Intel’s long-awaited Arc GPUs begin shipping today, starting in laptops

Maybe you've heard about it: After years of rumors and occasional false starts, Intel is leveraging its experience building integrated GPUs to enter the dedicated graphics business. The company's Arc GPUs will be trickling out throughout 2022, and Intel's stated goal is to shake up a market that has been dominated by Nvidia's products (and AMD's, but let's be honest, mainly Nvidia's) for years now.

That process formally begins Wednesday with the launch of the first Arc GPUs for laptops. These Arc mobile GPUs first made an appearance in January when they were obliquely mentioned (with no model numbers, specs, or other technical information) in some of the laptop makers' product announcements. Now that those PCs are closer to shipping, Intel is talking a bit more about what you can expect from its first serious effort to produce modern dedicated GPUs.

• The five Arc GPU models being announced today are based on two chips: the low-end ACM-G11 and the high-end ACM-G10.

The Arc mobile GPUs' branding mirrors the division between Intel's Core i3, i5, and i7 processors; the company is launching a pair of Arc 3 GPUs now, and one Arc 5 and two Arc 7 models will be coming in the "early summer." These five products are based on two different dies. The lower-end die, the ACM-G11, is the basis for the two Arc 3 GPUs, while the Arc 5 and Arc 7 are based on the larger ACM-G10.