Intel Arc Alchemist SKUs and Architecture
Let’s first talk a little about the Intel Arc graphics architecture, the SKUs that are offered, and what makes them different from each other. For starters, Intel divides its GPU segments into Intel Arc 7 graphics series at the top, and Intel Arc 3 graphics series on the bottom, currently, with room for an Intel Arc 5 graphics series as well if needed.
The flagship Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition sits at the top and is the fastest SKU Intel offers. The Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition is made by Intel and has 16GB of VRAM at an MSRP of $349.99. Other add-in-board partners will also produce 16GB Arc A770 video cards, but if it says Limited Edition that means it is manufactured by Intel and has this unique design from Intel. There will also be 8GB versions of the Arc A770 graphics cards, with slightly less memory bandwidth for an MSRP of $329.99.
Just under the Intel Arc A770 sits the Intel Arc A750, and it has 8GB of VRAM for an MSRP of $249.99. Finally, there is also an Intel Arc A380 at the very low end for $139.99. In summary, that is two versions of the Intel Arc A770 (16GB and 8GB), then the Arc A750 which makes up the Intel Arc A7 series, and then the Intel Arc A380 which makes up the Intel Arc A3 series. If it says Limited Edition that means it is a unique Intel manufactured by Intel design.
| Arc A380 | Arc A750 | Arc A770 (8GB) | Arc A770 (16GB) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xe-Cores | 8 | 28 | 32 | 32 |
| Ray Tracing Units | 8 | 28 | 32 | 32 |
| FP32 Cores | 1024 | 3584 | 4096 | 4096 |
| Matrix Cores | 128 | 448 | 512 | 512 |
| Xe Vector Engines | 128 | 448 | 512 | 512 |
| TMUs | 64 | 224 | 256 | 256 |
| ROPs | 16 | 96 | 128 | 128 |
| Graphics Clock | 2000MHz | 2050MHz | 2100MHz | 2100MHz |
| Memory | 6GB | 8GB | 8GB | 16GB |
| Memory Clock | 15.5GHz | 16GHz | 16GHz | 17.5GHz |
| Bus Width | 96-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 186GB/s | 512GB/s | 512GB/s | 560GB/s |
| TDP | 75W | 225W | 225W | 225W |
| MSRP | $139 | $249 | $329 | $349 |
Intel Arc Alchemist Architecture
The Intel Arc Graphics architecture is called Intel Arc A-Series Xe-HPG, or Alchemist. We are not going to go into an extremely deep dive into the architecture here, but we will post all the architecture information presentation material for your reading pleasure if you wish to familiarize yourself with how Arc Alchemist works.
To summarize some of the configurations, the Xe-HPG architecture is made up of multiple Xe-Cores called a Render Slice. Inside each core are multiple Xe Vector Engines and Matrix Engines. An Xe-Core has 16 256-bit vector engines, 16 1,024-bit Matrix Engines, and 192KB of shared cache. The floating point, integer, and register files are closely next to the matrix engines in the vector engine block. It can do 16 FP32 ops/clock, 32 FP16 ops/clock, and 64 INT8 ops/clock. The matrix engine is a dedicated matrix array at 128 FP16/BF16 ops/clock, 256 INT8 ops/clock, and 512 INT4/INT2 ops/clock. There are dedicated Ray Tracing Units for each Xe-Core. The total L2 cache size for the A7 series is 16MB.
We must also specifically mention the Xe Media Engine and Xe Display Engine because the Intel Arc A-Series of graphics cards support some of the latest technologies. Notably, the Xe Media Engine makes it possible to support AV1 hardware encoding and decoding, along with HEVC, AVC, and VP9. It can decode at 8k60 12-bit HDR and encode at 8k 10-bit HDR. Further, the Xe Display Engine is capable of outputting HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.4a and 2.010G Ready, this allows up to 2x 8k60 HDR, 4x 4k120 HDR, and up to 1080p360 and 1440p360.
Ray Tracing
Intel Alchemist Architecture fully supports Ray Tracing, and the method by which this is achieved is detailed below.
Intel XeSS
Intel Arc Graphics also supports Intel XeSS upscaling technology. This is a competitor to DLSS and FSR. Two modes are supported, a native machine learning algorithm using the Xe matrix engines called Intel XMX. It also supports a more generalized DP4a method that can be used on other vendors’ graphics cards, like FSR. With the Intel Arc video cards, XeSS will be accelerated via the matrix engines and should provide machine learning quality upscaling, similar to DLSS. It will improve performance, but also look the best it can.
Intel Arc Limited Edition
The Intel Arc Limited Edition video cards are custom-made by Intel, and their construction is detailed below.
Intel Arc Control
In the latest drivers, Intel has made its Arc Control a separate application, and no longer an overlay, thank goodness.
This new interface is a huge improvement over the previous overlay UI and is very welcomed. It is easy to navigate and has a lot of functionality including separate options per game, hardware monitoring, and broadcast and recording features for gamers and streamers.