According to a new research report from leading analyst firm Jon Peddie Research (JPR), unit shipments in the add-in board (AIB) market increased in Q2'24 from last quarter and increased year over year. Meanwhile, Nvidia slightly increased market share from last quarter, as well as year over year. In Q2'24, total graphics card shipments increased to 9.5 million units, up from 8.7 million units last quarter.

AMD's quarter-to-quarter total desktop AIB unit shipments increased 9% and increased 3% from last year. Nvidia's quarter-to-quarter unit shipments increased 9.7% and increased 61.9% from last year while continuing to hold a dominant market share position at 88%. Intel, which entered the AIB market in Q3'22 with the Arc A770 and A750, remained flat, as the company has yet to gain significant traction in the add-in board market.Market share changes quarter to quarter and year to year.

Intel on Monday rolled out the first public release of AI Playground, an AI productivity suite the company showcased in its 2024 Computex booth. AI Playground is a well-packaged suite of generative AI applications and a chatbot, which are designed to leverage Intel Arc discrete GPUs with at least 8 GB of video memory. All utilities in the suite are designed under the OpenVINO framework, and take advantage of the XMX cores of Arc A-series discrete GPUs. Currently, only three GPU models from the lineup come with 8 GB or higher amounts of video memory, the A770, A750, and A580; and their mobile variants. The company is working on a variant of the suite that can work on Intel Core Ultra-H series processors, where it uses a combination of the NPU and the iGPU for acceleration. AI Playground is open source. Intel put in effort to make the suite as client-friendly as possible, by giving it a packaged installer that looks after installation of all software dependencies.

Intel AI Playground tools include an image generative AI that can turn prompts into standard or HD images, which is based on Stable Diffusion backed by DreamShaper 8 and Juggernaut XL models. It also supports Phi3, LCM LoRA, and LCM LoRA SDXL. All of these have been optimized for acceleration on Arc "Alchemist" GPUs. The utility also includes an AI image enhancement utility that can be used for upscaling along with detail reconstruction, styling, inpainting and outpainting, and certain kinds of image manipulation. The third most important tool is the text AI chatbot with all popular LLMs.

DOWNLOAD: Intel AI Playground

GUNNIR unveiled the Photon Arc A770 and Arc A750 Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree special edition graphics cards. The two cards are based on the Arc 7-series Photon OC triple-fan common board design GUNNIR launched in 2023. You get a themed backplate, and gold-colored embellishments on the front-side of the card, such as the three fan hubcaps, and the illuminated brand notch. At this point it's not clear if the special edition package include a copy of the game. The Photon OC Arc A770 is the variant with the 17.5 Gbps 16 GB GDDR6 memory, while the A750 is the one with 8 GB of 16 Gbps GDDR6. It's not clear if this card will be globally available.

Leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, has successively released its AI QuickSet software tool based on Microsoft Windows 10/11 and Canonical Ubuntu Linux platforms since the end of last year, which can help users quickly download, install and set up many artificial intelligence (AI) applications. It can also be accelerated by ASRock's custom AMD graphics cards, and has received widespread response from the market. Today ASRock continues its efforts and launch the AI QuickSet software tool that supports ASRock's custom Intel Arc A-Series graphics cards, including Intel Arc A770, A750, A580, A380, and A310 models, allowing users to enjoy the fun brought by generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications at their fingertips!

ASRock AI QuickSet software tool v1.0.3i supports Microsoft Windows 10/11 64-bit operating system, allowing users to easily install Stable Diffusion web UI OpenVINO without delving into complex configuration settings. This Stable Diffusion Web UI artificial intelligence (AI) image generation tool optimized through the Intel OpenVINO tool suite can be used with ASRock's own Intel Arc A series graphics cards (including Intel Arc A770, A750, A580, A380, A310 model)'s powerful computing capabilities provide excellent operational performance. This once again demonstrates ASRock's strong software and hardware R&D capabilities and its spirit of considering users. It also makes ASRock's AI QuickSet software tool once again a premium choice for consumers to quickly experience the fun of generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications!

SPARKLE is announcing SPARKLE Intel Arc A770/A750 ROC Series, comes with the very first white card of SPAKRLE, "Luna Edition", and a standard black card. As the new flagship series of SPARKLE, ROC stands for the enormous legendary bird of prey and represents the power and the precision, which is the brand-new BEST choice of the A770 / A750, provides high performance and myriad of productivity without anything getting in the way.

