Source: Intel
About a year ago, Intel had announced the workstation equivalent to its Arc Alchemist cards, Arc Pro, and despite its launch on paper, very few PCs with Arc Pro cards are available, let alone individual cards. In a new announcement however, Intel not only added another GPU to the Arc Pro lineup, but also claimed OEM systems using its lower midrange A40 Pro are now available from HP, with Dell and Lenovo soon to follow.
Lower-end Alchemist silicon with more VRAM
The Arc Pro series initially debuted with the Pro A40, Pro A50, and Pro A30M (which is currently available in Lenovo’s ThinkPad P16 Mobile Workstation), essentially workstation optimized versions of the low-end Arc A380. The new Pro A60 and A60M are in turn professional versions of the Arc A550 (which is thus far unreleased) and the Arc A550M. Here’s the full spec sheet:
| Arc Pro A40 | Arc Pro A30M | Arc A380 | Arc Pro A60 | Arc Pro A60M | Arc A550M | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xe Cores | 8 | 8 | 8 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Frequency | 1,550MHz | 1,550MHz | 2,000MHz | N/A | 1,300MHz | 900MHz |
| VRAM | 6GB | 4GB | 6GB | 12GB | 8GB | 8GB |
| Memory Bus | 96-bit | 64-bit | 96-bit | 192-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 192GB/s | 112GB/s | 186GB/s | 384GB/s | 256GB/s | 224GB/s |
| Bus Interface | PCIe 4.0 x8 | PCIe 4.0 x8 | PCIe 4.0 x8 | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x8 |
With 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes, 12GB of VRAM, and a memory bandwidth of 384GB/s, the Pro A60 is now the fastest member of the Arc Pro family, but it’s not the fastest card Intel could potentially offer. Workstation variants of the A750 with 28 Xe cores and the A770 with 32 Xe cores (the maximum Intel can offer) still aren’t available, and Intel could offer 16GB or even more on such graphics cards. It would certainly help Intel even the playing field with Nvidia and AMD, which recently launched its W7000 series cards that are both much faster and more expensive.
Intel says desktops with the Pro A60 will be available within weeks, while Pro A60M laptops will take months to arrive.
The Pro A40 is also apparently available in HP desktops today, but Intel didn’t specify what model and a cursory search for this A40-powered workstation didn’t turn up anything. Arc Pro so far has practically only existed on paper, but perhaps this will finally change.