Intel’s new Arc line of desktop graphics cards have been highly anticipated. However, the first batch of customers may end up waiting even longer to get their hands on the new components after a recent report from Igor’s Lab suggests that they’ve been hit with a delay.
According to the report, the Intel Arc Alchemist GPUs “could be postponed even further towards the late summer.” Although most think of summer as culminating in August, it actually runs throughout September, as well. So, anywhere from July-September could end up being when the new GPUs finally roll out.
Why the delay, however? The publication suggests that it could have something to do with complications related to the GPUs driver software. Anyone who’s been gaming on PC for a little while knows just how important it is to have properly functioning drivers. One bad update could botch the entire experience, resulting in game crashes, video glitches, among other issues.
That said, it’s very important that Intel makes sure that it gets as many issues sorted out beforehand, especially considering that the Arc series is completely brand-new as Intel’s first foray into dedicated desktop graphics cards.
While the Intel brand is certainly quite strong, that doesn’t diminish the fact that it’s going to have a challenge carving out a solid corner of the market seeing that it’s been dominated by the likes of AMD and Nvidia for several years. No doubt, there will be some hiccups out of the gate, as is par-for-the-course when it comes to any new product launch, it’s in Intel’s best interest that Arc hits the ground running.
Over the course of the next few months, Intel has the job of convincing PC builders why they should look at an Arc GPU versus something like a new RTX or Radeon card that has more support and community assistance.