# Intel Arc

Intel Arc is a brand of graphics processing units designed by Intel. These are discrete GPUs mostly marketed for the high-margin gaming PC market. The brand also covers Intel's consumer graphics software and services.
Arc competes with Nvidia's GeForce and AMD's Radeon lines. The Arc-A series for laptops was launched on March 30, 2022, with the A750 and A770 both released in Q3 2022. Intel missed their initial Q2 2022 release target, with most discrete Arc GPUs not launching until October 2022.
Intel officially launched the Arc Pro workstation GPUs on August 8, 2022.
Intel officially announced the 2nd-generation Battlemage GPUs on December 3rd, 2024. The first model, the B580, was released on December 13th, 2024.

## Etymology

According to Intel, the brand is named after the concept of story arcs found in video games. Each generation of Arc is named after character classes sorted by each letter of the Latin alphabet in ascending order. They begin with A, then B, then C, and so on. The first generation is named Alchemist, while Battlemage, Celestial and Druid are the respective names for the second, third and fourth Arc generations.

## Graphics processor generations
### Alchemist

Developed under the previous codename "DG2", the first generation of Intel Arc GPUs (codenamed "Alchemist") released on March 30, 2022. It comes in both add-on desktop card and laptop form factors. TSMC manufactures the die, using their N6 process.
Alchemist uses the Intel Xe GPU architecture, or more specifically, the Xe-HPG variant. Alchemist supports hardware-based ray tracing, XeSS or supersampling based on neural networks (similar to Nvidia's DLSS and AMD's FSR), and DirectX 12 Ultimate. Also supported are DisplayPort 2.0 and overclocking. AV1 fixed-function hardware encoder is included in Alchemist GPUs as part of the Intel Quick Sync Video core.
Intel confirmed ASTC support has been removed from hardware starting with Alchemist and future Arc GPU microarchitectures will also not support it.
Arc Alchemist does not support SR-IOV or Direct3D 9 natively, instead falling back on the D3D9On12 wrapper which translates Direct3D 9 calls to their Direct3D 12 equivalents.
Arc support OpenCL 3.0 for example, this GPU can work in the grid World Community Grid.
Display connections: DisplayPort 2.0 (40 Gbit/s bandwidth) and HDMI 2.1

