Intel Talks ARC Alchemist GPUs: TSMC 6nm Over Intel Fabs Due To Manufacturing Capacity, XeSS Backwards Compatible & Partner ‘Custom’ Graphics Cards

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Intel's Flagship ARC Graphics Card With Xe-HPG Alchemist GPU To Tackle AMD RX 6700 XT & NVIDIA RTX 3070

Talking to ASCII.JP, Intel executives including Raja Koduri talked about the upcoming ARC Alchemist GPU lineup and the respective graphics cards.

Intel Says The Main Reason To Select TSMC Over Its Own Fab For ARC Alchemist GPUs Was Manufacturing Capacity

Intel talked a lot about its HPC and HPG graphics architectures which include Ponte Vecchio & ARC GPUs. We will start off with the details for the Intel ARC GPUs since most of the Ponte Vecchio GPU details are already known.

The first thing that's talked about is why Intel chose TSMC over its own Fabs to manufacturer ARC GPUs. The reason stated is that during the development of ARC GPUs for the gaming segment, the top priority was given to the process that offered a good manufacturing capacity. Intel's own node for that purpose didn't seem like a great fit for ARC GPUs due to insufficient capacity (Intel 7 to be presumed). Other characteristics such as the operating frequency and cost were also factored in & the company decided it was the best to outsource the manufacturing to TSMC as its N6 (6nm) node offered the best balance.

Intel ARC Alchemist All Set To Tackle NVIDIA GeForce & AMD Radeon GPUs In The $100 To $500 US Market Range

For the next generation, similar considerations will be taken into account again and whether we see Intel return to its own Fabs for the production of ARC Battlemage GPUs or outsource them to TSMC's on its N5 or N4 node remains to be seen.

Intel Xe-HPG ARC Alchemist GPUs To Offer More Than 32 Xe Cores?

Intel also states that its Xe-HPG architecture is very scalable. That was their response to whether the 8-slice Xe-HPG ARC Alchemist GPU shown to the press was the flagship 32 Xe-Core config so it looks like we can get a higher-end SKU sometime in the future but we know for sure that the two chips coming in Q1 2022 are going to offer 32 and 8 Xe cores, respectively.

Intel has so far shown its 8 Render slice with 32 Xe Cores to be the flagship ARC Alchemist GPU configurations.
Intel has so far shown its 8 Render slice with 32 Xe Cores to be the flagship ARC Alchemist GPU configurations.

There's no set number of maximum or minimum Xe Render slices confirmed yet but what's known is that they will depend entirely on the application, whether it be a desktop or mobility aimed SKU.

Intel ARC Alchemist vs NVIDIA GA104 & AMD Navi 22 GPUs

GPU Name Alchemist DG-512 NVIDIA GA104 AMD Navi 22
Architecture Xe-HPG Ampere RDNA 2
Process Node TSMC 6nm Samsung 8nm TSMC 7nm
Flagship Product ARC (TBA) GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Radeon RX 6700 XT
Raster Engine 8 6 2
FP32 Cores 32 Xe Cores 48 SM Units 40 Compute Units
FP32 Units 4096 6144 2560
FP32 Compute ~16 TFLOPs 21.7 TFLOPs 12.4 TFLOPs
TMUs 256 192 160
ROPs 128 96 64
RT Cores 32 RT Units 48 RT Cores (V2) 40 RA Units
Tensor Cores 512 XMX Cores 192 Tensor Cores (V3) N/A
Tensor Compute ~131 TFLOPs FP16
~262 TOPs INT8		 87 TFLOPs FP16
174 TOPs INT8		 25 TFLOPs FP16
50 TOPs INT8
L2 Cache TBA 4 MB 3 MB
Additional Cache 16 MB Smart Cache? N/A 96 MB Infinity Cache
Memory Bus 256-bit 256-bit 192-bit
Memory Capacity 16 GB GDDR6 8 GB GDDR6X 16 GB GDDR6
Launch Q1 2022 Q2 2021 Q1 2021

Intel ARC Already Has A Reference Graphics Card Design But Partners Open To Custom Models

Coming to an important question about the ARC Desktop graphics cards, it looks like Intel has already shipped its reference design to its partners. According to the interview, Intel is currently investigating if it's worth launching a reference-only flavor similar to NVIDIA's Founders Edition or allows partners (ODMs) to manufacturer their own custom variants. The latter seems to be what Intel is more inclining towards but we have already seen the reference design so both options are open for Intel.

Intel XeSS Is Backwards Compatible With DG1 'Xe-LP' & 11th Gen CPUs

XeSS has been one of the most interesting technologies of the upcoming Xe-HPG ARC graphics lineup. We talked with Intel about XeSS in our own exclusive interview over here & Intel has now confirmed that the technology will be backward compatible with both Xe-LP-based DG1 GPUs & iGPUs on the 11th Gen Tiger Lake GPUs.

Intel also wants to leverage the workstation and content creation market with its Xe-HPG GPUs in applications such as 3DSMax where they can give NVIDIA's Quadro and AMD Radeon PRO graphics cards some tough competition. It is specifically stated that Intel's ARC GPUs can offer great graphics performance within content creation and development applications.

Intel also emphasized the driver release and how it plans to release them on regular basis and new releases every time a major title is a launch. The company has gone on a major hiring spree for its graphics division, acquiring renowned names from the industry over the last couple of weeks.

No Multi-GPU Solution Like Xe-Link To Be Offered on ARC Gaming Graphics Cards

There was some speculation regarding the Xe-Link technology and how it could be used to run the ARC graphics cards in multi-GPU configurations however Intel has confirmed that the tech is only made for the Xe-HPC Ponte Vecchio GPUs and won't be featured on the standard gaming lineup.

Based on the timeline, the Xe-HPG Alchemist lineup will compete against NVIDIA's Ampere & AMD RDNA 2 GPUs since both companies aren't expected to launch their next-gen parts by the very end of 2022. The Xe-HPG ARC GPUs will be coming to the mobility platform too and will be featured in Alder Lake-P notebooks.

What do you want to see in Intel's ARC Alchemist Gaming graphics card lineup?
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The post Intel Talks ARC Alchemist GPUs: TSMC 6nm Over Intel Fabs Due To Manufacturing Capacity, XeSS Backwards Compatible & Partner ‘Custom’ Graphics Cards by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.

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