Intel mentioned Thursday that it expects to ship greater than 4 million discrete Arc GPUs in 2022, launching Arc Alchemist chips for the pocket book market this quarter, and desktop graphics playing cards starting within the second quarter of this yr.
Intel executives additionally promised one thing new for 2023: the upcoming “Battlemage” GPU, which a senior government referred to as a “new class of graphics” bridging discrete and built-in GPUs.
Raja Koduri, senior vp and normal supervisor of the newly minted Accelerated Computing Methods and Graphics (AXG) Group at Intel, mentioned in a recorded presentation that Intel already has greater than 50 design wins for the Alchemist lineup, together with PC makers in addition to add-on card distributors. Koduri spoke prematurely of Intel’s investor day, with speeches from senior executives scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
Intel’s entry into the GPU house has been hotly anticipated, as a lot for the way it would possibly alleviate ongoing provide shortages as anything. Intel mentioned final yr that it plans to launch the Arc model and Alchemist chips in 2022. Sadly, the corporate nonetheless hasn’t mentioned when the primary notebooks with discrete Alchemist graphics chips inside them will ship. The roadmap, although, is about: pocket book graphics within the first quarter, desktop graphics within the second, and workstation graphics within the third. Intel didn’t announce particular partnerships with any card distributors, although two featured logos had been for Gigabyte and MSI, each of which make graphics playing cards in addition to PCs.
Intel
Greater than 100 software program companions even have signed up to make use of Intel-specific options, corresponding to Xe Tremendous Sampling and Deep Hyperlink. The latter, like an identical know-how from AMD, guarantees improved efficiency when an Alchemist/Xe GPU is paired with an Intel CPU.
Intel will ship the Alchemist chip alongside the Alder Lake and Raptor Lake CPUs this yr. It received’t be till 2023 that Intel ships “Battlemage,” which Koduri described as creating a brand new class of GPUs “all the best way into enthusiast-class GPUs.”
In 2023, Intel will launch the Meteor Lake CPU, which is able to allow a tiled structure that can work with Battlemage. “That is tremendous thrilling,” Koduri mentioned. “This enables us to supply discrete graphics class efficiency, with the effectivity of built-in graphics. It is a new class of graphics. You possibly can’t actually name it built-in or discrete and that is just the start of the strategic benefits that this tiled structure will give us. We are going to speak extra about this sooner or later.”
Intel and AMD have adopted a tiled method to CPU design to permit them to turn out to be extra modular—by decoupling the GPU and CPU design, separate groups can work on their very own tasks. Meteor Lake would be the first time that Intel has positioned the GPU by itself tile.
If Battlemage is about to ship “fanatic”-class efficiency, Intel mentioned that work has already begun on “Celestial,” a product for the “ultra-enthusiast” section in 2024 or later, based on Koduri. The objective is “efficiency management in each layer,” Koduri mentioned.
Koduro additionally introduced yet one more factor: Undertaking Endgame, a “continuous XPU compute” platform that can launch in 2022. Koduro described Endgame as a “software program infrastructure” platform, and mentioned that it will have extra to speak about later this yr.
The Accelerated Computing Methods and Graphics Group (AXG) is on observe to ship merchandise throughout its three segments and ship greater than $1 billion in income in 2022, Intel mentioned. “As a progress engine for Intel, AXG’s three segments collectively will method $10 billion of income for Intel by 2026.”
As PCWorld’s senior editor, Mark focuses on Microsoft information and chip know-how, amongst different beats. He has previously written for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK, and ReadWrite.