Tom Petersen has confirmed that the Arc desktop “Limited Edition ” is a standard power ATX graphics card. However, a lot of us have noted that during the teaser of the desktop card Intel didn’t show any power connectors. From what we know regarding the specifications of the ATX 3.0, the new PCIe Gen5 power connector will only apply to the GPUs with power above 300W. This brings us to wonder whether the card has a lower TDP/Graphics Power.
During Peterson’s interview with HotHardware, a full-sized desktop graphics card was shown with a PCIe x16 interface. We can be sure of one thing; this was certainly a prototype. There is a probability that this might not even be the Arc GPU. And if it wasn’t that, then what was a card doing on top of his desk during the interview. So far, there isn’t any news about Intel planning another Xe-HPC/HC card with a PCIe interface.
It is clear from the teaser that this prototype board has three 8-pin power connectors, each of which will deliver 150W of power. Looking at the spacing, it can be safely said that this is an engineering board for evaluation. None of this looks like the Arc Alchemist prototype boards that have been resurfacing for a few months now.
It is a possibility that this might be a successor to the Alchemist. Even Intel has confirmed Battlemage would be targeting an even higher “Enthusiast” performance segment. But even then, it doesn’t make much sense why the company has used three 8-pin power connectors right after announcing the ATX 3.0 specs defining 300W+ GPUs with a new connector which will replace the need to have all three 8 pin connectors.