Intel launched three Arc Pro workstation graphics solutions, the A40, A50, and A30M, at SIGGRAPH 2022 on Aug. 9.
These new solutions are based on the same GPU as Intel’s Arc A380 consumer graphics launched in July.
The Arc Pro A50 and A40 are dedicated cards designed for small form-factor desktop workstations, whereas the Arc Pro A30M is designed for mobile workstations.
Specs-wise, the A50 and A40 feature 128 execution units, 6GB of GDDR6, eight Xe graphics cores, and eight ray tracing units. Base clocks are dialled to 2,000 MHz for both cards. Where they differ is their thermal design power. The A50 has a 75W TDP whereas the A40 targets 50W. Because of their low power requirements, the cards can run using the power supplied through the PCIe slot alone.
The Arc Pro A30M features the same 50W TDP as the A40, but comes with 4GB of GDDR6 instead of 6GB. Its memory bandwidth is also a tad lower at 128GB/s compared to the 192GB/s of its desktop counterparts.
In the press release, Intel says its Arc Pro A-series graphics target certifications with professional design and media applications.
Arc Pro also carries production-oriented features such as Hyper Compute, Dynamic Powershare, and Hyper Encode, all designed to accelerate media production tasks.
Being a new entrant to the desktop workstation graphics market, Intel will face intense competition from established rivals like AMD and Nvidia, though one area where the Arc series currently has an edge is support for hardware accelerated AV1 encode. Intel claims that its AV1 codec performance is 50x faster than software encode off of the processor.
Intel didn’t say when these graphics solutions would hit the market or disclose their pricing. It only said that they’ll be coming later this year. The company will be demonstrating systems with Arc Pro A-series graphics on the SIGGRAPH show floor.
