Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Intel’s mysterious gaming bus might hold a U.S. launch for Arc Alchemist

By

Intel has just revealed that it will be bringing a gaming bus to LANfest, set to take place on September 30 in Colorado. The bus will arrive fully decked out with Intel hardware, including what seem to be the desktop versions of Intel Arc.

Given the delayed release of Intel Arc, this might be the first time we get to see the GPUs in action outside of China. Will Intel surprise us with an earlier release date?

Intel's mobile gaming cafe.
Intel

According to the Intel Insiders Discord server, Intel is planning to bring a massive gaming truck to LANfest. Although the interior of the truck is not yet ready, the exterior is already wrapped in Intel Arc branding and signature colors. The inside is still a work in progress, but Intel is planning to equip it with up to 30 gaming desktops for visitors to try out. These are said to be based on NUC 12 Extreme (Dragon Canyon,) with Intel Alder Lake CPUs and discrete graphics cards. The exact specifications are yet to have been shared. Aside from Intel’s own hardware, AOC will be providing the gaming monitors, SteelSeries will supply the peripherals, and BackForce — the gaming chairs.

Recommended Videos

Perhaps inadvertently, Intel has also teased a yet-unreleased design for Arc Alchemist. Shown inside the gaming truck, the design looks different than the ones we have been presented with thus far. VideoCardz shared a blown-up image of the render which you can also see on the screens inside the bus.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!
Privacy Policy

While the actual release of Intel Arc has gone far from smoothly so far, Intel does seem to have a bunch of cool marketing ideas to drive up the hype. Almost a year ago, Intel teased the release of its first discrete gaming graphics card in a dazzling light show made up of 1,000 drones. What followed was a series of delays that continues to this day.

As things stand now, we still don’t really know when to expect Intel Arc in its desktop form on the global market. The Intel Arc A380 was recently quietly released in China alongside a custom version manufactured by Gunnir. We know that other versions are still to follow, and those too will first be released in China before being launched worldwide. Moreover, the desktop versions of Intel Arc will first only be available through pre-built PCs — who knows when the DIY versions will hit the shelves.

Intel Arc Alchemist gaming bus.
Intel

The fact that Intel plans to bring a whole gaming bus to LANfest in Colorado is certainly a good sign. It would be a great opportunity to actually begin selling the hardware to interested customers. Whether that’s what Intel plans to do or not remains to be seen, but it gives us a good idea of what to expect in terms of the launch strategy for Intel Arc. It doesn’t seem impossible that we won’t see the full desktop lineup available for sale before the gaming bus makes its rounds at LANfest.

On the one hand, at this point, it’s good that Intel is taking its time. This could result in driver optimizations that might improve the not-so-impressive gaming performance of the GPUs. On the other hand, with AMD’s upcoming RDNA 3 launch and Nvidia’s RTX 40-series, Intel is really running out of time to make much of an impression with Arc Alchemist.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Monica J. White
Monica J. White
Computing Writer
Monica is a UK-based freelance writer and self-proclaimed geek. A firm believer in the "PC building is just like expensive…
Intel’s new Arc driver can boost your performance by up to 119%
Intel Arc A770 GPU installed in a test bench.

Intel has announced the rollout of a new driver update for its Arc graphics cards that promises a huge performance boost in various gaming titles. The new Game On driver with version 31.0.101.4885 primarily offers optimal performance for Assassin's Creed Mirage and Forza Motorsport. Additionally, the company claims up to double-digit gains in terms of performance with Deus Ex: Human Revolution gaining a 119% uplift with GPUs like the Arc A770 and A750.

The new driver update also brings improvement of up to 27% in Resident Evil 4 at 1080p with High ray tracing settings, and 12% in The Last of Us Part 1 at 1080p with Ultra settings. This makes the GPU even more competitive with Nvidia’s latest RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti GPUs.

Read more
Intel’s next GPU just leaked, and it looks like a sub-$200 card worth buying
The Intel logo on the Arc A770 graphics card.

A long-forgotten Intel Arc GPU just made another reappearance, and this time around, it might actually be for real. Intel's Arc A580 popped up on Geizhals, an Austrian price comparison site, and it's even available in two different models. While the Arc A580 doesn't have what it takes to compete with some of the best graphics cards, it could turn out to be a solid budget-friendly option if priced appropriately.

The Intel Arc A580 was announced what feels like forever ago. Intel mentioned it several times prior to the launch of its A770 and A750, and it was included in the marketing materials for the Arc A770, Arc A750, and Arc 380. It always seemed like a good middle ground between those three GPUs, bridging the gap between the top of the lineup and the entry-level A380. But it never materialized, and Intel hasn't said a word about it since.

Read more
Intel’s latest update improves gaming performance by up to 77%
The backs of the Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics cards.

Intel has just made a slew of exciting announcements regarding to its Arc Alchemist GPUs, which are some of the best graphics cards for a more budget-oriented build. Since the launch of its flagship GPU, the Arc A770,  Intel has been hard at work releasing frequent fixes to optimize the performance. Now, over 30 driver updates later, Intel is talking about the boost in games its GPUs have received. It's also ushering in a brand-new open-source tool.

Upon the launch of Intel's discrete graphics cards, it was clear that while Arc GPUs were solid in DirectX 12 games, they lagged behind in titles that use DirectX 11 and DirectX 9. Now, Intel claims that the latest Arc drivers bring major improvements in that regard. It showed its own benchmarks in various games to prove that things are different now, all based on testing with an Arc A750 GPU.

Read more