ROC series equipped dual 100 mm double-ball bearing fan with 2.5-slot heatsink design, reduce the length of card effetely and ready to fit into the compact system. Furthermore, 100 mm DBB fans have brought the higher efficiency of cooling, lead to an ultra-silence experience without compromising performance. A blue breathing light of Intel Arc on the side of the card is bringing classic and style to your gaming setup.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today, is thrilled to introduce the brand-new Intel Arc A750 OC Graphics card. BIOSTAR proudly presents the Arc A750 OC graphics card, a true game-changer for content creators and professional gamers. It is meticulously designed to cater to a wide range of computing needs, seamlessly accommodating content creation and gaming at every level. The Arc A750 OC graphics card harnesses the cutting-edge Intel Arc graphics technology, offering a unique blend of unmatched performance and innovative features that sets it apart in the competitive market.

With its impressive 28 Xe-Cores and a graphics clock speed of 2200 MHz, the BIOSTAR Arc A750 OC is a powerhouse designed to deliver robust gaming and content creation performance. It comes packed with a substantial 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, operating at a lightning-fast speed of 16 Gbps, and utilizes a 256-bit memory interface for efficient data transfer and processing. With a total board power (TBP) of 225 W, this graphics card is engineered to balance power consumption with high-end performance, making it an exciting option for users looking for a powerful yet efficient GPU solution.

Intel on Wednesday released the XeSS 1.3 performance enhancement, which works with Intel Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs, and Intel Arc iGPUs powering the Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" processors. The new super sampling technology brings several under-the-hood improvements to the upscaler, which improves image quality at a given resolution. Intel leveraged this improved upscaler to rework the resolution-scale of each performance preset, thereby improving performance per preset; while also introducing new presets at both ends of the resolution scale. The company released the XeSS 1.3 SDK on GitHub, so developers can begin exploring the tech and implementing it on their games.

The XeSS 1.3 update is predicated on an improved upscaler. Intel says that it has updated the AI models with new optimizations, and additional pre-training, particularly with difficult to upscale elements (such as meshes, as in textures with a lot of alpha pixels). The updated upscaler offers better reconstruction of detail, better AA, less ghosting, and improved temporal stability. Intel then used this up change the resolution scale across all its presets as detailed in the table below. It introduced the new Ultra Performance preset that does a 3.0x resolution scale, something that didn't exist in the previous versions of XeSS. On the other end of the spectrum is Native AA, a mode that has zero upscaling, but just the full application of the upscaler as a varnish—this is essentially Intel's take on DLAA.

Phoronix has taken a short break away from monitoring the latest goings-on at AMD's software department—the site's editor-in-chief, Michael Larabel, took a moment to investigate patch notes relating to Intel's Xe and i915 Linux kernel graphics drivers. Earlier today, he noticed that "two additional PCI IDs" have been added to Team Blue's DG2/Alchemist family. This discovery prompted further sleuthing—after: "some searching and turning up hits within the Intel Compute Runtime code, 0x56BE is for an Intel Arc Graphics A750E variant and 0x56BF is for an Intel Arc Graphics A580E."

The aforementioned GPU identification codes seem to exist in gray area—the patch notes do not reveal whether these new variants are destined for desktop or mobile platforms. VideoCardz cited a remark made by "Bionic_Squash"—the reputable leaker reckons that the: "IDs are linked to Intel's Arc Embedded series. This family is tailored for industrial, business, and commercial applications, ranging from edge systems to powering large interactive screens." It is highly likely that Intel is paving the way for embedded/low-power variants of its existing Arc A750 and A580 GPUs. Tom's Hardware proposes that Team Blue is clearing out its inventory of remaining Alchemist silicon ahead of a successive generation's rollout—Battlemage is a major priority in 2024.

The Asian Games 2022 athletic event was originally set to take place last September—officials have rescheduled proceedings to later this month (opening September 23, closing October 8). Gunnir has prepared new versions of its existing Arc A770 & A750 Photon OC graphics cards in celebration of e-sports competitions being added to the roster at XIX Asian Games, Hangzhou. The Chinese hardware manufacturer has produced an extensive portfolio of Intel Alchemist-based discrete solutions, so it is not surprising to see slightly revised designs being issued to tie-in with a significant multi-sport tournament.

Gunnir's Photon OC White Edition shroud has been updated with the official Asian Games emblem as well as wavy graphic patterns—their retail packaging shares similar revisions, giving off some very calming vibes. According to product listings on JD.com, the A750 8 GB model currently sells for 1699 RMB (~$232), while the range-topping A770 16 GB variant is available to pre-order at 2399 RMB (~$328). The latest Intel and Gunnir collaboration is not likely to reach Western shores—Team Blue's Chinese operation announced (last month) that it was the official graphics processor supplier for this month's Hangzhou Asian Games. We expect only the most hardcore of GPU collectors to import these curiosities from Joybuy/Jingdong (JD).