#### Desktop

vte Overview of Intel Arc Alchemist GPUs :
| Branding and Model | Branding and Model | Launch | MSRP (USD) | Code name | Process | Transistors (billion) | Die size (mm$^2$) | Core config | L2 cache | Clock rate (MHz) | Fillrate | Fillrate | Memory | Memory | Memory | Memory | Memory | Processing power (TFLOPS) | Processing power (TFLOPS) | Processing power (TFLOPS) | TDP | Bus interface |
| Branding and Model | Branding and Model | Launch | MSRP (USD) | Code name | Process | Transistors (billion) | Die size (mm$^2$) | Core config | L2 cache | Clock rate (MHz) | Pixel (GP/s) | Texture (GT/s) | Type | Size (GB) | Bandwidth (GB/s) | Bus width | Clock (MT/s) | Half precision (base) | Single precision (base) | Double precision (base) | TDP | Bus interface |
| Arc 3 | A310 | Sep 28, 2022 | $110 | ACM-G11 (DG2-128) | TSMC N6 | 7.2 | 157 | 6 Xe cores 768:32:16:6 (192:96:2) | 4 MB | 2000 2000 | 32 | 64 | GDDR6 | 4 GB | 124 | 64-bit | 15500 | 6.144 | 3.072 | n/a | 75 W | PCIe 4.0 x8 |
| Arc 3 | A380 | Jun 14, 2022 | $139 | ACM-G11 (DG2-128) | TSMC N6 | 7.2 | 157 | 8 Xe cores 1024:64:32:8 (256:128:2) | 4 MB | 2000 2050 | 64 65.6 | 128 131.2 | GDDR6 | 6 GB | 186 | 96-bit | 15500 | 8.192 8.3968 | 4.096 4.1984 | n/a n/a | 75 W | PCIe 4.0 x8 |
| Arc 5 | A580 | Oct 10, 2023 | $179 | ACM-G10 (DG2-512) | TSMC N6 | 21.7 | 406 | 24 Xe cores 3072:192:96:24 (768:384:6) | 8 MB | 1700 1700 | 163.2 | 326.4 | GDDR6 | 8 GB | 512 | 256-bit | 16000 | 20.890 | 10.445 | n/a | 175 W | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
| Arc 7 | A750 | Oct 14, 2022 | $289 | ACM-G10 (DG2-512) | TSMC N6 | 21.7 | 406 | 28 Xe cores 3584:224:112:28 (896:448:7) | 16 MB | 2050 2400 | 229.6 268.8 | 393.6 460.8 | GDDR6 | 8 GB | 512 | 256-bit | 16000 | 29.3888 34.4064 | 14.6944 17.2032 | n/a n/a | 225 W | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
| Arc 7 | A770 8GB | Oct 14, 2022 | $329 | ACM-G10 (DG2-512) | TSMC N6 | 21.7 | 406 | 32 Xe cores 4096:256:128:32 (1024:512:8) | 16 MB | 2100 2400 | 268.8 307.2 | 537.6 614.4 | GDDR6 | 8 GB | 512 | 256-bit | 16000 | 34.4064 39.3216 | 17.2032 19.6608 | n/a n/a | 225 W | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
| Arc 7 | A770 16GB | Oct 14, 2022 | $349 | ACM-G10 (DG2-512) | TSMC N6 | 21.7 | 406 | 32 Xe cores 4096:256:128:32 (1024:512:8) | 16 MB | 2100 2400 | 268.8 307.2 | 537.6 614.4 | GDDR6 | 16 GB | 560 | 256-bit | 17500 | 34.4064 39.3216 | 17.2032 19.6608 | n/a n/a | 225 W | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
* ↑ In OpenCL 3.0, OpenCL 1.2 functionality has become a mandatory baseline, while all OpenCL 2.x and OpenCL 3.0 features were made optional.
* ↑ Shading cores (ALU): texture mapping units (TMU): render output units (ROP): ray tracing units (tensor cores (XMX): execution units: render slices)
* ↑ Boost values (if available) are stated below the base value in italic.

