Intel's Arc Alchemist mobile GPU specs detailed in leaked slide

We’ve talked a lot about Intel’s upcoming Arc Alchemist series of discrete graphics cards, and now we have some details regarding Arc GPUs for notebooks too. The leak comes from @9550pro, a well known leaker (via Techspot). The release shows what looks like a legitimate Intel slide that lists five SKUs.

The leaked slide is titled “DG2 Graphics Memory configuration”. It lists the key specifications of five notebook SKUs.

The high end SKU (SKU1) looks like it has specs that are very similar to the desktop Arc card with 512 Execution Units, 16GB of 16Gbps VRAM (surely GDDR6) which delivers 512GB/s of total bandwidth over a 256-bit bus. The clocks aren’t revealed but with this spec it's likely that this is a binned and lower clocked variant of the desktop card. If it ends up performing around desktop RTX 3070 or 3070 Ti levels, then this could be a potent gaming option.

The second card is shown as having 384 EUs, 12GB of 16Gbps VRAM, and a total bandwidth of 384GB/s over a 192-bit bus.

Next up is the mid range SKU3 which looks to be essentially half of the top SKU, with 256 EUs, 8GB of VRAM, and 256GB/s of bandwidth over a 128-bit bus.

The low end versions contain 128 and 96 EUs respectively. It’s likely they are both the same GPU, with the lesser model making use of a harvested die. They feature a basic 4GB of 14Gbps VRAM over a 64-bit bus for a total of 112GB/s of bandwidth. The 96 EU is a curious one as Intel produced Tiger Lake mobile CPUs with 96 EU integrated graphics.

It remains to be seen just how these GPUs perform in games. One company that will be paying close attention will be Nvidia, which has enjoyed a long term stranglehold on the laptop GPU market. We can’t imagine that Arc Alchemist GPUs will compete with Nvidia’s high end offerings, but notebooks equipped with 3050 and 3060 class gaming cards are surely going to see some market competition, depending on how aggressive Intel and Nvidia are, or more accurately, how big the cheques are. 

We don’t have information about clock rates and TDPs but the pieces are coming together. We can’t wait to see how Intel’s Arc GPUs perform. A lot will come down to the quality of the driver. The greatest GPU in the world won’t get a positive reception if the driver is rubbish. No doubt we’ll be all over Intel’s mobile and desktop Arc GPUs, pre and post release.