Intel Arc – Michmutters

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Intel has no Arc GPUs for Arc Scavenger Hunt winners, CPUs instead

Intel has no Arc GPUs for Arc Scavenger Hunt winners, CPUs instead 02 | TweakTown.com

Intel kicked off its Xe HPG Scavenger Hunt in early 2021, and a rather large 18 months later we have no Arc graphics cards in the wild… meaning no Intel Arc graphics cards to give away to Arc Scavenger Hunt winners.

Intel has no Arc GPUs for Arc Scavenger Hunt winners, CPUs instead 02 | TweakTown.com

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The company is now offering an alternative prize because there are simply no Intel Arc GPUs, so instead of an Intel Arc A7-series graphics card (Intel was giving Grand Prize winners an Intel Arc A770, while the first place prize was an Intel Arc A750 ) winners can now opt for an Intel Core i7-12700K and Core i5-12600K processor.

Intel sent an email to its winners, explaining to a Xe HPG Scavenger Hunt Top 300 prize winner that they would be provided with an alternative to the original hardware prize, in addition to the standard merchandise and swag prizing. The company confirms that the winners only have a few days to decide — up to August 19 — if you want to switch over your Arc GPU to an Intel 12th Gen Core “Alder Lake” CPU.

But now, this is the clincher: if you opt back into the original GPU pricing, Intel warns that you will have to do so with the understanding that such pricing is tied to the launch timeline of Intel Arc A7-series GPUs. Because we don’t know when that happens, and neither does Intel, you could be waiting a while.

Intel has no Arc GPUs for Arc Scavenger Hunt winners, CPUs instead 01 | TweakTown.com

Intel does note that while they anticipate that the hardware should get to you ahead of Intel Arc A7-series GPU availability, Intel “cannot guarantee that to be the case, as Intel is very close the Intel Arc A7-series GPU launch“. I guess Intel means to say in that email that they are “very close to the Intel Arc A7-series GPU launch”. Mistakes everywhere, Intel.

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Intel Arc GPU story goes live, global launch ‘later this year’

Intel Arc GPU story goes live, global launch 'later this year' 01 | TweakTown.com

Intel is continuing its “marketing” for their upcoming Arc GPUs with something that leaker Moore’s Law is Dead talked about: the Arc desktop GPU story. There’s not much new here, but it’s interesting that it’s all playing out like this.

Intel Arc GPU story goes live, global launch 'later this year' 01 | TweakTown.com

VIEW GALLERY – 4 PICTURES

You can check out the “story” on Intel Arc GPUs on the official intel website, where we find out that ex-PC Perspective owner and reviewer Ryan Shrout has a major hand in Arc. Shrout seems to be the Arc GPU ship, as the Intel website itself says that “Intel Gaming Access met steering with Ryan Shrout, Senior Director of Graphics and HPC Marketing at Intel”.

Intel explains that “when it came to the creation of Intel Arc, Ryan and Intel’s engineers had plenty of graphics experience to call on”. Interesting, it seems that Ryan was integral to the entire Arc GPU process … so this marketing plan is his, and he’s calling the shots.

The post continued, with Ryan adding: “We’ve had integrated graphics in Intel CPUs for over a decade, but high-performance discrete graphics are a whole different game, if you’ll excuse the pun. Integrated graphics have given our engineers a lot of learnings to use in dGPUs; for example, a version of the modern Xe microarchitecture that Intel Arc is built on, first appeared in 11th Gen Intel Core processors. The architecture scales up from low-power iGPUs (Xe-LP), through Intel Arc GPUs as Xe-HPG (high-performance graphics), and even all the way up to data-centers and supercomputing“.

Intel Arc GPU story goes live, global launch 'later this year' 02 | TweakTown.com

Where will Intel Arc GPUs “shine” according to Ryan? DX12 games… where he explains: “is where the Intel Arc graphics cards are going to shine. DX12 and Vulkan are modern rendering APIs, which means there is a thinner software layer between the game code and the GPU. Older APIs, like DirectX 11 and 9, do more of the work for programmers, but have more layers between the game and GPU.”

I do find it rather amusing, and worrying, that Intel has a specific disclaimer at the bottom of Ryan’s post on Intel’s website. It reads: “no product or component can be absolutely secure” and that “all product plans and roadmaps are subject to change without notice”.

Intel Arc GPU story goes live, global launch 'later this year' 04 | TweakTown.com

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Intel loses first AIB, won’t make Arc GPUs over ‘quality concerns’

Intel loses first AIB, won't make Arc GPUs over 'quality concerns' 01 | TweakTown.com

We’ve been hearing all sorts of bad news about Intel’s new Arc GPUs where I’ve been reporting on news that Intel would outright cancel their Arc GPUs altogether over how bad it has gotten, and now Intel has reportedly lost their first AIB.

Intel loses first AIB, won't make Arc GPUs over 'quality concerns' 01 | TweakTown.com

The first AIB to stop production of custom Intel Arc GPUs has reportedly made history, becoming the first AIB to pull out of Intel’s new Arc GPUs before they even really began. The news is coming from Igor Wallossek at Igor’s Lab, who reports that the first of the big board partners have “stopped the production of Intel cards completely” which his sources say are “due to quality concerns”.

Igor reports: “At least one of the big board partners has even stopped the production of Intel cards completely (“due to quality concerns”), as I could find out yesterday and today. […] Other board partners have at least already completely capped their marketing activities, and it does not currently look as if there will be any real launch offensives from the board partners in the time window I mentioned between August 5, 2022 and September 29, 2022. What will really arrive on the market (as retail) will be seen in the next few weeks. From the customer’s point of view, I can only hope for the best, I alone lack faith“.

So all that “negativity” that I’ve been accused of, which is me just doing my job: reporting the news, the rumours, and everything in between… seems to be true. Intel has been a mess for a while now, with miscommunication about its Arc GPUs reportedly happening both inside, and outside of the company. Intel is telling some of its departments one thing while having a different external message.

We might see this particular AIB partner spool up the production of Intel Arc GPUs in the future, but I’m sure they’ll be wanting to wait to see how Intel’s new Arc GPUs go in the coming 6-18 months. Game compatibility, driver issues, hardware and software issues, and a million other things that I’m sure AIBs are scared of… warranties and returns will happen.

AIBs will take a huge hit when that happens, and I’m sure Intel isn’t worried about its brand (it’s big enough, they’ll survive… but the image of their GPU marketing will be almost beyond destroyed, all credibility gone) but it’ll cost them in the end in terms of consumer confidence, market confidence, and I’m sure many more ways that the company will experience throughout the end of this year and into 2023.

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