After 24 years, Intel has finally mastered the field of discrete graphics again, and the Arc Ruixuan series (specific model is Arc AxxxM) code-named "Alchemist" (alchemist) discrete graphics card is officially released.
Intel Unique Display History Review
24 years ago (1998), in the war years of 3dfx, ATI, NVIDIA, S3, Trident and Matrox, Intel launched its own brand of discrete graphics - Intel i740. This GPU is a product that Intel has quickly entered the 3D graphics market at a small cost by working with it to work with it to buy a 20% stake in Real3D.
Subsequently, the i740 was optimized by Intel and integrated into the 810/815 chipset (renamed i752), and the GPU core integrated in the chipset has since taken on an official name - "integrated graphics".
Unfortunately, the collapse of Real3D in 1999 directly affected Intel's subsequent independent graphics planning, coupled with the strength of competitors represented by NVIDIA and ATI (later acquired by AMD), forcing Intel to focus on the integration of integrated graphics performance, and the i740 became the epilogue of the Intel brand after a short period of glory.
At this point, Intel has been racing all the way on the road to integrated graphics until the return of the Arc Sharp series of discrete graphics cards.
The word-of-mouth collapse of the sharp torch Xe Max is unique
In fact, Intel released a unique display in 2020, the specific model is the Iris Xe Max, and was first released by Acer's extraordinary S3x thin and light version.
In essence, the Ruiju Xe Max is actually the i7-1165G7, i5-11320H and other (including the 12th generation) Core processor integrated Ruiju Xe 96 core display in a standalone package, they all have 96 EU units (768 stream processors), 48 texture units and 24 ROP raster units.
The Sharp Torch Xe Max has a stand-alone package design, so it can be paired with up to 4GB of LPDDR4X discrete video memory, enjoying an exclusive 25W TDP, so it can increase the core frequency from the 1350MHz of the Iris Xe core display to 1650MHz, so it can get a more ideal performance base.
Unfortunately, at least in the Acer Extraordinary S3x itself, the unique performance of the Sharp Torch Xe Max can only be described by crotch pulling, and the actual performance is not as good as the Sharp Torch Xe 96 core display with the LPDDR4X-4267.
This image is from the digital blogger @Golden Pig Upgrade Pack
The most critical thing is that the people of the Rui torch Xe 96 core display and processor integration, no additional power consumption overhead, and rui torch Xe Max unique display in the combination of processor, the need for notebooks to power the CPU and the unique display at the same time, the performance is not improved, but also led to the blood collapse of the battery life.
So, for Intel, the Iris Xe Max doesn't mention it.
Intel alone display, but also to see the performance of Arc Sharp.
Arc Rui shows a unique three musketeers
Intel Arc Sharp is very ambitious, for mainstream games, performance games, fever games, derived arc 3, Arc 5 and Arc 7 three series.
Among them, the Intel Arc 3 series will be released in mass production next month, including Arc A350M and Arc A370M, mainly used to match the 12th generation Core P series processors, competing with AMD's Radeon RX 6300M unique display, Ryzen 6000 series integrated Radeon 680M core display and NVIDIA's GeForce MX550 level unique display.
The Intel Arc 5 and Arc 7 series are expected to be available in the early summer of this year, with the Arc 5 competing mainly for the RTX 2050/RTX 3050Ti series, while the Arc 7 is used to snipe the RTX 3060 and higher-end monochrome.
Starting from today, in addition to the "3A" notebook, we have a "3i" notebook to choose from.
The basic composition of Arc's sharp and unique display
Intel's existing Iris Xe core display uses a high-performance Xe LP architecture, while arc Iris monochrome display uses a high-performance Xe HPG architecture.
Xe LP architecture kernel architecture
Including the Iris Xe core display, the basic modules of Intel's previous hd graphics cards are "EU execution units", such as the Iris Xe 80 and the Iris Xe 96 represent the integration of 80 and 96 execution units respectively. The greater the number of EU units, the stronger the performance.
