Intel’s Arc GPUs have proved to be solid budget class cards targeting 1080p and 1440p gaming. These use GDDR6 memory and compete with the Nvidia RTX 4060 series cards, with no competition for the high-end GPUs. With its third generation, while it is unclear if the company plans on releasing high-end cards, a new leak states that they will use GDDR7 memory, like the latest gen Nvidia RTX 50-series.
The leak comes from an alleged job posting for “Memory Tuning and Qualification – Discrete Graphics” at Intel, spotted and shared by Haze2K1on X. The screenshot shows the job was posted on April 16 for the Canada, Toronto region and in the description, it states, “drive and deliver pre- and post-silicon validation and characterization of GDDR6/7 on Intel’s ARC products.”
This suggests that the next generation of Intel Arc GPUs will feature GDDR7 memory, or at least some of them will. A comment on that post states that the Arc “Celestial” GPUs will come with GDDR7 memory. Since the job description also mentions GDDR6, the “Druid” GPUs could retain GDDR6 VRAM.
Earlier this year, in a conversation with PCGamer, Jim Johnson, SVP of Intel's Client Computing Group and GM, Client Business Group, reportedly stated that Intel is confident about the next generation Arc Celestial GPUs as they “have the discrete card and the software that is required to make it perform.” It was also reported that the new GPUs will use Xe3P architecture instead of Xe3. Xe3P is believed to be developed internally at Intel.
It is going to be a while till these new generation Celestial and Druid GPUs come to market. The Arc B580 was launched in December last year at a budget-friendly price of $249, followed by the Arc B570 at $219. More GPUs in the B-series are expected to fill up the portfolio.