An Intel Arc Alchemist card smiles for the camera

Intel Alchemist GPU renders on a blue gradient background
(Image credit: Intel)

A crisp and clear picture of an upcoming Intel Arc Alchemist GPU was released by Twitter user @SquashBionic (via Videocardz). The picture shows an engineering sample, and we can glean several details from it.

The card looks to be just about production ready, with none of the messy soldering that you might find on a development board, though there is what is probably a debug port just above the PCIe connector. The PCB is about ¾ the length of the cooler, which means the cooler can direct some air into the path of front to back airflow of most modern cases.

The PCB itself features what looks like eight memory pads, which would point towards a 16GB 256-bit memory configuration. The capacitor arrangement under the GPU is large, plus there’s the strong looking VRM with six and eight-pin power connectors. When added to the power provided by a 16x PCIe slot, we’re looking at a total board power of 300W. All of this point towards this being a high end Arc card.

 

Tips and advice

The Nvidia RTX 3070 and AMD RX 6700 XT side by side on a colourful background

(Image credit: Future)

How to buy a graphics card: tips on buying a graphics card in the barren silicon landscape that is 2022

If it is the high end card, then we’d say we’re pleased that Intel hasn’t applied brute force to wring every last drop of performance out of it. A sub 300W high end card is reasonable by today’s standards.

The performance of the card under a proper gaming workload remains unknown, but looking at the healthy state of this PCB, it's likely that the hardware engineering is mostly complete, with perhaps just BIOS optimizations and driver tuning to come.

We have a few hints regarding its performance, with a SiSoft Sandra entry indicating the card could beat the RTX 3070 Ti. If it can do that, and Intel can offer it at a competitive price, Gamers should find themselves happy to buy it.

We can expect more and more news as the launch of Intel's Arc graphics card range closes in. We'll be all over it.

Chris Szewczyk
Hardware Writer

Chris' gaming experiences go back to the mid-nineties when he conned his parents into buying an 'educational PC' that was conveniently overpowered to play Doom and Tie Fighter. He developed a love of extreme overclocking that destroyed his savings despite the cheaper hardware on offer via his job at a PC store. To afford more LN2 he began moonlighting as a reviewer for VR-Zone before jumping the fence to work for MSI Australia. Since then, he's gone back to journalism, enthusiastically reviewing the latest and greatest components for PC & Tech Authority, PC Powerplay and currently Australian Personal Computer magazine and PC Gamer. Chris still puts far too many hours into Borderlands 3, always striving to become a more efficient killer.

Read more
Intel architectural breakdown of new Battlemage GPU designs
Intel is 'confident' about next-gen Arc Celestial GPUs following Battlemage's success
Intel Arc B580 graphics card
New Intel Battlemage graphics cards spotted but they may not be the cut-price RTX 4070 killers we're all desperate for
A lightened screenshot from an Nvidia teaser video showing what is potentially an RTX 50-series graphics card in a PC
Hiding in the shadows, this Nvidia teaser video might have given us our first look at a Founders Edition RTX 50-series GPU
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 RDNA 4 GPUs arranged in diagonal lines, taken from a CES 2025 presentation slide
If the AMD RX 9070 XT is as beefy as these leaked specs and benchmark makes out, low Nvidia 50-series stocks might not matter
AMD Radeon RX 9070/9070 XT graphics cards with artistic renders of reference design cards circled
Looks like a reference design AMD RX 9070 XT card has shown up in China, but let's not get carried away with thoughts of MBA cards just yet
Nvidia RTX 5090
RTX 5090 prototype GPU with 24,576 cores reportedly leaks hinting at possible 800 W 5090 Ti or Titan monster
Latest in Graphics Cards
Nvidia App
Hmmm, upgrades: Nvidia App gets an optional AI assistant and custom DLSS resolution scaling
A close-up photo of an Nvidia RTX 4070, with its heatsink removed, showing the AD104 GPU die and the surrounding Micron GDDR6X VRAM chips
With Nvidia Ace taking up 1 GB of VRAM in Inzoi, Team Green will need to up its memory game if AI NPCs take off in PC gaming
A collage of Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards, as shown in AMD's promotional video for the launch of RDNA 4 at CES 2025
AMD's CEO claims 9070 XT sales are 10x higher than all previous Radeon generations but that's just for the first week of availability
Colorful iGame RTX 5070 Ti Vulcan OC graphics card from various angles
The RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti are rumoured to be mere weeks away, with board partners reportedly required to ensure at least one MSRP model at launch
Nvidia headquarters
Nvidia CEO sets sights on making 'several hundred billion' dollars worth of electronics in the USA over the next four years, increasing the chance of your next GPU being made in America
The Asus ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Dhahab Edition, a gold-plated graphics card on a sand dune background
A Jensen Huang-signed version of this golden Asus RTX 5090 will be auctioned off to support relief efforts for the California wildfires
Latest in News
Assassin's Creed Shadows promo image
Ubisoft scores a legendary ratio against Elon Musk on his own platform—which hopefully marks a final end to all the Assassin's Creed Shadows' culture war nonsense
Tzarina Katarin Bokha, the Ice Queen of Kislev
Total War: Warhammer 3 rolls out a cool Kislev overhaul, changes befitting Tzeench’s magic, new projectile units and creakier skeletal horses
An image of a golden first place award from Geoguessr
'We're actually getting GeoGuessr on Steam before GTA 6': the Google Street View puzzler arrives on Valve's platform this April
Napster client circa 1999
Former music-pirating platform Napster to be reborn rather ironically as a metaverse for musicians to connect with their fans after $207 million deal
The snazzy red and black HyperX Cloud Alpha wireless headphones float in a teal void. The microphone is attached to the headset.
The best wireless gaming headset is now even better in the Amazon Big Spring Sale, boasting a more than $50 discount
A chip being held up in an Intel fab
Intel is reportedly 'working to finalize commitments from Nvidia' as a foundry partner, suggesting gaming potential for the 18A node