Arc's Xe HPG architecture, whose basic module becomes the "Xe Core", each Xe core contains 16 256-bit vector engines (XVE), 16 1024-bit matrix engines (XMX), 192KB shared cache and loading storage units, etc., where the cache can be dynamically allocated according to the workload between L1 cache, shared local memory (SLM), etc.
Each Xe core can be roughly understood as 16 execution units.
Each 4 Xe cores can form a complete set of "Render Slices", each set of rendering tiles in addition to 4 Xe cores also contains 4 light tracking units, 4 texture samplers, geometric front ends, raster front ends, HiZ cells and 2 pixel back ends, etc., not only support DX12 Ultimate and Vulkan, but also support DXR light tracking and Vulkan light tracking technology.
Arc Brilliant Can Integrate Up to 8 Sets of Render Tiles.
Arc's unique model details
The different models in the Intel Arc Iris Display are actually stacked by different numbers of render slices. In simple terms, Arc Ruixuan offers 2 package versions, of which the full blood version, that is, the chip number of "Super Cup" is "ACM-G10", which integrates up to 8 sets of rendering tiles, that is, 32 Xe cores (512 execution units), 32 light chasing units and 16MB of L2 cache, which can be matched with 256bit GDDR6 video memory and support PCIe 4.0 x16 connection channels.
Arc's other package, "Small Cup", is designated "ACM-G11", which integrates up to 2 sets of render tiles, including 8 Xe cores (128 execution units), 8 optical tracing units and 4MB L2 cache, with 96-bit GDDR6 video memory, supporting PCIe 4.0 x8 connection channels.
Whether it is a super cup or a small cup, Arc RuiXuan is also equipped with 2 Xe media codec engines and 4 display channels.
In the Arc 3 series, the Arc A370M uses the "ACM-G11" package chip, with a complete 8 Xe cores (equivalent to 128 execution units) and 8 optical tracking units, but its memory width is reduced to 64bit, the core frequency is 1550MHz, and the power consumption range is between 35W and 50W.
Arc A350M is based on the A370M shielded 2 Xe cores, only 6 Xe cores (equivalent to 96 execution units) and 6 optical chase units, the memory width is also 64bit, but the core frequency is also reduced to 1150MHz, power consumption range between 25W and 35W.
Arc 5 series and Arc 7 series both use "ACM-G10" package chips, of which the Arc 5 series is only a model of Arc A550M for the time being, which has 4 built-in render slides, including 16 Xe cores (equivalent to 256 execution units) and 16 optical tracking units, the core frequency is 900MHz, can be matched with 128-bit wide 8GB GDDR6 video memory, and the power consumption is increased to 60W to 80W.
The full-blood model of the Arc 7 series is the Arc A770M, which has a complete 8 sets of render slides, including 32 Xe cores (equivalent to 512 execution units) and 32 light chase units, with a core frequency of up to 1650MHz, which can be used with 16GB of GDDR6 memory with a width of 256 bits, but also consumes up to 120W to 150W.
The Arc A730M shields 2 sets of render tiles on the basis of the A770, including 24 Xe cores (equivalent to 384 execution units) and 24 light tracking units, with a core frequency of 1100MHz, 192bit bits of memory width and 12GB, and a power consumption range of 80W to 120W.
Arc's unique features
It should be noted that the core frequency of Arc's unique display can be automatically adjusted according to the load, and the frequency mentioned earlier is only an average.
Because the Arc Rui Show is bound to be equipped with Intel's own 12th generation Core processor, Intel has also prepared Deep Link technology for its own CPUs and GPUs, which can make them work together more efficiently and unleash their potential.
Deep Link technology supports dynamic power sharing, that is, dynamically adjusting the power ratio of CPU and GPU according to different loads, such as allocating more power consumption to GPUs in game scenarios, similar to the principle of AMD's SmartShift technology.
Deep Link technology also supports super encoding, through the oneVPL API, you can let Arc Sharp AndY Xe nuclear display jointly encode video, process different frames and then composite.
