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.

In a blog post, NVIDIA claims that its AV1 video encoder is vastly superior in terms of quality, compared to both AMD and Intel's alternatives. The still shot provided by NVIDIA to show its superior quality over its competitors, was encoded at 4K60p, obviously using the AV1 codec. Nvidia used its own GeForce RTX 4080 card and compared it to an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT and an Intel Arc A770, with all three cards encoding the video at 12 Mbps using the latest release of OBS Studio.

It just so happens that OBS Studio 29.1 added support for AV1 over the Enhanced Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) and now allows for live streaming using AV1 to YouTube. This is also the main reason for the NVIDIA blog post, as prior to this release, it wasn't possible to stream using AV1 in OBS Studio. NVIDIA has been known for the quality of its video encoder for quite some time, but we'd like to see some independent testing before we give NVIDIA the win here, especially as the company has only provided a single screenshot as proof of its superiority.

Acer's Arc A770 Predator has once again been discounted down to $339, making it the least expensive graphics card with 16 GB of VRAM. While AMD marketing is advertising its 16 GB graphics cards with price starting at $499, comparing it to NVIDIA, Intel Arc lineup was not on their list.

Acer Arc A770 Predator BiFrost is one of the rare custom Arc A770 graphics cards on the market with fully enabled ACM-G10 GPU and 16 GB of VRAM. It has been previously discounted down to $339 in March, but quickly got back up to $399.99. Now, Acer has once again launched the sale over at Newegg.com and Amazon.com, pulling it back down to $339.99. It has a hybrid dual-fan cooler, combining blower-type and standard fans. It needs two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and has a slightly factory overclock of 100 MHz, with GPU base clock of 2.2 GHz.

Gunnir unveiled its top-end Intel Alchemist card closer to the start of this year - and this week the Chinese company has started selling a white edition of the Arc A770 Photon 16G OC graphics card. It has been reported that this is a world first - no other Alchemist card on the market features a custom cooler finished in white. Gunnir's standard Photon OC model - fitted with a dark gray-ish triple-fan design - has been available for a few months, and a snazzy blue Flux OC model also exists but is restricted to 8 GB VRAM.

Regardless of color choices, Gunnir's range topping Photon OC cards feature the best mainstream graphics hardware that Team Blue has to offer - namely an Alchemist SKU as seen in the (reference design) Arc A770 Limited Edition 16 GB model. Intel's board partners are having a tough time shifting their Arc lineup of graphics cards - discerning customers are wary of relatively immature architectures - and Gunnir has chosen to introduce a seasonal price cut across the Alchemist range. The promotion offers Chinese customers (via Gunnir's JD.com store) discounts on A380 (max. 33%), and A770 (max. 13%) GPUs.

Intel Graphics today released the latest version of the Arc GPU Graphics drivers. Version 101.4311 beta comes with GameOn optimization for "Dead Island 2," "Total War: Warhammer III - Mirror of Madness," "Minecraft Legends," and "Boundary." It also introduces major post-optimizations for "Dead Space" (Remake), with up to 55% performance uplifts seen at 1080p, and up to 63% seen at 1440p, when tested with the Arc A750. F1 22 sees 6-7% uplifts at 1440p, and 17% at 1080p. "Dying Light 2: Stay Human" sees 6-7% uplifts between 1080p and 1440p; "DiRT 5" gets 8% at 1080p and 4% at 1440p. "Deathloop" gets 4% at 1080p, and 6% at 1440p.

Among the issues fixed with this release include an application crash with Microsoft Flight Simulator (DirectX 11 mode); color corruption on the water edges seen in "Sea of Thieves," lower than expected performance with Bright Memory Infinite Ray Tracing Benchmark, and color corruption with Optical Flow seen in Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4311 beta

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 CEO Pat Gelsinger has issued the news, via a tweet, of Raja Koduri's departure from the silicon giant. Koduri, who currently sits as Executive Vice President and Chief Architect, will be leaving the company at the end of this month. This ends a five year long tenure at Intel, where he started as Chief Architect back in 2017. He intends to form a brand new startup operation that will focus on AI-generative software for computer games. His tweeted reply to Gelsinger reads: "Thank you Pat and Intel for many cherished memories and incredible learning over the past 5 years. Will be embarking on a new chapter in my life, doing a software startup as noted below. Will have more to share in coming weeks."

Intel has been undergoing numerous internal restructures, and Koduri's AXG Graphics Unit was dissolved late last year. He was the general manager of the graphic chips division prior to its split, and returned to his previous role as Chief Architect at Intel. The company stated at the time that Koduri's new focus would be on: "growing efforts across CPU, GPU and AI, and accelerating high-priority technical programmes."

Without mentioning it in its driver change-log, Intel Graphics has quietly addressed the issue of unusually high power-draw for its Arc A-series GPUs in multi-monitor setups. The older 101.4091 drivers had a typical single-monitor idle power-draw of around 11 W, which would shoot up to 40 W idle in multi-monitor setups. In our own launch-day review of the Arc A770, we logged a 44 W multi-monitor power-draw. Intel now claims that the multi-monitor idle power-draw has been tamed, with the latest 101.4146 drivers the company released last week lowering this down to "8 to 9 W" for multi-monitor setups, and "7 to 8 W" for single-monitor ones.

