Turn your back for a moment in the GPU industry, and a lot can happen – such as a couple of new graphics cards getting launched in a very quiet manner by Intel.
VideoCardz was keen-eyed enough to notice that Intel has stealthily released two new mobile GPUs: the Arc A570M and A530M.
These are laptop graphics cards, and as noted, there was no announcement at all of these models, they just appeared on the Intel website, and are supported in the latest release of Team Blue’s graphics driver (version 31.0.101.4577, pushed out yesterday).
Based on the info Intel has released – which isn’t much – the A570M is a slightly beefed-up version of the existing A550M, offering the same loadout of 16 Xe cores. The A570M differentiates itself with a faster clock speed of 1.3GHz (compared to 900MHz), and power usage is also upped to 95W to achieve this (from 75W).
The A530M is more interesting in that it’s an entirely new laptop GPU, the first in the Arc mobile stable to have 12 Xe cores. It will also run with a clock speed of 1.3GHz and power usage that can be configured up to 95W.
What we’re lacking right now is any info on the memory on-board these graphics cards.
Analysis: Lucky seven?
With these added models, Intel’s Arc range for laptops now has seven GPUs in total, with the new products sitting in the mid-range (500 series) alongside the A550M. That beefs up the middle of the Arc line-up considerably, seeing as the A550M was the only option until now.
It’s obviously no bad thing for laptop makers – and consumers who will ultimately buy the notebooks – to have more choice in affordable discrete GPU options for an Intel-powered portable. The A530M in particular should make a useful addition to the range in terms of getting something decently peppy that won’t push the cost of the laptop up too much.
Of course, we don’t have the full picture on these graphics cards yet – we don’t even know how much VRAM they will have, let alone other memory specs. And the fact that Intel hasn’t made any fuss at all – or even bothered to formally announce these GPUs – indicates they aren’t exactly considered a priority.
Interestingly, according to rumors (and a leaked roadmap) we were expecting some new Arc Alchemist GPUs to come onto the scene in Q3, but more powerful 150W models. Maybe Intel has scaled back its plans for these last Arc launches, but that’s pure speculation. (The other possibility pointed out by VideoCardz is that these new GPUs could be Alchemist+, a honed version of Alchemist, but it seems unlikely that’d happen without even a mention from Intel – though you never know, we suppose).
At any rate, there’s a fair bit of chatter on the grapevine about Intel reining in its ambitions with next-gen Battlemage GPUs, so this is very much a theme around Team Blue’s graphics cards right now. If certain rumor-mongers are right, Battlemage may be about low-end graphics cards only (though that said, new products that could rank well for the best cheap GPUs is where we need Intel’s presence the most, arguably).