In context: Final calendar month saw Intel officially announce its discreet graphics card make aimed at consumers—Intel Arc. The codenames of the first and futurity hardware generations seem to be taken straight from a D&D game, and now we have a a meliorate wait at the official mascot for the start Arc GPU lineup: the Alchemist.

In an interview with HotHardware, Intel Senior Director of Graphics Production Marketing, Martyn Stroeve, and Senior Manager Graphics Tech Analysis, Scott Wasson, explained the thinking behind the Arc branding, including the inspiration for its name. Stroeve explains that the term was chosen because it has multiple meanings, including an energy connectedness between 2 points, a vessel, and a story arc.

Intel'south codenames for its next-gen Xe-HPG lineup could accept come from an RPG'south graphic symbol selection screen: Alchemist, Battlemage, Celestial, and Druid. Alchemists, who attempted to change mutual metals into gold, are a common sight in role-playing games, as are druids. Battlemage, meanwhile, is best known equally a class in diverse Elder Scrolls games, and Marvel fans will recognize the Celestials as the god-like creatures that have appeared in the comics since the 1970s. They created the Eternals and the Deviants, both of which announced in the upcoming Marvel'due south Eternals film.

Choose your Intel character

Intel had given us a sneak peek at the blueprint of the characters (above) during last calendar month's Architecture Day 2022 presentation. In the HotHardware interview, Stroeve released a larger prototype of the Alchemist mascot. He also suggested Intel could launch merchandise such as t-shirts featuring its Arc characters. Such a exercise is mutual amongst many companies; MSI has a slew of products featuring its Dragon Lucky mascot, including figures, key rings, and hats.

Intel'south Arc line is an heady prospect for gamers, with the beginning Alchemist series rumored to exist powerful enough to rival the RTX 3070 and AMD's Radeon 6800 XT when information technology launches early next yr. The company also has its AI-powered super sampling solution—Xe Super Sampling (XeSS)—to take on Nvidia's DLSS and AMD'southward FSR, and the Arc drivers will include born overclocking tools.

All images: HotHardware