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).

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 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.

Acer has launched its Predator BiFrost Arc A770 graphics card in Taiwan and the official pricing appears to be NT$12,900 or US$404, local shops are already selling the card for far less. The BiFrost comes with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and an overclocking option that boosts the GPU speed from 2,200 MHz to 2,400 MHz. The latter also increases the TDP from 250 to 280 Watts. As seen in the launch announcement pictures, the card has a rather unusual fan design and Acer has even come up with some marketing names for the setup. The blower fan is referred to as Aeroblade 3D and the regular 92 mm fan as Frostblade 2.0. We're not sure how there's a version 2.0 when this is Acer's first retail graphics card.

The card measures 267 x 117.75 mm and has as we've also seen, a pair of 8-pin power connectors. The port configuration consists of three DP 2.0 ports and one HDMI 2.1 port. Local shops are offering the card on sale for US$372 to as little as US$313 (NT$9990), which is only US$13 more than Intel's own Arc A750 cards retail for in Taiwan. This price point makes it a fair bit more attractive, even taking potential driver related issues and hardware limitations into account.

ASRock today launched its Arc "Alchemist" A770 and A750 custom-design graphics cards. These include the A770 Phantom Gaming OC, and the A750 Challenger OC. The A770 maxes out the 6 nm ACM-G10 silicon, featuring all 32 Xe Cores (4,096 unified shaders); besides 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory; whereas the A750 gets 28 Xe Cores (3,584 unified shaders), and 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory. Both of ASRock's cards come with 8 GB of memory across a 256-bit wide memory bus, there's no 16 GB version of the A770 Phantom Gaming.

The ASRock A770 Phantom Gaming features a premium, RGB-illuminated cooling solution that's also found in the company's Radeon RX 6000-series Phantom Gaming graphics cards. This card also offers a factory-overclock of 2.20 GHz compared to 2.10 GHz reference. The cooler features a dual fin-stack heatsink with five 6 mm-thick nickel-plated copper heat-pipes that make indirect contact with the GPU over a copper base-plate. The dual ball-bearings fans come with idle fan-stop. There's a switch to manually turn off RGB lighting.

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.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular graphics sub-system information and diagnostics utility for PC enthusiasts and gamers. Version 2.50.0 adds support for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, and improved support for Intel Arc A770, and Arc A750. Video memory chip temperature monitoring has been added for Arc "Alchemist," and the overall temperature sensors for the Arc series have been fixed. The DLSS game scanning has been improved to tell if no DLSS-compatible games have been found.

While the number "2.50" might sound special, it is not, it is simply 49+1. We also had to get this build out quickly so that reviewers can do their jobs playing with the latest hardware from Intel and NVIDIA.

Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.50.0

PC hardware specialist Acer today on Twitter announced its official entry into the discrete GPU market with its own-brand Intel Arc GPUs. The company will be pulling its gaming-oriented Predator branding for the launch of its very own Intel Arc A770, the Predator BiFrost. Despite going in with the newest discrete GPU manufacturer, Acer's attempt at taking on the thin-margin discrete GPU field marks an interesting entry - at least from a design standpoint. The new Arc A770 BiFrost features an asymmetrical dual-fan setup peppered with RGB lighting and industrial detailing throughout in what seems to be a semi-blower-type design. The card's design is somewhat reminiscent of NVIDIA's take on its Founder Editions, with a number of visible screws that help break up the visual continuity. It also sports a dual 8-pin power delivery circuit - beefier than Intel's own take on the Arc A770, which we've just unboxed.

Best-known for its pre-constructed desktops, laptops, and monitors, Acer is now seemingly looking to dip its toes into the discrete GPU market. Unfortunately, Acer's announcement is bereft of details; there's only a render of the card and no actual specifications on whether the company will be offering the 8 GB version Arc A770, its 16 GB cousin, or both. It's also unknown whether the company is planning on extending its reach towards other Arc models or even other manufacturers such as AMD and NVIDIA, but it does make sense that it's forging ahead with a single manufacturer first.

The Intel Arc 7-series performance-segment graphics cards announced earlier this week, are all priced within $60 of each other. The series begins with the Arc A750 at USD $289. $40 more gets you the Arc A770 Limited Edition 8 GB, at $329. The top-of-the-line Arc A770 Limited Edition 16 GB is priced just $20 higher, at $349. This puts the Intel flagship at least $30 less than the cheapest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 available in the market right now, which can be had for $380. The dark horse here is the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT, which is going for as low as $320.

Intel extensively compared the A770 to the RTX 3060 in its marketing materials, focusing on how its ray tracing performance is superior to even that of NVIDIA RTX in this segment, and that the Intel XeSS performance enhancement is technologically on-par with 2nd generation super-scaling techs such as FSR 2.0 and DLSS 2. If Intel's performance claims hold, the A770 has the potential to beat both the RTX 3060 and RX 6650 XT in its segment. The Arc A750, A770 8 GB, and A770 16 GB, go on sale from October 12. Stay tuned for our reviews.

