Intel’s $153 Discrete Arc 3 Graphics Processor is Aimed at Creators

Intel has announced the first of its Arc A-series 3 graphics desktop cards — the ARC3 A380 Discrete Graphics processor — for use in Intel-based computers.

The ARC 3 A380 GPU uses eight Xe cores with a clock speed of 2,000 Mhz with 6GB of GDDR6 Memory for up to 192 GB/s of bandwidth. That’s up to twice the performance of Intel Iris XeLP graphics, making the ARC3 Discrete GPU ideal for gaming and content creation.

“Intel Arc A-series 3 graphics desktop products represent the next step in Intel’s journey to bring discrete graphics to market,” the company says.

“The Intel Arc A-series 3 graphics brings next-generation technologies to mainstream gamers and creators with the most complete technology feature set in this market segment, ready for next-generation workloads.”

With the Codename Alchemist, the A380 is Intel’s first full-featured graphics card, based on Intel’s Xe High-Performance Graphics (Xe HPG) microarchitecture.

It supports Direct 12 Ultimate gaming features including hardware-accelerated ray tracing, variable-rate shading, mesh shading, and sampler feedback. The card can also display 1080p video and higher video using Intel’s AI-based super sampling technology, XeSS.

For content creation, Intel has incorporated its Xe Media Engine for processing hi-resolution video AV1 hardware encoding acceleration.

The Engine supports H.265 HEVC and H.264 and is capable of resolutions up to 8K. The A380 can also drive up to four 4K 120Hz HDR displays or two 8K 60Hz displays through its Xe Display Engine, and 1080p and 1440p resolutions at 360Hz.

Intel’s Arc Control Studio takes the control of video playback to the next level with Zoom-Esque video display tools such as real-time green screen, background blurring, and auto-camera framing.

During live broadcast and video streaming, users can personalize backgrounds, stay properly centered through face tracking, and broadcast from anywhere in the world.

Users can even produce live streaming “let’s play” videos with additional input from their gaming consoles.

The A380 GPU will be available through manufacturers like Acer, ASUS, Gigabyte, GUNNIR, HP, and MSI starting at the end of June 2022, and will be part of a phased worldwide rollout starting in China. Prices start at about $153 (1030 Yuan).