Intel is getting into the business of selling high-powered graphics cards for PC gaming: the Intel Arc [This is because AMD and Nvidia have been battling it out in this market for decades, and a new challenger with Intel's expertise and market share could shake things up In addition, the prospect of Intel launching its own high-end GPU line, as ongoing chip shortages and rising demand make high-powered graphics cards hard to come by, could make the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT The prospect of Intel launching its own high-end GPU line may bring relief to PC gaming enthusiasts exhausted by the search for restocks of popular cards like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT

However, we will have to wait until at least early next year to see Intel's Arc card in action The first wave of Arc products, codenamed "Alchemist," will be available in the first quarter of 2022, and Intel has announced that cutting-edge DirectX 12 Ultimate, AI-powered supersampling, and hardware-based ray tracing The company promises to support gaming and graphics technologies The company has also released a teaser video showcasing these features in games such as Crysis Remastered Trilogy, Forza Horizon 4, and Metro Exodus running on the pre-release Arc Silicon

All of this confirms what we have suspected for months now about Intel's plans to release its own discrete graphics cards: in March, the company announced that it will ship in a variety of configurations, known as the Intel Xe HPG The company revealed specifications for a high-power graphics card known as the Intel Xe HPG, which will ship in a variety of configurations Shortly thereafter, there were leaks that the first consumer card, codenamed DG2, would be announced in early 2022 and released shortly thereafter

Now we know that is exactly what Intel is planning, and what we previously knew to be DG2 is now confirmed to be Alchemist However, Alchemist and all future Arc releases are not limited to graphics cards; the Arc brand spans widely and covers all of Intel's planned high-end consumer grade graphics products and services in the coming years Arc is the next in the series of Arc products and services After Alchemist comes Battlemage, Celestial, and Druid

It's hard to say how big an impact Intel Arc will have on the current state of PC gaming graphics technology until we see Alchemist in action, but it's at least exciting to see a new competitor enter the high-end GPU market Since then, it has not been a major player in the consumer-grade discrete graphics card market, but that could all change next year