There is no doubt that the fact that there is a third participant in the gaming graphics card duopoly is always good for the end user. Especially due to the fact that NVIDIA has become strong in recent generations, due to the huge setback of AMD with its RX Vega, whose failure ended with the departure of Raja Koduri from AMD who is now, ironically, in Intel directing the development of its new GPUs.
The market standards for graphics cards are different from those for processors and are more similar to those for motherboards. Thus, a large number of manufacturers and assemblers collaborate with GPU manufacturers to create different custom graphics cards or with changes from the standard design. The relationship of these manufacturers with Intel is excellent, since they are the same ones that make motherboards for their processors, but the number of graphics cards they make for each manufacturer depends on public demand. Obviously, in the case of ARC GPUs there is no precedent. So the question boils down to: how many Intel ARC Alchemists will there be in stock?
A stock of 4 million Intel ARC GPUs for gaming?
Well, manufacturing is not the exact word, as in this case they have decided to use a third-party vendor and thus TSMC’s N6 manufacturing node to manufacture their ARC Alchemist GPUs in their various configurations. Which will be aimed at different form factors with a total of 50 products that will be launched during this year.
Something that was already announced to us at the last CES conference. The news? Intel says that the deployment of its architecture in laptops will take place during this quarter. Since we have not yet seen any laptop with the new graphics cards in stores, we assume that the reference is not to marketing, but to manufacturing, although there is still a month left and they could be announced at any time.
As for the desktop, there is talk of the second quarter, and here we have changes compared to a few weeks ago. Which? Well, the fact that Intel already talks about “AIC” and not just the OEM or pre-built market. So it is possible that we will see Intel graphics cards to mount on our PCs in case we want to opt for the Intel option. Of course, the only ones that we have a reference to as a product that is going to be launched in the short term are the A380 and A350, both in desktop and laptop versions. Cards with worse specifications than the RX 6500 XT from AMD and the RTX 3050 from NVIDIA.
And this is where the figure comes in. 4 millionssince Intel intends to win only 300 million dollars by selling these cards. This is only $75 per graphics card, which tells us that the plan is none other than to sell the low-end GPU. And the price indicates that all those gaming GPUs are not going to be sold directly in the form of graphics cards for the final consumer. I mean, most of those 4 million ARC Alchemists in stock are going to go to the OEM market.
Is Intel late to the party?
Well, it could be that yes, the Intel ARC Alchemist arrive with a great delay behind their backs in terms of their launch. They were designed to compete against the NVIDIA RTX 30 and AMD RX 6000 that were released in 2020 and early 2021. That we don’t hear from the more powerful Intel ARC Alchemist so that we can have some faith makes us think that something has occurred. Although the worst comes from the fact that the GPU that is part of the A380 and A350 models has simply been beaten in performance for the Radeon 600M of the AMD Ryzen 6000 APUs.
Let’s not forget that the graphics card of the AMD APU is integrated and does not cause an increase in the costs of pre-built computers, laptops or desktops, while a separate chip such as entry-level ARCs does suffer from that problem. That is why Intel is offering great discounts on the pair of its Intel Core 12 and its first ARC Alchemist graphics in order to gain market share or release a chip that is not competitive.
In any case, within those 4 million they will include the highest power ranges, and it seems to us a very low figure. Especially if we take into account the 13 million gaming graphics cards that were sold together in 2021. Although they are many more than the Radeon that have been sold this year, so Intel would aim to overtake AMD in market share and stay with second place.
