Intel inadvertently leaks the details of its flagship Arc GPU

Intel recently released a video to demonstrate the features of it's Arc Control Software. However, it was particularly interesting due to the specs of an unknown discrete desktop GPU being shown for a split second during the presentation.

Arc Control is the name of the software that Intel is set to introduce to support Arc GPUs. The Arc Control software includes GPU monitoring capabilities, which was the source of the information.

The info comes via the eagle eyes at 3DCenter. For a brief moment at the 29 second point of the video above, the software appears to show monitoring data from an as yet unreleased GPU. It's speculated that the info comes from a high end discrete GPU as the clocks and power consumption are simply too high to come from a mobile part. The screenshot shows the GPU utilization is over 99% with a 2250MHz GPU clock, and GPU power at 175W.

That 175W figure shows the GPU power and not the full board power which indicates that we're looking at a top of the line model at 200W+ once the power consumption of additional components is taken into consideration.

Another little bit of info is the 1093MHz VRAM clock reading. This clock would equal 17.5Gbps which would deliver 560GB/second with a 256-bit bus width.

Of course this is all speculation based on just one split second of monitoring. It's possible that the software just glitched and we're reading too much into it. One thing is certain though, the launch of Intel's desktop Arc cards draws closer. We are getting almost daily info dumps now. There's confirmation that Arc will support AV1 encoding as well as decoding and we have a good idea of what form Arc mobile GPUs will take, even though real world performance is still mostly unknown.

Intel's Arc Control software showing what appears to be a high end arc GPU in action — (Image credit: 3DCenter)

We still don't have firm release dates although May to June seems likely. Interesting tech like XeSS, Intel's image upscaling algorithm, XMX AI acceleration and a new media engine take time to get right! Intel will need to get it right from day one if it hopes to create a positive buzz and win the hearts, minds, and dollars of gamers.

Speaking of dollars, that's the big unknown right now. Arc's competitiveness may come down to how attractive its price tags are. We don't expect RTX 3090 Ti class performance, so value will be critical. We hope the launch will be a success. The competition of three is better than that of two!

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.