The Intel Arc Alchemist graphics card requirements left us with an important question, will they work seamlessly with AMD’s Ryzen processors? For an explanation that appeared in the fine print of the official list of requirements published by the chip giant everything seemed to be but until now we were not completely clear.

Ryan Shrout, Senior Director of Graphics at Intel, completely dispelled any doubts by bluntly saying on Twitter that: “To be clear, Intel Arc graphics cards should work with AMD platforms that support resizableBAR, we just didn’t test them in time for the A380 launch. My expectation is this any system with rBAR support will work fine, including high-end cards.”

In short, Intel Arc Alchemist will work well with any system that allows you to activate it ResizableBartechnology, which in AMD’s case is labeled as Smart Access Memory (SAM). Both refer to the same thing because they perform the same function, allow the CPU to access the entire graphics memory of the GPU. Without these technologies, the processor can only access a maximum of 256 MB of graphics memory per request.

Since the graphics memory contains very important elements such as shaders and textures that occupy a large amount of memory (more than 256 MB), this technology when used correctly, it can significantly improve performanceand the Intel Arc A380 performance tests prove it. As we can see in the attached graph, the difference between using or not using ResizableBAR with the specified graphics card can mean an 18% loss in performance.

Hi Andreas! To be clear, Intel Arc graphics cards should work with AMD platforms that support variable BAR size, we just didn’t verify this in time for the A380 launch. I expect any system with rBAR support to work well, including higher end cards.

— Ryan Shrout (@ryanshrout) July 25, 2022

This means that the performance of Intel Arc Alchemist graphics cards should be equally good when used with Intel and AMD processors, saving, of course, the possible differences that each specific processor may have due to raw performance. So, for example, an Intel Arc Alchemist graphics card should perform better with a Core i9-12900K than with a Ryzen 7 5800X, but not because of compatibility or support, but simply because the former is more powerful.

As for Intel Arc Alchemist graphics cards, we were able to see for ourselves recently new performance tests which confirmed rumors that have been loud for months that said Intel would compete with the upper midrange of NVIDIA and AMD and that it could reach the GeForce RTX 3070 level with the Intel Arc Alchemist A770. . Tom Petersen also confirmed that they will offer excellent value for money.

The launch of the Intel Arc Alchemist series should take place between the months of August and September, but we don’t have a definitive date yet, so we have to wait. In any case, it is important that this generation of graphics cards is promising, assumes the entry of a third player in the graphics sector (more competition, and that’s good for everyone) and represents the cutting edge of a new architecture that will improve with future generations. In this sense, I remind you that Intel Arc Battlemage, the successor of Intel Arc Alchemist, should be the consecration of this new adventure of the chip giant in the graphics sector.