they could not scale the way those games run (not too inconsistent at all, just slower) to their beautiful Xe even after three years of excessive trying. Its an inconsistent stuttery mess. So does their IGP run games, sure. But it doesn't speak for their discrete stuff or even the new architecture they have, which IS new and IS built to scale. This is the whole point. Making a weak GPU is easy, trailing the competition is easy, you have lots of ways to keep up (bigger dies, moving units a tier down, clocking, mature process, etc.), but chasing the cutting edge AND doing it efficiently is another story completely. If your arch is not scaling properly, you're fucked. We've seen this every single time when there were clear winners and losers each gen. Fury vs 980ti because Hawaii XT could not go further is a fantastic example. Radeon VII after Vega, fail upon fail, late to market, and AMD was literally stuck at that perf level for years on end. Even RDNA's first iteration could not save the day just yet.
Posted on Reply
#47
thestryker6
Vayra86Oh they will move units, of that we can be certain, but discrete is what matters in terms of competition. Shitty laptops will always be shitty vendor lock ins, even with three players, and its pretty easy to make a bad laptop, whether they can even push Intel GPUs in there on top of the throttling monsters they already are is the question :)
I meant desktop OEM, because yeah laptops are always going to be nothing but what's cheapest to put together at each price point. They ought to be able to control distribution more in the desktop OEM market than retail so the people looking to buy a certain performance range don't pay a huge markup. That alone may leave a good impression among the non-DIY market and then the performance/$ just has to be reasonable. Even if they're great performance/$ they aren't making enough of this generation to make any retail impact under best case scenario. It just seems like leaving a good impression of the actual product once people get their hands on it is the most important part and then ramping up production for the subsequent generations.
Posted on Reply
#48
Steevo
TiggerBet's on reply's saying that does not count
It doesn't count.

What do I win boss man? Will Intel suck my balls for buying a iGPU that fails to deliver any real performance beyond it does word real good?

I bet you get excited for the Kia car announcements and had a Kia on your wall as a kid instead of a supercar, plain looking people excite you, not supermodels, you like cream without the ice as it hurts your sensitive tummy, vanilla is for wild people that like to live on the edge?

Topic: Intel and their failure at delivering a Dgpu, typical Fanboi response, yeah but that Igpu thou.........

Also no offense man, but you are off topic here.
Posted on Reply
#49
TheoneandonlyMrK
phanbueyzip didly squat yes? They definitely don't make graphics, ur right...

Great example of the "D"GPU amounts out there, now how much of that Intel slice are ADD in Discrete GPUS instead of the kind of tat ENTHUSIASTS refuse to use.

Genius argument ,I laughed my arse off.

Reads thread title again, hmnn so no, Google translate isn't that shit surely.
Posted on Reply
#50
phanbuey
TheoneandonlyMrKGreat example of the "D"GPU amounts out there, now how much of that Intel slice are ADD in Discrete GPUS instead of the kind of tat ENTHUSIASTS refuse to use.

Genius argument ,I laughed my arse off.

Reads thread title again, hmnn so no, Google translate isn't that shit surely.
Uh oh the oneandonlymrKaren is back with her incomprehensible babble.
Posted on Reply
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