#### Mobile

vte Overview of Intel Arc Alchemist GPUs for mobile devices :
| Branding and Model | Branding and Model | Launch | Code name | Process | Transistors (billion) | Die size (mm$^2$) | Core config | L2 cache | Core clock (MHz) | Fillrate | Fillrate | Memory | Memory | Memory | Memory | Memory | Processing power (TFLOPS) | Processing power (TFLOPS) | Processing power (TFLOPS) | TDP | Bus interface |
| Branding and Model | Branding and Model | Launch | Code name | Process | Transistors (billion) | Die size (mm$^2$) | Core config | L2 cache | Core clock (MHz) | Pixel (GP/s) | Texture (GT/s) | Type | Size | Bandwidth (GB/s) | Bus width | Clock (MT/s) | Half precision | Single precision | Double precision | TDP | Bus interface |
| Arc 3 | A350M | Mar 30, 2022 | ACM-G11 (DG2-128) | TSMC N6 | 7.2 | 157 | 6 Xe cores 768:48:24:6 (96:96:2) | 4 MB | 1150 2200 | 27.6 52.8 | 55.2 105.6 | GDDR6 | 4 GB | 112 | 64-bit | 14000 | 3.5328 6.7584 | 1.7664 3.3792 | 0.4416 0.8448 | 25–35 W | PCIe 4.0 ×8 |
| Arc 3 | A370M | Mar 30, 2022 | ACM-G11 (DG2-128) | TSMC N6 | 7.2 | 157 | 8 Xe cores 1024:64:32:8 (128:128:2) | 4 MB | 1550 2050 | 49.6 65.6 | 99.2 131.2 | GDDR6 | 4 GB | 112 | 64-bit | 14000 | 6.3488 8.3968 | 3.1744 4.1984 | 0.7936 1.0496 | 35–50 W | PCIe 4.0 ×8 |
| Arc 5 | A530M | Q3 2023 | ACM-G12 (DG2-256) | TSMC N6 | | | 12 Xe cores 1536:96:48:12 (192:192:3) | 8 MB | 1300 | | | GDDR6 | 4 GB 8 GB | 224 | 128-bit | 14000 | | | | 65–95 W | PCIe 4.0 ×8 |
| Arc 5 | A550M | Q2 2022 | ACM-G10 (DG2-512) | TSMC N6 | 21.7 | 406 | 16 Xe cores 2048:128:64:16 (256:256:4) | 8 MB | 900 1700 | 57.6 108.8 | 115.2 217.6 | GDDR6 | 8 GB | 224 | 128-bit | 14000 | 7.3728 13.9264 | 3.6864 6.9632 | 0.9216 1.7408 | 60–80 W | PCIe 4.0 ×8 |
| Arc 5 | A570M | Q3 2023 | ACM-G12 (DG2-256) | TSMC N6 | | | 16 Xe cores 2048:128:64:16 (256:256:4) | 8 MB | 1300 | | | GDDR6 | 8 GB | 224 | 128-bit | 14000 | | | | 75–95 W | PCIe 4.0 ×8 |
| Arc 7 | A730M | Q2 2022 | ACM-G10 (DG2-512) | TSMC N6 | 21.7 | 406 | 24 Xe cores 3072:192:96:24 (384:384:6) | 12 MB | 1100 2050 | 105.6 196.8 | 211.2 393.6 | GDDR6 | 12 GB | 336 | 192-bit | 14000 | 13.5168 25.1904 | 6.7584 12.5952 | 1.6896 3.1488 | 80–120 W | PCIe 4.0 ×16 |
| Arc 7 | A770M | Q2 2022 | ACM-G10 (DG2-512) | TSMC N6 | 21.7 | 406 | 32 Xe cores 4096:256:128:32 (512:512:8) | 16 MB | 1650 2050 | 211.2 262.4 | 422.4 524.8 | GDDR6 | 16 GB | 512 | 256-bit | 16000 | 27.0336 33.5872 | 13.5168 16.7936 | 3.3792 4.1984 | 120–150 W | PCIe 4.0 ×16 |
* ↑ Shading cores (ALU): texture mapping units (TMU): render output units (ROP): ray tracing units (tensor cores (XMX): execution units: render slices)
* ↑ Texture fillrate is calculated as the number of texture mapping units (TMUs) multiplied by the base (or boost) core clock speed.
* ↑ Boost values (if available) are stated below the base value in italic.
* ↑ Pixel fillrate is calculated as the lowest of three numbers: number of ROPs multiplied by the base core clock speed, number of rasterizers multiplied by the number of fragments they can generate per rasterizer multiplied by the base core clock speed, and the number of streaming multiprocessors multiplied by the number of fragments per clock that they can output multiplied by the base clock rate.

