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

[btarunr]

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.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Vayra86]

I think Intel will soon announce Intel Arc-S.

Where S stands for Soon, Sadly, Sluggish, Slow, Same Old Raja.

 

[Crackong]

On Track

 

[Deleted member 24505]

I was just gonna say cue anti Intel bullshit, but dingdong beat me to it.

 

[kane nas]

...

 

[Vya Domus]

Am 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.

 

[zlobby]

Am 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.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I was just gonna say cue anti Intel bullshit, but dingdong beat me to it.

Hmmn wonder why, they're earning it with vague bs pr every week for years.
Then nowt.

 

[Jeager]

 

[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....

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

I was just gonna say cue anti Intel bullshit, but dingdong beat me to it.

Those gosh darn anti intel dolts! How could they be opposed to a company that has spent nearly half a decade promising a GPU lineup and selling re-warmed skylake chips?

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....

I imagine they're stuck in some sort of dev cycle where every time they are about to launch AMD and nvidia launch new lineups, so intel has to re design their GPU to be performance and feature competitive. Duke3d syndrome, applied to hardware.

 

[defaultluser]

Those gosh darn anti intel dolts! How could they be opposed to a company that has spent nearly half a decade promising a GPU lineup and selling re-warmed skylake chips?


I imagine they're stuck in some sort of dev cycle where every time they are about to launch AMD and nvidia launch new lineups, so intel has to re design their GPU to be performance and feature competitive. Duke3d syndrome, applied to hardware.

Right, it will be another s3, complete with outdated products and woefully un-optimized/buggy drivers!

S3 Chrome - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

performance will be closer than s3, but I doubt they will ever catch-up!

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Q2 means pushed back to December.

Nop Nope, the Q2 2022 was a typo, it should been 2023.

 

[phanbuey]

Those gosh darn anti intel dolts! How could they be opposed to a company that has spent nearly half a decade promising a GPU lineup and selling re-warmed skylake chips?


I imagine they're stuck in some sort of dev cycle where every time they are about to launch AMD and nvidia launch new lineups, so intel has to re design their GPU to be performance and feature competitive. Duke3d syndrome, applied to hardware.

It's the same anti-AMD idiots that doubted Zen after AMD spent half a decade selling steamy bulldozer piles.

 

[r9]

We can only benefit from 3rd player in the GPU space but Intel missed the shortage window.
By the time they release their cards the crypto mining will be on life support with cheap cards left and right.
And sadly I don't think we'll be Season 2 of this show.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

It's the same anti-AMD idiots that doubted Zen after AMD spent half a decade selling steamy bulldozer piles.

I still don't get you , relative to what he said, that Intel v AMD thing or in any way relative to the OP.

At least try and make it amusing instead of vitreous.

And as for anyone defending Intel on they're. Latest of very , very many slips to Dgpu release , damnnnn that's loyalty there.

In the meantime, still waiting Intel
For the third year running I repeat.


FFS Intel just release the GPU ,me want FFS.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

vitreous

The Word for the Day is rather transparent.

We can only benefit from 3rd player in the GPU space but Intel missed the shortage window.
By the time they release their cards the crypto mining will be on life support with cheap cards left and right.
And sadly I don't think we'll be Season 2 of this show.

Missing that window cuts into Intel profits, makes me think heads will be rolling after the scramble to launch is over.

 

[phanbuey]

I still don't get you , relative to what he said, that Intel v AMD thing or in any way relative to the OP.

At least try and make it amusing instead of vitreous.

And as for anyone defending Intel on they're. Latest of very , very many slips to Dgpu release , damnnnn that's loyalty there.

In the meantime, still waiting Intel
For the third year running I repeat.


FFS Intel just release the GPU ,me want FFS.

What?

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

What?

Exactly

phanbuey said:
It's the same anti-AMD idiots that doubted Zen after AMD spent half a decade selling steamy bulldozer piles.

What?! Checks relevance to Intel Dgpu release slip, ,, What?!.

 

[phanbuey]

Exactly

phanbuey said:
It's the same anti-AMD idiots that doubted Zen after AMD spent half a decade selling steamy bulldozer piles.

What?! Checks relevance to Intel Dgpu release slip, ,, What?!.

Are you ok?

 

[chstamos]

What a cluster%uck. They've been hyping this thing to hell and back for years now. They've been giving concrete deadlines and blubbering on social media only for them to fall by the side, to give new ones and blubber some more. New projects can and do fall behind, but that the marketing behind this trainwreck has been so incompetent from day one, and on the highest, project manager level, simply cannot inspire confidence. I really do wish they prove us all wrong, but by this point their graphics department are becoming an industry joke.

For heaven's sake, rumors crept up only a couple of days ago that mobile Xe/Arc/whatever was not on track for release, and they went right ahead to deny them and insist it was shipping, while they knew it was not. What on earth for? Are they a grade school student making excuses for their missed homework?

 

[Tomorrow]

Am 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.

I think that's exactly the purpose. I'm glad people are seeing trough this.
Intel hopes to dazzle customers with bunch of fancy names. Hoping we're too dumb to notice when some of them get delayed.
Also - never trust Raja.

 

[zlobby]

Are they a grade school student making excuses for their missed homework?

Apparently they are a multi billion dollar company.

It also seems that making decent products is harder than just bribing resellers and OEM to use your products instead of AMD's.

 

[GoldenX]

"What do you mean this isn't like selling overpriced quad cores?!"

 

[eidairaman1]

I think Intel will soon announce Intel Arc-S.

Where S stands for Soon, Sadly, Sluggish, Slow, Same Old Raja.

Larrabee

We can only benefit from 3rd player in the GPU space but Intel missed the shortage window.
By the time they release their cards the crypto mining will be on life support with cheap cards left and right.
And sadly I don't think we'll be Season 2 of this show.

To be thinking intel being a savior for us is a big mistake, their prices will be right up there with nvidia and AMD.