Intel’s First Alchemist Discrete Gaming GPU, The Arc A370M Graphics, Launches on 30th March With Up To 2x The Performance Improvement Over Iris Xe iGPUs

As a follow-up to their Arc graphics announcement post from yesterday, the Vice President of Intel's Visual Computing Group has confirmed that the Arc A370M discrete solution for mobility solutions will be their first Alchemist product.

Intel Arc A370M Discrete Gaming Graphics For Laptops To Be The First Xe-HPG 'Alchemist' GPU For The Gaming Segment

The Intel Arc A370M Discrete Graphics isn't something new. We have seen this chip leak out before and it's also been listed recently by several laptop manufacturers. It looks like Intel has confirmed that the Arc A370M is going to be one of their first Alchemist product and will be launching on the 30th of March.

Intel states that they will be sharing performance numbers and that their first Arc A370M graphics which is based on the most entry-level Arc Alchemist design, will offer up to 2x the performance improvement over their integrated Iris Xe GPU with 96 EUs. Considering that the A370M will have an EU count close to 96 EUs of the integrated iGPU, a 2x performance improvement is going to be great for gamers. The added performance will come through higher clocks, slightly higher TDPs & an improved Alchemist architecture versus the older DG1 Xe-LP designs.

Question #1: Why are you releasing the mobile version of Intel Arc graphics ahead of desktop?

We have been hard at work preparing our Intel Arc graphics products for gamers and creators. It has been an incredible journey, and we are excited to begin launching our mobile family of Intel Arc A-series GPUs on March 30th and showcasing key technologies, like Intel® Deep Link, XeSS and more.

Intel technology powers a significant share of the world’s notebooks, and we have decades of experience building leadership platforms with our partners. By beginning to launch our mobile products first, we aim to bring all our technologies (CPU, graphics, media, display, I/O, etc.) to bear to deliver great experiences.

Question #2: What performance can we expect from the first product to make it to market, the Intel Arc A370M?

The first Intel Arc discrete graphics products to enter the mobile market will enable up to a 2X improvement in graphics performance vs. integrated graphics alone while maintaining similar form factors. This is the first time you’ll find verified Intel Evo designs with discrete graphics able to maintain the experience standards of that program thanks to Intel Deep Link technology, like Power Share. After that, you’ll see higher performance configs of Intel Arc graphics for both notebook and desktop designs that raise performance levels for gamers and creators. More details and exact specs will be shared soon.

In general, software tuning is critical to deliver maximum performance on GPUs, but it will take some time for us to mature our GPU stack for all applications. So, to accelerate performance today, we have developed application optimization techniques (such as shader tuning) that ensure top applications deliver a great experience, while our compiler matures in parallel. These optimizations are now in place for the top 50 applications, and we are rapidly expanding our coverage to the top 100.

Application compatibility is also critical for our users, and while we expect nearly all applications to run, we’ve tested the top 100 applications for compatibility and performance, and we are expanding or efforts to cover the top 200 applications. For games, we will be publishing simple summaries to help end users understand the capabilities of each specific product. For example, we will publish the number of games playable at 1080p or 1440p resolution across medium or high-quality settings.

 An example of what we will publish at launch is something like the below table:

Experience Band (Average FPS)	Title count
>90	#
>60	#
>45	#
<45	#

Example Entry Notebook Data: 1080p Medium

As we build up this data set, we are also committed to continuously evolve the game experience on Intel Arc graphics products and publish metrics on frame rate variability, stability and smoothness. You’ll hear more on this front later this year, and we’ll be eager to hear your feedback.

Intel Arc Performance Endnotes:

We have already detailed the core architecture, specifications, and features of the Arc Alchemist lineup in our detailed roundup over here. As we know, the Intel Arc Alchemist lineup will feature two primary DG2 GPU SKUs, the big 'SOC 1' and the small 'SOC 2'. SOC 1 will feature the DG2-512 configuration and will be utilized by the Arc A700 and Arc A500 series graphics solutions while the SOC 2 config that will utilize the DG2-128 SKU, will be utilized by the Arc A300 series.

Several Intel Arc A300 series GPUs have been leaked over time including the desktop Arc A380 and the mobility Arc A370M and Arc A350M. All three of these graphics solutions feature the SOC 2 'DG2-128' SKU. The Arc A300 series as such will rock up to 8 Xe-Cores, 128 Execution Units, 1024 ALUs, a 128-bit (14 Gbps) memory solution, and a 6nm process node from TSMC. The DG2-128 SOC2 is likely going to roll out first for the laptop segment with the higher-end version rolling out in the next months.

Intel Xe-HPG Based Discrete Alchemist GPU Configurations:

Intel is also expected to further detail its Arc Alchemist graphics features at GDC 2022 with several keynotes scheduled for March 23rd and 24th. More on that here. Intel's Raja Koduri stated that he wants to get a million Arc GPUs into PCs every year & the blue team is expecting an initial shipment of over 4 million units within 2022.