It's the moment you've been waiting for! (And the moment our teams have been working towards!) The Intel Arc A750 and A770 GPUs will be for sale on October 12th starting at $289 and $329 respectively, with the Arc A770 Limited Edition available for $349. After years of price increases in the massive $200-400 GPU segment, Intel is bringing balance back to the GPU market. Pricing seems to have gone off the deep end and we're working to reel it back in with the Intel Arc A-series GPUs. As we've shown in earlier performance blogs, the Arc A750 and A770 trade blows with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060—a popular mainstream GPU. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger called out the extreme GPU prices in his Intel Innovation Day 1 keynote, showing that the last four years have seen a nonstop upward trend in prices of mainstream GPUs. By entering the GPU space as a third player, Intel is ready to turn these tides in gamers' favor and disrupt the market.

On average, a new GeForce RTX 3060 will set you back $418. (This number was calculated on Newegg.com, targeting in stock, sold by Newegg, new RTX 3060 cards as of Sept 22, 2022.) Picking up an Intel Arc A750 on October 12th for $289 gets you 53% more performance per dollar on average, or an 8 GB Arc A770 for $329 provides 42% more perf/dollar. Why is that? The Arc A700-series performance beats the 3060 in most modern titles using DirectX 12 or Vulkan APIs and our GPUs aren't far behind in most DX11 games—all for much less cash.

Intel's ambitious XeSS (Xe Super Sampling) performance enhancement formally launched, with the latest "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" patch dated September 27. The patch release notes describes this feature addition as "Added XeSS graphics support for DX12-compatible systems." This means that XeSS not only works in its native XMX code-path for Arc "Alchemist" GPUs, but also the agnostic DP4a code. CapFrameX confirmed that XeSS works with Radeon RX 6000 RDNA2 GPUs, which means the DP4a fallback has been implemented. The XeSS feature-addition to SoTR comes just in time as reviews of the Arc A770 are expected to go live early next month, with availability slated for October 12. You can learn more about XeSS in our older article.

Intel today announced the pricing for the Arc A770 Limited Edition desktop graphics card, and it is set at USD $329, offering a class of performance comparable to NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards around the $400-range. The A770 is a full-feature DirectX 12 Ultimate-capable graphics cards. The Arc A770 Limited Edition maxes out the 6 nm ACM-G10 silicon, features 32 Xe Cores, 512 XMX matrix processors, and 512 EUs, which work out to 4,096 unified shaders. The card comes with 8 GB or 16 GB of 17.5 Gbps GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit wide memory bus. $329 could be the starting price of the A770 for its 8 GB model. Available from October 12.

Reviews of the Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition desktop graphics card could hit the web by October 5, according to a VideoCardz report. These could succeed unboxing articles without performance numbers, on September 30. Press reviews of the A770 publishing on October 5 could mean that retail availability isn't too far behind, and we could hear more about this later today at the IntelON Innovation online event, where the company is widely expected to announce its 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" desktop processors. The Arc A770 Limited Edition maxes out the 6 nm ACM-G10 silicon, features 32 Xe Cores, 512 XMX matrix processors, and 512 EUs, which work out to 4,096 unified shaders. The card comes with 8 GB or 16 GB of 17.5 Gbps GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit wide memory bus. Given that Intel is extensively comparing the A770 to the GeForce RTX 3070, one can expect a price competitive to that (around $500).

TechPowerUp released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular graphics information and diagnostics utility for gamers and PC enthusiasts. Version 2.49.0 adds support for the iGPU of the upcoming Ryzen 7000-series "Zen 4" desktop processors, codenamed "Raphael." CPU temperature monitoring for these processors works the same way as it does for older Ryzens, so no changes needed in that regard. The GPU model reporting for Intel Arc A750/A770 has been fixed. Support is added for the Intel Arc A580. Some rare application crashes with AMD Radeon cards have been fixed. The NVIDIA DLSS game scan we introduced with the previous version doesn't actually "use" DLSS in any way, it only scans for games supporting DLSS, so we made it available on all systems.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.49.0

It appears that we're slowly getting closer and closer to the official launch of Intel's upcoming Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics cards, as Intel's CEO, Pat Gelsinger, just became the proud owner of the first Arc A770 graphics card. According to a tweet by Pat, he "got a surprise delivery on a rainy Sunday evening from @RajaXG", the latter being Raja Koduri. Pat continued "We are now getting first batch of A770 cards ready for retail …excited!".

Intel has yet to reveal a firm launch date for the Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics cards, but unless the company launches very soon, the boat might very well have sailed for its first generation of new graphics cards. Summer is already long gone (officially summer ends on the 23rd of September), although Intel has its Innovation event coming up on the 27th of this month and it's possible that the company will launch its higher-end Arc graphics cards then, alongside the it's 13th generation of Core desktop CPUs.