According to a new research report from the analyst firm Jon Peddie Research (JPR), unit shipments in the add-in board (AIB) market increased in Q2'23 from last quarter, while AMD gained market share. Quarter to quarter, graphics AIB shipments increased modestly, by 2.9%; however, shipments decreased by -36% year to year.

Since Q1 2000, over 2.10 billion graphics cards, worth about $476 billion, have been sold. The market shares for the desktop discrete GPU suppliers shifted in the quarter, as AMD's market share increased from last quarter and Nvidia's share increased from last year. Intel, which entered the AIB market in Q3'22 with the Arc A770 and A750, will start to increase market share in 2024.

Intel Graphics today released the latest version of Arc GPU Graphics Drivers. Version 101.4669 beta comes with Game On (day zero) optimization for "Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon." With the new drivers in place, the Arc A750 can provide average frame-rates of up to 92 FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings; and up to 82 FPS at 1440p with High settings. Among the issues fixed with this release include an application crash for "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" in DirectX 11 mode, in the game menu. Also, it turns out that Arc A380 reporting a base frequency of 2150 MHz compared to 2000 MHz reference with the previous 101.4644 drivers, was a bug. Intel fixed it with this release.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4669 Beta

Intel Graphics late Wednesday released the Arc GPU Graphics Software 101.4578 beta. These drivers come with Game On (day-zero) optimization for the hottest game release of this Summer, "Baldur's Gate 3." Intel beat both AMD and NVIDIA to be the first with optimized drivers for the game. The fantasy RPG releases later today. Given that the game is very easy on system requirements, you can expect the entire span of Intel Arc "Alchemist" graphics card to be perfectly suited to the game. The Arc A380 should be able to max out the game at resolutions of 1080p, while the A750 and A770 should max it out at 1440p and 4K Ultra HD.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4578 beta

Intel Arc A750 graphics card has been regularly shown by its designers to be comparable to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 in terms of performance, making it a formidable DirectX 12 Ultimate-capable 1080p-class gaming graphics card, with each of its new driver release ironing out game-specific performance issues. An ASRock A750 custom-design graphics card is now listed on Newegg for $199, with a coupon shaving off a further $20. At $179, the A750 is hard to pass, considering that other cards from its class are a bit pricier. The cheapest Radeon RX 6650 XT is currently going for $240, and the cheapest RTX 3060 (12 GB original spec) for $280.

According to information and images released by Xfastest, Acer seems to be preparing a new trio of Predator BiFrost custom cards. The series is currently limited to a single factory overclocked model, based on Intel's Arc A770 16 GB GPU. One of the new cards seems to be a cheaper (~$258) A750 8 GB BiFrost model, so Acer's Alchemist ACM-G10 GPU variant lineup is welcoming one addition.

Acer is also embracing RDNA 3 courtesy of AMD, although graphics card enthusiasts could see the introduction of two new Predator BiFrost models based on Radeon RX 7600 8 GB GPU as less than exciting prospects. The leaked photos seem to show a cooler design that lacks ARGB around the two cooling fans—budget friendly pricing (~$290 for the overclocked model, and ~$258 for non-OC) suggests that fancy livery is not so important in the low-to-mid-range tier.

Sparkle Computer and Intel, longstanding Thunderbolt development partner since 2015, have announced a new partnership to launch the SPARKLE Intel Arc Series Graphics Cards. With a wealth of experience producing quality industrial graphics cards, ODM solutions and peripherals, Sparkle is now expanding our reach into the consumer graphics business.

"We value this collaboration and we are fully prepared," says Willie Huang, General Manager of Sparkle Computer Co., LTD. "Sparkle is dedicated to creating a creator-friendly working environment, ranging from industrial graphics, external GPU to docking stations.... As the last piece of the puzzle, Sparkle Intel Arc Graphics, featuring an advanced Xe Media engine and AV1 encoder, has fully completed our product line and fulfilled the requirement of the desktop community"

Intel Arc graphics have dedicated AI hardware built-in. Leveraging those capabilities for gaming gets the most performance possible out of Arc GPUs, and that's exactly what Xe Super Sampling does. Let's look closer: when you turn on XeSS, every frame the GPU renders starts at a lower size than your target resolution. That smaller image renders quickly, then XeSS steps in. XeSS uses a trained AI model combined with motion vectors and frame history to intelligently upscale frames to full HD, 1440p, or 4K. Got all that? The sausage-making can get pretty technical, but the important thing is turning XeSS on scales games to high resolutions faster than traditional rendering could.

