Intel at the moment has a zero p.c market share of desktop graphics playing cards, in keeping with Jon Peddie Analysis. And that’s hardly the corporate’s solely problem — a couple of years of dangerous information was capped off by kissing the ring and giving a ten p.c stake to the US authorities. However the newest Arc GPU has given me a tiny sliver of hope that somebody will step as much as Nvidia’s monopoly.
It’s the Arc Professional B50, and earlier than you say something, sure, that is an industrial GPU not meant for players. However the lower-priced different to the B60 reveals that the corporate hasn’t given up on Battlemage, Intel’s second-gen discrete graphics structure. The $350, low-profile card doesn’t require a devoted energy rail, regardless of some neat tips like PCIe 5. This one’s packing 16GB of video reminiscence, 16 Xe cores, and 16 ray tracing items, 4 fewer than the B60 in every class, and 224GB/s of reminiscence.
Once more, this $350 card isn’t meant for players. It’s certainly able to gaming, just like the surprisingly good Arc shopper playing cards launched late final 12 months. However its meant objective is for industrial customers who wish to do a bunch of rendering or AI computing with comparatively decrease price and energy necessities. Not like the B60, this one’s going out to no less than some reviewers like HardwareLuxx and Igor’s Lab. Which suggests somebody at Intel is fascinated with truly getting this factor out to prospects.
Nvidia’s in-demand RTX 50-series playing cards are lastly getting to some extent the place you should buy one, assuming that you could afford one. However the firm is so dominant that AMD has mainly deserted the highest finish of the market, and choices beneath the $300 USD mark are leaving lots to be desired. Virtually three years after the primary Arc playing cards debuted, the desktop GPU market nonetheless wants a shakeup…and Intel nonetheless wants one thing optimistic to develop on.
