Many gamers and PC enthusiasts have been curious, and perhaps even eager, about the upcoming discrete graphics card range fromIntel. Competing against the likes of Nvidia and AMD in the big leagues, theArc Alchemist GPU has already missed its Q1 window, or at least it will do if it doesn’t release by the end of this month. While it was allegedly supposed to launch sometime at the beginning of this year, it seems as though the company has pushed it back some, and now rumors speculate that the first line of its upcoming products may not be on shelves until the summer.
According to a report from Igor’s Lab, the first models of the anticipatedIntelgraphics cards could be out by the start of either May or June this year, which is quite some way off what many were speculating the release date was going to be. At the time of writing, the tech giant has not said anything about any reasons behind the delay, but the report goes on to say that it could be software related, specifically the drivers. Tests seem to yield some issues with the cards, so it’s possible that the company may want to work on the drivers more to make sure the hardware is fully ready.
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There’s a chance that Intel could give Nvidia and AMD a run for their money, with recent benchmark tests showing that theIntel Arc card could take on the RTX 3070, or even the 3070 Ti, though other tests seem to suggest it may not be quite there. Whatever the case may be at the testing level, it seems evident that the technology firm is aiming for the mid to high-end slice of the graphics market, though it’s not willing to take on something like the RTX 3090, or even the elusive 3090 Ti.
Whatever the reasons may be behind the delay, there’s also the matter of the ongoing shortage. WithIntel itself saying the semiconductor deficit could go on until 2023, it’s hard to know what the industry will look like over the coming months, but it seems as though the Arc cards need to come out sooner rather than later, especially with the next generation coming up this year.
Despite the ongoing low supplies,graphics card prices are starting to come down, especially in parts of Europe. WhetherIntelfinally releasing its first SKUs of the Arc card will help lower them even more remains to be seen.
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