FPS numbers aren't the only thing we're increasing: over fifty games now include XeSS, from the biggest franchises to your niche favorites. When we launched the Intel Arc A750 and A770, we showed how XeSS works to boost FPS in nine popular games with over a dozen more on the way. Now with our high-performance desktop GPUs out for half a year, our game developer friends have helped deliver even more AI-fueled upscaling to over fifty new and existing games. A full list of every game and demo with XeSS included is at the bottom of this article.

According to a new research report from the analyst firm Jon Peddie Research, unit shipments in the add-in board (AIB) market decreased in Q1 2023 by -12.6% and decreased by -38.2% year to year. Intel increased its add-in board market share by 2% during the first quarter.

The percentage of AIBs in desktop PCs is referred to as the attach rate. The attach rate grew from last quarter by 8% but was down -21% year to year. Approximately 6.3 million add-in boards shipped in Q1 2023. The market shares for the desktop discrete GPU suppliers shifted in the quarter, as AMD's market share remained flat from last quarter. Intel, which entered the AIB market in Q3'22 with the Arc A770 and A750, gained 2% in market share, while Nvidia retains its dominant position in the add-in board space with an 84% market share.

Sparkle already announced that it will be coming up with the Intel Arc graphics card lineup soon, and it came to the Computex 2023 show in force, showing some rather impressive graphics cards, including the Arc A770 Watercooling concept, a couple of custom TITAN OC Edition graphics cards, and the A370 MXM version.

Sparkle's Intel Arc lineup starts off with some industrial low-profile graphics cards based on Intel Arc A310 and Arc A380 graphics cards, as well as standard Mini-ITX size ELF series versions which will be based on the same GPUs. Sparkle is also working on an Intel Arc A370 MXM GPU for laptops, which is a nice surprise. The main part of the showcase were certainly Sparkle's Intel Arc ORC and TITAN OC Edition custom versions of the Intel Arc A750 and Arc A770 chips. The biggest surprise though was the custom Sparkle A770 Watercooling concept. Sparkle is definitely serious in joining the Intel Arc team with Acer, ASRock, GUNNIR, Gigabyte, MSI and others, so hopefully we'll see some of these graphics cards on retail/e-tail shelves soon.

Newegg has reduced the asking price for Intel's Arc A750 Limited Edition 8 GB graphics card - this reference model is now available at an all-time low of $199. It is too early to tell whether this a permanent discount or just a seasonal sale - but the online retailer could be reacting (in advance) to the launches of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4060 (in July) and 4060 Ti models, as well as AMD's Radeon RX 7600 GPU lineup later this week.

Team Blue is putting a lot of effort into getting the hardware buying public to adopt its first generation of A-series/Alchemist discrete graphics cards - including the premiere of a slightly bizarre marketing campaign last week, called "Arc Balanced Builds." Intel has been navigating a market long dominated by NVIDIA and AMD, where plenty of folks have welcomed a third player on the field - but the Arc series experienced a much delayed and rough launch process last year. Intel has seemingly committed to next generation graphics technologies, with its Battlemage and Celestial architectures speculated to be in-progress at the company's AXG division.

Intel has published its latest blog post, announcing the Intel Arc Balanced Builds, an initiative that pairs up Intel Arc GPUs with Intel Core CPUs, creating balanced configurations that match Intel Arc graphics cards to the "best-fitting" Intel Core CPU. Starting at $423 for the GPU and CPU and $899 for the full system, Intel claims these combinations come from thousands of test runs and hundreds of hours in the lab, leading up to 15,000 datapoints and 22 GB of data.

According to Intel's own testing, which includes a wide variety of Intel Core processors in different configurations and games, there is a perfect CPU range for both its entry level Intel Arc A380 graphics card, as well as the Intel Arc A750 and Arc A770 graphics cards. Of course, for those with a big or unlimited budget, there is always the best configuration that money can buy, but making a balanced build is what makes sense for many others.

Today, award-winning systems integrator MAINGEAR introduced a new line of PC gaming desktops equipped with Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition GPUs, opening up advanced high-performance gaming experiences at an affordable price point. With AI-enhanced Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) upscaling, and the latest breakthroughs in graphics technologies, MAINGEAR PCs with Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition GPUs offer the perfect entry point for those looking to take their game to the next level. Experience high-refresh gaming from the latest AAA games, high-octane esports titles, and then some. Pre-configured options, including the flagship MG-1, can be purchased through MAINGEAR starting at $999 USD.

