In a move that is odd, but not all that odd once you stop and think about it, Intel have announced that they are stepping into the standalone graphics card market, with their Arc series of devices.

I say standalone, because a lot of the Intel CPU’s that power devices across the computing world, already have small graphics processing capabilities, just not enough to run games at the best specs. Check out the below video, where Roger Chandler and others from the Intel Graphics Team explains why Arc.

This isn’t Intel aiming to replace their smaller, in-built offerings, but more of another avenue for gamers to look into. The best way to think of it is PlayStation and Xbox are known quantities in their power, but Switch also offers some amazing visuals, this is what Intel are going to do, offer a third choice, that may surprise.

Today marks a key moment in the graphics journey we started just a few years ago. The launch of the Intel Arc brand and the reveal of future hardware generations signifies Intel's deep and continued commitment to gamers and creators everywhere. We have teams doing incredible work to ensure we deliver first-class and frictionless experiences when these products are available early next year. - Intel vice president and general manager of Client Graphics Products and Solutions, Roger Chandler

The first generation cards, which are looking to arrive in Q1 2022, are codenamed Alchemist and are being built for desktops and laptops, meaning there should be a big range of support. The Intel Arc GPU’s will offer up Ray Tracing support, as well as AI driven super sampling, much like NVIDIA’s DLSS or AMD’s FidelityFX.

Check out the video below to see some games, running on Arc, to see how nice things look.