#### Workstation

vte Overview of Intel Arc Alchemist GPUs for Workstations :
| Branding and Model | Branding and Model | Launch | Code name | Process | Transistors (billion) | Die size (mm$^2$) | Core config | L2 cache | Core clock (MHz) | Fillrate | Fillrate | Memory | Memory | Memory | Memory | Memory | Processing power (TFLOPS) | Processing power (TFLOPS) | Processing power (TFLOPS) | TDP | Bus interface |
| Branding and Model | Branding and Model | Launch | Code name | Process | Transistors (billion) | Die size (mm$^2$) | Core config | L2 cache | Core clock (MHz) | Pixel (GP/s) | Texture (GT/s) | Type | Size | Bandwidth (GB/s) | Bus width | Clock (MT/s) | Half precision | Single precision | Double precision | TDP | Bus interface |
| Arc Pro | A30M | Aug 8, 2022 | ACM-G11 (DG2-128) | TSMC N6 | 7.2 | 157 | 8 Xe cores 1024:64:32:8 (128:128:2) | 4 MB | 1550 | | | GDDR6 | 4 GB | 112 | 64-bit | 14000 | | 4.20 | | 50 W | PCIe 4.0 x8 |
| Arc Pro | A40 | Aug 8, 2022 | ACM-G11 (DG2-128) | TSMC N6 | 7.2 | 157 | 8 Xe cores 1024:64:32:8 (128:128:2) | 4 MB | 1550 | | | GDDR6 | 6 GB | 192 | 96-bit | 16000 | | 5.02 | | 50 W | PCIe 4.0 x8 |
| Arc Pro | A50 | Aug 8, 2022 | ACM-G11 (DG2-128) | TSMC N6 | 7.2 | 157 | 8 Xe cores 1024:64:32:8 (128:128:2) | 4 MB | 2050 | | | GDDR6 | 6 GB | 192 | 96-bit | 16000 | | 5.02 | | 75 W | PCIe 4.0 x8 |
| Arc Pro | A60M | June 6, 2023 | ACM-G12 (DG2-256) | TSMC N6 | | | 16 Xe cores 2048:128:64:16 (256:256:4) | | 1300 | | | GDDR6 | 8 GB | 256 | 128-bit | 16000 | | 9.42 | | 95 W | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
| Arc Pro | A60 | June 6, 2023 | ACM-G12 (DG2-256) | TSMC N6 | | | 16 Xe cores 2048:128:64:16 (256:256:4) | | 2000 | | | GDDR6 | 12 GB | 384 | 192-bit | 16000 | | 10.04 | | 130 W | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
* ↑ Shading cores (ALU): texture mapping units (TMU): render output units (ROP): ray tracing units (tensor cores (XMX): execution Units: render slices)
* ↑ Boost values (if available) are stated below the base value in italic.
* ↑ Pixel fillrate is calculated as the lowest of three numbers: number of ROPs multiplied by the base core clock speed, number of rasterizers multiplied by the number of fragments they can generate per rasterizer multiplied by the base core clock speed, and the number of streaming multiprocessors multiplied by the number of fragments per clock that they can output multiplied by the base clock rate.
* ↑ Texture fillrate is calculated as the number of texture mapping units (TMUs) multiplied by the base (or boost) core clock speed.

### Battlemage

Battlemage (X$^e$2) is the second-generation X$^e$ architecture that debuted with its low power variant in Lunar Lake mobile processors that released in September 2024. On December 3, 2024, Intel announced two Arc B-Series desktop graphics cards based on the X$^e$2-HPG graphics architecture.
vte Overview of Intel Arc Battlemage GPUs :
| Branding and Model | Branding and Model | Released | MSRP (USD) | Code name | Transistors (billion) | Die size (mm$^2$) | Core | Core | Cache | Cache | Memory | Memory | Memory | Memory | Memory | Fillrate | Fillrate | Processing power (TFLOPS) | Processing power (TFLOPS) | Processing power (TFLOPS) | TDP | Bus interface |
| Branding and Model | Branding and Model | Released | MSRP (USD) | Code name | Transistors (billion) | Die size (mm$^2$) | Config | Clock (MHz) | L1 | L2 | Type | Size | Clock rate (Gb/s) | Band- width (GB/s) | Bus width | Pixel (Gpx/s) | Texture (Gtex/s) | Half precision (base) | Single precision (base) | Double precision (base) | TDP | Bus interface |
| Arc 5 | B570 | Jan 16, 2025 | $219 | BMG-G21 | 19.6 | 272 mm$^2$ | 18 X$^e$ Cores (144) 2304:144:72:18:144 | 1700 2500 | 4.5 MB | 10 MB | GDDR6 | 10 GB | 19.0 | 380 | 160-bit | 122.4 200.0 | 244.8 360.0 | 23.04 | 11.52 | 1.44 | 150 W | PCIe 4.0 x8 |
| Arc 5 | B580 | Dec 13, 2024 | $249 | BMG-G21 | 19.6 | 272 mm$^2$ | 20 X$^e$ Cores (160) 2560:160:80:20:160 | 1700 2670 | 5 MB | 12 MB | GDDR6 | 12 GB | 19.0 | 456 | 192-bit | 136.0 213.6 | 272.0 427.2 | 27.34 | 13.67 | 1.709 | 190 W | PCIe 4.0 x8 |
* ↑ Pixel fillrate is calculated as the number of render output units (ROPs) multiplied by the base (or boost) core clock speed.
* ↑ Texture fillrate is calculated as the number of texture mapping units (TMUs) multiplied by the base (or boost) core clock speed.
* ↑ X$^e$2-HPG Cores (X$^e$ Vector Engines) Unified Shaders : Texture Mapping Units : Render Output Units : Ray Tracing Cores : XMX Cores
* ↑ Boost values (if available) are stated below the base value in italics.

