Last week Intel launched the Arc GPUs for laptops. The initial plan was to roll out only the entry level Arc 3 series officially followed by the more advanced gaming variants in the coming summer. However, it seems like that isn’t happening any time soon. A week has gone by since the launch of the first of the entry level series, but there is no sight of the Arc A350 and A370M laptops anywhere.
We seem to be seeing no tweets regarding any purchases made from the Arc 3 series. From this we can conclude that the official launch was nothing more than an announcement only. As opposed to what Intel had previously promised to do, the GPUs don’t seem to be making their way to the market in the first quarter. The Intel Support account has responded and according to their most recent announcement, the Intel Arc laptops will make their way to the market by the end of the second quarter. More than 24 hours have gone by since this statement was made public and so far no employee from Intel has made any comment. It is still a possibility that this might be a misunderstanding of some sort. We are of the view that it might be referring to the entire whole Arc Mobile line-up being available or the Arc 5/7 series which we already knew were going to be launched later.
We will need to wait to hear more about this statement from Intel to get more clarity. It is quite evident thus far that there is something wrong after all with the Arc series launch. On the other hand, the Acer Swift X laptop with Arc GPU which was listed for pre-order even before the Arc series was launched, is still available for purchase. The shipment date however has been pushed back from May 25 to June 13.
In another development, B&H customers who had purchased the Samsung Book2 Pro with ARC GPU are complaining that their laptops don’t have the Arc GPU. This problem has been highlighted on numerous Samsung Forums too.
Hi! Laptops with Intel ARC will be available for purchase by the end of the second quarter of 2022. We suggest you follow our newsroom at https://t.co/AlNpzzMu5P for all the updates.
— Intel Support (@IntelSupport) April 6, 2022