Intel has only just detailed its first Arc laptop GPUs, but it’s already teasing its desktop plans. The company has offered a look at an Arc A Series Limited Edition graphics card arriving sometime this summer — yes, that’s another delay. There aren’t any specs or pricing, unfortunately, but the double-height design and dual-fan cooling make it clear that this is aimed directly at gamers who would normally buy AMD or NVIDIA boards.
Early Arc desktop GPUs are expected to support many modern features, including hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI-based supersampling. Intel is already developing second-generation GPUs, nicknamed Battlemage, and expects its third-generation Celestial hardware to target the “ultra-enthusiastic” camp.
It’s too early to say whether Arc desktop models will offer truly competitive performance. However, this last delay does not help. NVIDIA is poised to ship its first Ampere Next-based GPUs (probably the RTX 40 series) later this year, and AMD will follow with the Radeon RX 7000 series. Intel is aiming for a moving target, and there are no guarantees that a card released this summer will hold up against the very latest the competition has to offer.
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