Intel Arc multi-GPU rumor sparks excitement before it s shot down in flames TechRadar Skip to main content TechRadar is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's why you can trust us. Intel Arc multi-GPU rumor sparks excitement before it s shot down in flames By Darren Allan published 12 August 2022 There is some multiple graphics card action going on, but not for gamers (Image credit: Gunnir, Intel) Audio player loading… Intel's Arc graphics cards have been seriously disappointing since they spluttered onto the desktop – with a China-only launch, too – but there's just been a brief flurry of excitement around a rumor that Team Blue might have an ace up its sleeve. Sadly, though, it wasn't to be. The ace in question was multi-GPU support, meaning that multiple graphics cards could be installed in the same PC and work together to juice up performance levels in games – which if Intel could get it right, would be a major advantage against AMD and Nvidia. (Team Red's CrossFire is dead, and so is Team Green's SLI effectively, though it's still kicking about at the top-end in a fashion). Word that Intel was planning such a multi-GPU innovation – which should have been shown off at SIGGRAPH 2022, but didn't quite make the cut – came from TweakTown (opens in new tab), but the tech site subsequently reported that after it broke the story, Intel got in touch to clarify that multiple card support was only happening in a very limited way. Intel told TweakTown: "Intel showed a Blender Cycles rendering demo at SIGGRAPH with Intel Arc graphics. Multi-GPU rendering support for Intel Arc and Intel Arc Pro graphics cards through oneAPI is supported starting in Blender 3.3. Intel Arc graphics does not support multi-GPU for gaming." That effectively shoots down the idea that PC gamers could benefit from accelerated frame rates with more than one Arc GPU in their machine. Analysis Okay so not now &ndash but maybe in the future We can see why folks jumped on this and were so quick to get excited. The whole desktop Arc launch has seen the discrete GPUs limping out of the gate, and bad news about drivers and stability has been compounded by further worries regarding whether the whole project is set to be canceled. The latter is something Intel has strenuously denied, mind you. At any rate, we're all pretty disappointed with the state of Arc Alchemist right now, so a glimmer of hope of something unexpected was inevitably going to be seized upon. Especially as in the early days, Intel did talk about going the multi-GPU route with gaming, and as we observed at the time, this seemed like it might be a viable way for Team Blue to meaningfully differentiate its desktop graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia. Of course, just because it isn't happening with Alchemist doesn't mean that Intel won't look at a gaming implementation in a future generation of GPUs. If we get that far, but of course the worry is that with the driver side of the equation already being seriously problematic for Intel, complicating things further with a multiple card implementation – a notoriously tricky business as gamers already know from past experience with SLI and the like – doesn't seem like a sensible idea.Today's best graphics card dealsReduced Price (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$19.99 (opens in new tab)$17.37 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$25.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$40.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)Show More DealsWe check over 250 million products every day for the best prices Darren Allan Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013). See more Graphics cards news TechRadar Newsletter Sign up to get breaking news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more, plus the hottest tech deals! Thank you for signing up to TechRadar. You will receive a verification email shortly. There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again. 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