An Intel blog post has detailed the release roadmap for Arc Alchemist Discrete GPUs. The company plans to take a phased approach that prioritizes system builders and OEMs in China when it comes to desktop graphics cards. At the same time, laptop chips are currently only shipped to Samsung laptops in South Korea.

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Intel says it is working with other laptop makers such as Lenovo, Acer, HP and Asus to have their laptops released with entry-level Arc 3 GPUs “as soon as possible.” Laptops with more powerful Arc 5 and Arc 7 GPUs are scheduled for “early summer”. Lisa Pierce, vice president and general manager of the Visual Compute Group, writes that she hoped “availability would be wider” but blamed the delay on software development and supply chain issues.

For PCs, Intel lists the second quarter as a tentative release date. She claims that the first desktop GPUs will be entry-level A3s that will initially be available to Chinese system builders and OEMs (so they won’t be available as an off-the-shelf component to install in a self-built machine) and then distributed globally to DIY builders as well. . “Later this summer,” Intel plans to release more powerful Arc A5 and A7 desktop cards, again starting with professional system builders and then expanding the range.

This is a much more accurate roadmap than the one the company announced in February , when it simply said GPUs would be in laptops in the first quarter, desktops in the second quarter, and workstations in the third quarter. But Intel gives several reasons for this phased approach.

First, by starting with system builders, she can focus on getting her GPUs to work with a certain number of other components, rather than what a home computer builder can get.

Secondly, the Chinese market apparently has a “high demand” for these kinds of entry-level GPUs, and is physically closer to the board component factories, while shipping costs have skyrocketed.

Home PC builders in the EU and US will most likely get the new Intel desktop graphics cards by the end of the summer. Since Nvidia is expected to release the new 4000 series of graphics cards later this year, this could mean budding Intel GPUs will face stiff competition from a very well-known player at launch.

The upcoming Intel Arc Alchemist A770 discrete graphics card performed worse than AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 in tests