It's interesting that Intel is pushing the ray-tracing capabilities of these cards, although we don't actually know how these fair when compared to the Nvidia and AMD competition at this point. It also highlights the fact that its GPUs support AV1 hardware acceleration, which genuinely does look pretty sweet, but we need to see how this performs in person before getting too giddy about it.
The reason this is of interest to us PC gamers is that this is a serious move from Intel and one that isn't undertaken lightly—not only is getting the software accreditation for professional cards expensive, but it indicates that Intel is in this for the long haul. Given its Arc Alchemist GPUs are still currently only available in China, and the fact that it's clearly, you'd be forgiven for thinking that its new GPU launch wasn't exactly going to plan.
Well that and the fact that the successor to Alchemist, codenamed Battlemage, is already in the works. Plus, Intel has been ramping up info before the global release of itsconsumer GPUs recently. Its candid talks to camera have been refreshing, although at this point it'd be great if it just started shipping graphics cards.
There's no indication of pricing for these new"Pro" cards, or indeed when we'll be able to buy them, beyond a suitably vague"available starting later this year from leading mobile and desktop ecosystem partners." Not that you'd want to buy such GPUs for gaming, as those drive optimizations do mean far higher price tags.
Professional, that's what they call the B League.