Deep Link technology also has super computing power, based on machine learning MLS framework, combined with XMX engine acceleration, can intelligently assign the computing load to Arc Sharp Unique Display, as well as the respective computing engines in the Sharp Torch Xe core display, such as allowing them to process different blocks in the video screen together, and then synthesize the output after processing.
According to official data, the 12th generation Core processor + Arc Ruixuan unique display, in the application scenario of content creation, dynamic power sharing, super coding, super computing power can bring up to 30%, 60% and 24% performance improvement, respectively.
Through the XMX matrix engine, arc sharp unique native support more efficient XeSS supersampling technology, which is similar to NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR, are based on AI to improve the smoothness of games in high-resolution environments, that is, through low-resolution rendering + high-resolution scale output, improve the game frame rate and get similar or beyond the native picture quality.
Arc's built-in Xe media engine is also powerful, supporting up to 8K60 12-bit HDR decoding or up to 8K 10-bit HDR encoding. In addition to supporting the common MPEG-4, VP9, AVC, H.264, HEVC (H.265), its video codec format also supports full AV1 hardware encoding and decoding for the first time.
At present, Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and other well-known video codec software has also announced support for Intel ARC AV1 hardware acceleration. This means that for thin and light books equipped with Arc's sharp display, even without the NVIDIA RTX series with integrated NVENC encoder, you can achieve efficient video editing and output capabilities.
AV1 is now on the eve of popularization, its encoding efficiency is 50% and 20% higher than H.264 and H.265, respectively, which can bring higher picture quality with smaller files and less bandwidth. Because the standard is free and open, industry giants including Amazon, Apple, ARM, Cisco, Facebook, Google, Huawei, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, NVIDIA, Samsung, Tencent and other industry giants are all working together to promote it.
Taking the image quality of AV1 and H.264 technologies in game live broadcast as an example, the image quality of AV1 has been significantly improved compared with H.264 under the resolution of 1080P+5Mbps bitrate.
The Xe display engine within arc's unique display has also been upgraded synchronously. For game users, it supports Adaptive Sync, Speed Sync, smooth Sync three synchronization technologies. Adaptive Sync is aimed at a variable refresh rate display, which synchronizes the screen output rate and the display refresh rate when playing to prevent screen tearing; Speed Sync is responsible for providing acceleration for the current frame, which will reduce the screen refresh delay; Smooth Sync is for fixed refresh rate displays, blurring the screen tearing through the jitter filter function to enhance game immersion.
In addition, Arc's unique Xe display engine also supports HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.4a output standards, and is ready for the next generation of DisplayPort 2.0 standards. The new graphics card supports up to two-socket 8K@60 HDR, quad-socket 4K@120 HDR, as well as 1080P@360 and 1440P@360.
Finally, Intel has created a new graphics control panel for arc rui display, where performance monitoring, drive updates, performance tuning, video recording, automatic capture of highlight moments, or live broadcasting can be performed.
Arc's dazzling performance remains mysterious
Intel's statement on the performance of arc iris is vague, only exposing the performance contest between arc A370M and i7-1280P integrated irradiation Xe 96 core display, and did not indicate the memory specifications with the processor (LPDDR5-5200 is really full of blood), and has not specified the specific frame number of the nuclear display platform.
Specifically, when the Arc A370M is paired with the i7-12700H processor, it can smoothly control most entry-level games in 1080P+ medium quality, but from the bar chart, it can not talk about the second kill of the Xe 96 core display, and only in a very few games such as Fortnite Fortnite, the lead is particularly large.
In the content creation environment, with the i7-12800H platform blessed by Arc A370M, compared with relying on i7-12800H alone, you can get 30% to 140% performance improvement, which is still considerable.
In general, don't have too many expectations for the performance of arc A370M solo in the game, it is at most the level of Radeon 680M core display and GeForce MX550 unique display, and may even be slightly inferior, otherwise Intel will not only take its own core display comparison, has not marked the specific number of frames.
Samsung and Acer will become the notebook brands that debut the Arc A370M, followed by Asus, Dell, Haier, HP, Lenovo, MSI, Blue Sky, Wingtech and Intel NUC minicomputers.
So, are you looking forward to Intel's new display after 24 years?