Intel hasn’t given up on the GPU market yet and is releasing new GPUs based on its own Arc architecture. These are aimed at desktop and mobile workstations.

Intel is expanding its range of home-built Arc GPUs. After the Arco Pro A30, A40 and A50, there is now (you guessed it) the A60. It is available in two variants. The regular Arc Pro A60 fits in desktop workstations and the Arc Pro A60M feels right at home in laptops.

specifications

Intel describes the GPU as a significant upgrade. The card is based on a new “Alchemist” GPU, the ACM-G12. The A60 thus becomes a single-slot PCIe 4.0 GPU with twice the performance of the A50, despite being twice the size. You get:

• 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes
• 16 Xe cores
• 256 execution units
• 16 ray tracing units
• 12GB GDDR6 memory
• 384 GB/s memory bandwidth
• 130 watts TDP

The GPU is not baked in Intel’s own factories. That honor goes to competitor TSMC, which assembles the Arc GPU using the 6nm process. According to Intel, the above specifications are sufficient for a computing power of 10.04 Tflops FP32 (single precision).

Support

Intel offers hardware support for major media formats including AV1 and H.264 and H.265. Intel worked with major software developers such as Autodesk, Adobe, Siemens and Dassault to provide optimal support for important packages such as Solidworks and Autocad in the drivers.

It is also interesting that the card supports a maximum resolution of 7,680 x 4,320 pixels at 60Hz. You can connect up to four different screens.

price and availability

Intel has not yet announced an official price. A recommended retail price of 175 US dollars is circulating on the Internet. As far as effective price goes at launch, Intel will release a GPU with a lot of horsepower for the money. Combine that with the compact footprint over a PCIe slot and you have an interesting card for many workstations. Actually, the GPU should be for sale “in the coming weeks”.