Intel has shared a clearer roadmap for its Arc desktop GPUs, finally giving us an idea of when we can expect them to hit the market. Recently, a report pointed to launches happening between May and July, but now we have official information from Intel.

Through a short Q&A post on Intel's community forums, the company revealed that it's launching the entry-level A-series products - known as A3 - starting in China through system builders and OEMs. Component sales will start shortly after (in China), and Intel says it will scale sales globally from there.

If you're more of an enthusiast and you're looking for more powerful hardware, you'll have to wait a little longer. Intel says it will start rolling out the A5 and A7 series cards later in the summer, though a specific timeframe wasn't given. This is contrary to the report we heard last week, which suggested the entry-level A3 cards would launch later compared to the A5 and A7 series. Again, this rollout will begin first with system builders and OEMs - meaning you'll be able to buy PCs with these cards already installed - and only after that the GPUs will be sold by themselves to install on existing systems. Intel is using this gradual rollout so it can ensure it's able to meet the demand for each card as it goes.

The same Q&A post also touched on the topic of mobile Intel Arc products, which have taken a while to show up despite being announced a while back. Intel says it has had some issues with the software not being ready for prime time yet, along with component shortages affecting OEM partners' ability to build systems. However, Samsung has already launched its Galaxy Book 2 Pro with Intel Arc 3 graphics in South Korea and it should be expanding globally soon, and other OEMs also have Intel Arc 3 designs coming. Intel says Arc 5 and Arc 7 laptops will start showing up in early summer, too.

While it's still not a very concrete timeline, this gives us an approximation of when to expect Intel Arc GPUs to show up on both desktop and laptop products. We still don't know a whole lot about how they will perform or how much they will cost (at least not officially), which is probably the most important factor if you're considering buying one of them. Hopefully we'll hear more about that soon.


Source: Intel