Skip to main content

First Intel Arc graphics card has two key features to compete with Nvidia and AMD

Intel finally pulled back the curtain on its first graphics card and the Intel Arc brand, which it will use for all future enthusiast graphics endeavors. The first generation of cards is code-named Alchemist and is set to launch in the beginning of 2022. Outside of the fact that the cards exist, Intel revealed that they have two key features to compete with AMD and Nvidia.

The first card, formally known as DG2, will support real-time ray tracing and “A.I. accelerated super sampling.” We’re not sure how the supersampling works at this point, but it sounds a lot like Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology. Nvidia’s tech works by training an A.I. model with game images and then employing the supersampling algorithm on RTX graphics cards with dedicated Tensor cores.

Concept art of an Intel DG2 graphics card.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

We’re not sure how Intel’s implementation works yet. We reached out to see it would work similarly to DLSS, but Intel politely declined to comment. Regardless, the combination of both features puts some heat on Nvidia and a lot of heat on AMD. AMD released a DLSS alternative in the form of FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), but it doesn’t use A.I. to enhance the image like DLSS does.

Recommended Videos

Both features show that Intel is willing to compete in the discrete graphics card market. Ray tracing has become the new standard for big-budget AAA video games, and because it’s so demanding on hardware, a supersampling feature like DLSS is nessacary to run games at playable frame rates.

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

It looks like Intel understands that. Just last week, Intel announced that it hired the architect behind real-time ray tracing and DLSS at Nvidia. Intel hasn’t revealed how its feature works yet, but that’s a good sign that it’s more similar to DLSS than FSR is.

The future of Intel graphics

Outside of those two key features, Intel didn’t reveal much about its upcoming card. The video announcement showed a montage of games running on pre-production silicon, including Forza Horizon 4, Psychonauts 2, and Metro Exodus. Unfortunately, the gameplay demos didn’t show frame rates, and an Intel rep told us that the company isn’t ready to make performance claims at this time.

Leaked benchmarks showed a pre-production unit hitting clock speeds of 2,200MHz, which is faster than most consumer graphics cards. That doesn’t reveal much about performance, but it shows that Intel may be able to push its Xe HPG architecture pretty far.

All future enthusiast graphics endeavors will live under the Intel Arc name, including hardware, software, and services. The Arc name comes from the fact that “every game, gamer, and creator has a story, and every story has an arc.” Queue the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme.

Intel Arc logo.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The name would probably be better off without the explanation, but it’s clear Intel is all-in on the gamer aesthetic with this brand. Intel announced three upcoming generations of cards, code-named Battlemage, Celestial, and Druid. For Alchemist, Intel said it will reveal more details later this year, and that cards will show up in desktops and laptops in the first part of 2022.

First-generation cards some with full support for DirectX 12 Ultimate, meaning that they’re capable of features like DirectX Raytracing and variable rate shading. Again, Intel isn’t ready to reveal further details on this front, but we’ll keep this story updated if we hear anything else.

Jacob Roach
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jacob Roach is the lead reporter for PC hardware at Digital Trends. In addition to covering the latest PC components, from…
Prices for Intel’s Arc B580 are already shooting through the roof
The Intel logo on the Arc B580 graphics card.

Intel just launched its new $249 Arc B580 graphics card, and as you can read in our Intel Arc B580 review, it's one of the best graphics cards you can buy. It seems PC gamers have gotten the memo, as most models of the card are sold out online. If you want to get one now, you'll have to spend close to double the list price.

Looking at online retailers, it looks like Newegg has the most models listed for sale, though almost all of them are sold out. The only models available come from Gunnir, and they're both very expensive. The , while the . Both are sold by third-party sellers -- they aren't sold and shipped by Newegg -- so I wouldn't recommend spending up for one of these cards.

Read more
Intel’s new $249 GPU brings 1440p gaming to the masses
An exploded view of Intel's Arc A580 GPU.

Intel is trying to redefine what a "budget GPU" really means in 2024, and it's doing so with the new Arc B580 GPU. In what Intel itself described as its "worst kept secret," the B580 is the debut graphics card in Intel's new Battlemage range of discrete GPUs, and it's arriving at just $249. That's a price point that's been relegated to 1080p for decades, but Intel says the B580 will change that dynamic.

It's a 1440p GPU, at least by Intel's definition. That's despite the fact that Intel is comparing the card to GPUs like the RTX 4060 and RX 7600, both of which are more expensive than the B580 and squarely target 1080p. Intel says it can deliver higher performance than these two GPUs while undercutting the price, all in an attempt to capitalize on 1440p gamers. "1440p is becoming 1080p," as Intel's Tom Petersen put it in a pre-briefing with the press.

Read more
Intel just stole a page from Nvidia’s DLSS playbook
hp omen transcend 32 review 13

Intel is giving its XeSS upscaling tech a huge makeover. The aptly-named XeSS 2 steals -- or borrows, if we're being generous -- a page from Nvidia's DLSS 3, which has been a staple feature of some of the best graphics cards you can buy. XeSS 2 comes packed with super resolution like the original version, but also frame generation and a latency-reducing feature called XeLL. And it's launching alongside the new B580 graphics card.

Point-for-point, XeSS 2 is basically identical to DLSS 3. The super resolution portion functions much in the same way as the original XeSS, providing you with various different quality settings to render your game at a lower resolution in order to improve performance. On the upscaling side, the major change is native support for DirectX 12 and Vulkan, which should open up XeSS to more games.

Read more