Intel's ARC GPUs Will Be Overclocking-Ready at Launch

RJ Pierce, Tech Times 24 August 2021, 12:08 pm

Intel seems to be doing a lot of things right when it comes to its upcoming ARC GPUs.

(Photo : Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

According to a report by WCCFTech, Intel will be allowing overclocking on their Arc graphics cards with Xe-HPG GPUs via the driver UI on launch day. This was confirmed by Intel themselves, who says they're doing this because they realize that many gamers are content creators who will "need to push the hardware to the limit."

This news means Intel is going all-in on the enthusiast graphics market, which wants full control over their hardware. However, it seems like the overclocking support for Intel ARC graphics cards will be a bit different than what NVIDIA and/or AMD users are used to.

While people can use almost any third-party program to tweak the settings of GeForce and Radeon cards (i.e. MSI Afterburner), Intel ARC will likely rely on its in-house driver suite, which can already overclock discrete and integrated graphics chips from the company.

Intel's announcement could also mean that gamers who want to overclock their ARC GPUs won't really need to worry about compatibility with third-party software. That's because the graphics card driver suite already has it, writes Tom's Hardware. As such, many fans wanting to take an ARC graphics card for a spin when it comes out will have access to voltage tuning, power limit, fan curve settings, and maybe even saving OC profiles.

Given that Intel has recently shown the gaming capabilities of an ARC graphics card, in-driver overclocking support seems to be the cherry-on-top fans have been wanting.

Intel ARC: The Answer to the GPU Shortage?

For the uninitiated, there has been a massive graphics card shortage that has affected PC gamers all over the world. NVIDIA and AMD GPUs are selling for ridiculous marked-up prices, which has prompted many to seek alternatives. But with the impending entrance of Intel ARC into the market, does this mean there's finally some light at the end of the tunnel?

Not really, though it is a good start. For years (decades, even) NVIDIA and AMD have dominated the graphics card market in a massive duopoly. Intel ARC could give PC gamers a bit of a reprieve just because there are more brand-new options other than the used market, which has also been affected by the shortage as a whole.

OC Support Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg

Not only will Intel be offering PC gamers a ray tracing-capable option, they will also have something to counter NVIDIA's DLSS and AMD's FSR: XeSS, or Xe SuperSampling.

If Intel pushes all the right buttons, XeSS could be a very disruptive entrant in the graphics card market. That's because of two reasons: they're planning to make it open-source much like AMD's FidelityFX, and they also want to release it for other, non-ARC GPUs, reports eSportsTalk.

Things seem to be looking up for the graphics card market finally, but it's still a waiting game for now.

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Written by RJ Pierce