### Future generations

Intel also revealed future generations of Intel Arc GPUs under development: Celestial (X$^e$3), and Druid (X$^e$4).
Intel revealed that Meteor Lake and later generations of CPU SoCs uses an Intel Arc Tile GPU.

## Intel XeSS

Intel XeSS is a real-time deep learning image upsampling technology developed primarily for use in video games as a competitor to Nvidia's DLSS and AMD's FSR technologies. Additionally, XeSS is not restricted to Arc graphics cards. It utilizes XMX instructions exclusive to Arc graphics cards, but will fall back to utilizing DP4a instructions on competing GPUs that have support for DP4a instructions. XeSS is trained with 64 samples per pixel as opposed to Nvidia DLSS's 16 samples per pixel (16K reference images).
Standard XeSS quality presets :
| Quality preset | Scale factor | Render scale | Scale factor $_{(1.0-1.2)}$ | Render scale $_{(1.0-1.2)}$ |
| Native Anti-Aliasing$_{(since1.3)}$ | 1.00x$_{(since1.3)}$ | 100% | N/A | N/A |
| Ultra Quality Plus$_{(since1.3)}$ | 1.30x$_{(since1.3)}$ | 77.0% | N/A | N/A |
| Ultra Quality | 1.50×$_{(since1.3)}$ | 66.7% | 1.30x | 77.0% |
| Quality | 1.70×$_{(since1.3)}$ | 58.8% | 1.50x | 66.7% |
| Balanced | 2.00×$_{(since1.3)}$ | 50.0% | 1.70x | 58.8% |
| Performance | 2.30×$_{(since1.3)}$ | 43.5% | 2.00x | 50.0% |
| Ultra Performance$_{(since1.3)}$ | 3.00×$_{(since1.3)}$ | 33.3% | N/A | N/A |
* ↑ The algorithm does not necessarily need to be implemented using these presets; it is possible for the implementer to define custom input and output resolutions.
* 1 2 The linear scale factor used for upsampling the input resolution to the output resolution. For example, a scene rendered at 540p with a 2.00× scale factor would have an output resolution of 1080p.
* 1 2 The linear render scale, compared to the output resolution, that the technology uses to render scenes internally before upsampling. For example, a 1080p scene with a 50% render scale would have an internal resolution of 540p.

## Issues
### Drivers

Performance on Intel Arc GPUs has suffered from poor driver support, particularly at launch. An investigation by Gamers Nexus discovered 43 known driver issues with Arc GPUs, prompting a response and acknowledgement of the issues from Intel. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger also blamed driver problems as a reason for Arc's delayed launch. A beta driver from October 2022 accidentally reduced the memory clock by 9% on the Arc A770 from 2187 MHz to 2000 MHz, resulting in a 17% reduction in memory bandwidth. This particular issue was later fixed. Intel provides an open source driver for Linux.

### DirectX 9 compatibility

As of the Alchemist generation, Arc only includes direct hardware support for the DirectX 11 & 12 and Vulkan graphics APIs, with the older DirectX 9 & 10 and OpenGL APIs being supported via a real-time compatibility layer built into Intel's graphics driver. As a result, Alchemist GPUs perform noticeably worse than competing Nvidia and AMD GPUs in software that can only use these older APIs, including multiple DirectX 9-based esports games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. There is also a performance gap between DirectX 11 and DirectX 12.
A December 2022 driver update improved Arc compatibility and performance with DirectX 9-based games. According to Intel, the driver update made Arc GPUs up to 1.8x faster in DirectX 9 games. A February 2023 driver update further improved Arc's performance on DirectX 9-based games.

### Legacy BIOS compatibility

Intel Arc requires a UEFI BIOS with resizable BAR support for optimal performance. UEFI Class 1 and Class 2 BIOS are not supported by Intel Arc.

## Footnotes

* ↑ In OpenCL 3.0, OpenCL 1.2 functionality has become a mandatory baseline, while all OpenCL 2.x and OpenCL 3.0 features were made optional.