This Intel ARC Alchemist GPU Is FASTER Than An RTX 3070 Ti In Leaked Test

An Intel ARC Alchemist GPU has appeared in what could be the series' first leaked benchmark, and it looks to be trading blows with NVIDIA's RTX 3070 Ti.

DotESports reports that the card, identified as the Arc Alchemist 32 Xe DG2-512, just showed up in the SiSoftware Sandra database. Renowned Twitter leaker TUM_APISAK posted the results of the card against the RTX 3070 Ti:

As per the Sandra database, it ranked the Team Blue GPU at #948, while the 3070 Ti is at #1160. It scored 9,017.52Mpix/s in the benchmark, while the 3070 Ti tallied 8,369.51Mpix/s.

There are no other tell-tale metrics on display like gaming performance. Furthermore, the benchmark remains unconfirmed until official ones come out, so take this one with a grain of salt.

But while the overall score could be telling, Tom's Hardware states that the devil could be in the details. They point out the Intel card's FP32 GPU compute workload score, which could make it struggle a bit when it comes to real-world performance.

The Intel ARC Alchemist GPU scored 20,888 points in FP32 GPU compute, while the 3070 Ti scored a much higher 27,029 points. This makes Team Blue's offering around 23% slower. FP32 GPU computes something that a lot of graphics applications use the most in modern times (aka games and other graphically intense workloads).

Another important tidbit to note is the driver version used for the alleged benchmark. It is identified as a sample driver usually meant for internal testing and not the same graphics drivers you get to download off NVIDIA or AMD's websites.

What this could mean is that this early Intel ARC graphics card benchmark, if real, is not representative of actual performance yet until at least the drivers have "matured."

What Could This Mean For The Intel ARC Alchemist GPU Line?

It has been a while since Intel first teased their Alchemist line of GPUs. But since the earliest rumors popped up last year, there's been barely any news about the cards. However, whatever pieces of information there are seems to be on the not-so-good side.

First up, the release date. Previously, Intel was touting that they would start shipping the GPUs by Q1 2022. However, any and all mentions of Q1 2022 were removed from the official site of the cards, fueling speculation that the launch might be delayed.

To check for yourself, go ahead to the Intel ARC web page, and you'll see that there's no mention of Q1 anywhere, only 2022.

However, when the cards do launch, they're likely not going to be cheap based on where they're positioned in the market. According to Digital Trends, the MSRP of the top-end card could be around $600, which sits between the NVIDIA RTX 3080 and 3070.

Lastly, it was also confirmed by Intel themselves that the ARC GPU series wouldn't have a crypto mining lock. This could be bad news for PC gamers, who might have to deal with crypto miners once again snatching stocks off the shelves, eventually jacking up prices due to scarcity in the process.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by RJ Pierce