"Intel is on a mission to bring balance back to the market by offering great performance per dollar with GPUs featuring modern technologies such as XeSS AI-based upscaling, powerful ray tracing hardware, and AV1 encoding," said Qi Lin, Intel Sr. Director Client Graphics Group. "MAINGEAR has a reputation of using the best quality parts and including the Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition GPUs in the MG-1 and VYBE systems validates the tremendous progress we've made with consistent driver updates to increase performance and support new games on day of release. We look forward to more gamers enjoying what Arc graphics has to offer."

Sparkle, a Taiwanese computer electronics maker, is again entering the GPU market after almost ten years of inactivity in the space. A while back, Sparkle was one of NVIDIA's original Add-In Board (AIB) partners and helped them launch the GeForce 7900 PCI GPU. The company continued to make NVIDIA-based GPUs until GTX 700 series in 2013. After a decade, Sparkle is back again with ambitions to be Intel's AIB partner and announced not one but three graphics cards to start. Called A750 Titan, A750 Orc, and A380 Elf, these cards feature triple-fan, dual-fan, and single-fan coolers, respectively.

The first in line is the Sparkle A750 Titan, a triple-fan, 2.5-slot design based on Intel Arc A750 GPU. Featuring 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, this top-end A750 SKU is clocked at 2300 MHz, up from the factory's 2050 MHz frequency. Titan's smaller brother is Sparkle A750 Orc, a dual-fan, "2.2"-slot (we assume smaller than two and a half and bigger than two slots) GPU with the same A750 GPU; however, it clocked slightly lower at 2200 MHz. Both models feature single HDMI 2.0 and 3x DisplayPort 2.0 output ports and require two 8-pin PCI power connectors. Lastly, we have the Sparkle A380 Elf, a half-length, ITX-sized GPU that fits in two slots and has a single-fan cooler. It is based on Intel Arc A380 and has identical specifications without factory overclocks applied. Pricing and availability are currently unknown.

NTT-X, a retailer in Japan is advertising a strange promotion to its moneyed customers - a free Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition GPU with every purchase of an ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB OC Edition graphics card. You would normally expect a couple of extra digital download codes for video games as some sort of bonus incentive, but NTT-X has chosen a non-traditional approach to getting fancy silicon into clients' hands. The shop is selling the high-end ASUS card for just over $2300 (converted from the value in Japanese Yen), and mid-range Intel board will set you back roughly $350 (when sold separately). It seems that PC hardware prices in Japan tend to be higher when compared to USA market trends.

It is not really clear if this particular hardware outlet is experiencing slow sales for top-end RTX GeForce 40 series cards simply because of high asking prices, or it is having difficulty in shifting the Alchemist card due to wavering hardware buyer perception. Super enthusiasts with plenty of cash to spare on cutting edge tech will tend to purchase the best stuff available - perhaps NTT-X are offering their target audience a chance to construct a secondary or tertiary computer. These additional PCs could host the promotional Intel Arc A750 graphics card, with the retailer gaining further sales via customers buying more components for another build, be it for a compact computer or home theater/media center PC.

CD Projekt RED, the developer of Cyberpunk 2077, has advertised including various super sampling technologies like NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR, and now Intel XeSS supersampling. With the inclusion of XeSS version 1.1, Intel's Arc Alchemist graphics cards can record a significant performance uplift. Thanks to the Intel game blog, we compare XeSS enabled versus XeSS disabled, measuring the ability to play Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p Ultra settings with medium ray tracing enabled. The FPS comparison was conducted with Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition GPU, which was paired with Intel Core i9-13900K and 32 GB of RAM.

With XeSS off, the A750 GPU struggled and only reached 39 FPS. However, with XeSS set to performance, the number jumped to 67 FPS, making for a smooth user experience and gameplay. This is a 71% performance uplift, enabled by a new update in the game. Interestingly, Intel XeSS is computed on Arc's XMX Units, while NVIDIA and AMD compute their super sampling on shader units.

Intel has released a couple of new performance slides for the Arc A750, claiming better performance per dollar than RTX 3060 with the latest driver update. Intel has been pushing hard to improve its Arc GPU drivers, both fixing issues, bringing Game On support, and performance improvements. The latest Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4311 beta update brought several Game On optimizations as well as some performance uplifts, mostly focused on the Arc A750 and DirectX 12, ranging from 4 percent up to 63 percent, depending on the game and the resolution.

Although the Arc A750 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory has less memory than the RTX 3060 which comes with 12 GB of GDDR6 memory, bear in mind that the Arc A750 has a 256-bit memory interface compared to a 192-bit one on the RTX 3060 12 GB graphics card, leaving it with a higher 512 GB/s maximum memory bandwidth. The Intel Arc A750 is also less expensive, retailing at $249, compared to RTX 3060 12 GB, which sells at around $350.