ANDhe head of the revamped Intel Graphics division has come out to answer an open letter from pc gamer where they expose the “chart market nightmare» and ask the CEO of the chip giant, Pat Gelsinger, an effort so that his re-entry into the dedicated graphics sector serves as a solution.
You know how things are. The shortage of components due to the stoppage of factories during the worst moments of the COVID pandemic; The millions of people who now work from home and who have needed new infrastructure, and the increase in the value of cryptocurrencies, have caused the worst crisis in the graphic market in memory.
High demand has depleted stocks and as the supply chain is unable to renew inventory prices have skyrocketed to an outrageous level. The insatiable crypto miners continue to hoard whatever they can get their hands on, and the mob of scalpers that PC Gamer calls “opportunistic bastards” make more money than the official retailers.
These, in turn, are taking advantage of the crisis to increase their own margins and the little inventory that is put up for sale comes at a crazy cost. The manufacturers have not provided real solutions either, except for announcing “economic” models that reach the market at twice the price of the official ones and that are “refried” with much outdated technologies. If you put all this in the shaker you will understand the painful situation we live in: a big problem for the industry and in particular for the PC gaming community.
Intel Graphics, the solution?
There are no miracles here and Intel has its own production problems, but there is no doubt that the arrival of a third major manufacturer should encourage the market, increase stock and lower prices. Intel is not just anyone. It is already the first global producer of graphics chips (thanks to those integrated in its processors) and its return to the commercialization of dedicated graphics cards (after 20 years) is a blessing. If it delivers what it promises.
And it is that PC Gamer says in his open letter what some of us fear. That “it is not in the interest of NVIDIA or AMD to change the pricing structure of GPUs for the better. And that means that if ever there was a time for Intel to return to the graphics card industry, it’s now. If he can deliver an Arc Alchemist GPU lineup at the level the leaks cite, at half a decent volume, and undercut the competition… well, that will instantly win the hearts and minds of an entire generation of PC gamers.”.
«And you don’t need to have the most powerful GPU to launch the best graphics card of 2022, we just need that performs competitively and is priced at a moderate level«. Raja Koduri, the head of the Intel Graphics division, has responded to this article on Twitter. «I am with you. This is a huge problem for PC gamers and the industry in general.”:
I am with you @pcgamer. This is a huge issue for PC gamers and the industry at large. @IntelGraphics is working hard to find a path towards the mission – getting millions of Arc GPUs into the hands of PC gamers every year https://t.co/bknQOvUMti
— Raja Koduri (@Rajaontheedge) January 29, 2022
And the best thing is the promise that they are working hard «to find a way to the mission: putting millions of Arc GPUs in the hands of PC gamers every year«. We already said that Intel is not free from supply problems either (see its problematic transition to 10nm), but in the current situation everything is welcome. Let’s hope that the Arc Alchemist arrive with the level of performance that the preliminary data says, in sufficient units and at reasonable prices.
