New 16 core Intel Arc desktop GPU may be on the cards

Shot of the Arc Alchemist GPU from the reveal video.
(Image credit: Intel)

The release of Intel's Arc GPUs has been a huge shift for the company into the territory of consumer grade gaming graphics cards. Early in 2022 we saw leaks showing off up to eight different variants of Intel's Arc cards targeting different areas, with the Intel Arc A770 releasing later in the year.

When the cards work well they have a lot to offer, and it's great to see a third player enter the game. However, it's been a rocky start since release, with the real world performance often appearing underwhelming across a range of games. Thankfully these issues are slowly being mopped up with the release of new drivers, and there's more to come. So in some ways we're still waiting to see the true performance of the A770, as well as a few more of those other rumored Arc cards to drop.

But before we get those, it looks like Intel is working on a new unannounced GPU. VideoCardz spotted a listing on CompuBench, showing off the benchmarks of a currently unknown Intel Xe Graphics. 

The mystery card has people curious, as it doesn't appear to be the mobile A550M, which is the only known Arc to feature 16 cores. Though CompuBench might not be most people's benchmark of choice, the results show 256 Compute Units as well as a clock speed between 2,400 and 2,450 MHz, likely ruling the M out.

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The other speculated option is the Arc A580, which was announced last year but with no release date. However, as VideoCardz states this is more likely to be a 24 core card as opposed to 16. We don't know for sure, but judging by what CompuBench is showing it could be a different unreleased card.

This points the finger of this benchmark at Intel's ACM-G12 GPU. What's been speculated or glimpsed from drivers leads us to believe that this will likely match up with those specs we're seeing on CompuBench for a desktop card.

Right now the market is in dear need of good cheaper cards: something you can buy right now, throw into a gaming machine and just have work. We're not talking about the ultimate upgrade here, where you need new monitors just to match your output. Just a good stable gaming PC that won't run your savings dry. 

With performance for price still firmly recommending last gen's cards, aiming newer cards at this level of power but with a price to match could be a very smart move from Intel. As long as those drivers are kept under control.

Hope Corrigan
Hardware Writer

Hope’s been writing about games for about a decade, starting out way back when on the Australian Nintendo fan site Vooks.net. Since then, she’s talked far too much about games and tech for publications such as Techlife, Byteside, IGN, and GameSpot. Of course there’s also here at PC Gamer, where she gets to indulge her inner hardware nerd with news and reviews. You can usually find Hope fawning over some art, tech, or likely a wonderful combination of them both and where relevant she’ll share them with you here. When she’s not writing about the amazing creations of others, she’s working on what she hopes will one day be her own. You can find her fictional chill out ambient far future sci-fi radio show/album/listening experience podcast right here.

No, she’s not kidding.