Arm, known for building the architecture behind many SoCs, including Qualcomm and Apple chips, is reportedly building a GPU to compete against industry bulwarks Nvidia and Intel. The company is said to have a hundred chip and software developer engineers in its Israel office dedicated to the global graphics processing group working on the project.
The Globes report says that GPU development is focused primarily on gaming. However, it also doesn't discount the application of such development in AI processing, should its research result in an actual product. We also don't know if it will be a discrete GPU, as the company said it does not comment on rumors or speculation.
Whether it plans to launch a graphics card that would work with x86 and ARM processors or if it wants to build its own desktop and laptop SoC with a stronger integrated graphics solution, it makes sense for the company to create a GPU for PCs. This is especially true as it already builds the Immortalis flagship GPU and its more affordable Mali counterpart included in many SoCs. After all, even though these GPUs are primarily designed for smartphones and mobile devices, they have features that can compete against desktop chips, like Ray Tracing and Arm Accuracy Super Resolution (ASR) tech.
Another possibility is that Arm is building the architecture for a discrete GPU that other companies could license, possibly for use with ARM processors designed for Windows-on-Arm. Currently, most major discrete GPUs only work with x86/x86-64 processors. While you could hack around to make an Intel Arc GPU work with an Arm Ampere system, it's not a straightforward hardware and driver installation and requires patience and lots and lots of work.
With Qualcomm's Snapdragon X off to a good start and desktop form factors expected to arrive shortly, there might be a market for a discrete GPU specifically designed for the ARM architecture.
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Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
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21 CommentsComment from the forums
Notton Is this separate from the Immortalis 925G?
Also I have no idea how an Immortalis G715 or 925G compares to a Radeon 890M, RTX 4050 6GB, Arc A380, etc.Reply
Flayed I bet it will cost an arm and a leg!
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ikjadoon Notton said:
Is this separate from the Immortalis 925G?
Also I have no idea how an Immortalis G715 or 925G compares to a Radeon 890M, RTX 4050 6GB, Arc A380, etc.That's a good question. I don't think any Arm GPUs have ever shipped on Windows PCs.
Immortalis G715: late 2022, up to 16 cores
Immortalis G720: late 2023, up to 16 cores
Immortalis G925: late 2024, up to 24 coresI think only MediaTek uses the Immortalis GPUs these days. Geekerwan reviewed the MediaTek 9300+, with an Immortalis G720 MC12 (12-core):
UnH4N9PJq8YView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnH4N9PJq8Y
https://socpk.com/gpucurve/
GFXbench 5.0 Aztec Ruins (1440p) / LPDDR5-8533
~95 FPS at ~15 W3DMark Steel Nomad Light (Vulkan 1.1)
~97 FPS at ~15W
1900 points
An Arc A380 seems to be +50 to 80% (though at ~75W, 4x more power). I assume the Vulkan & DX12 scores are comparable. I can't find any Steel Nomad Light benchmarks by reviewers, so the 3DMark database may be inflated with OC'd GPUs.Reply
BTM18 Good. Blow our minds ARM.
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jkflipflop98 The more the merrier!
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Makaveli More competition is always welcome.
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bwohl A gaming GPU article with no mention of AMD? I lol at the author….
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ivan_vy bwohl said:
A gaming GPU article with no mention of AMD? I lol at the author….with AMD being the console APU chips provider(Xbox one, XB Series, PS4, PS5) , Steam Deck and the likes (Aeris, Z1 Extreme) and the APUs the cheaper option for PC gaming, is a glaring omission not to mention the red team.
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jlake3 Feels like some wishful thinking to get from "ARM is working on gaming" to "New discrete GPU vendor, maybe?"
Given that their main business is licensing SoC component designs, the obvious guess seems to be that they're developing a bigger/better iGPU design to try and stay competitive. ARM might be doing great with CPU licensing, but not so great at graphics design licensing. Nvidia uses their own IP, Apple uses their own IP (derived from Imagination), Qualcomm uses their own IP (distantly forked from ATI/AMD), Samsung is licensing AMD's IP, and Google is sticking with the cheaper Mali iGPUs for now. Only MediaTek has picked up the Immortalis, I believe.
Right now, ARM's flagship graphics archietcture actually underpins very, very little of the gaming happening on ARM CPUs, and I imagine that bothers them.
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Notton ivan_vy said:
with AMD being the console APU chips provider(Xbox one, XB Series, PS4, PS5) , Steam Deck and the likes (Aeris, Z1 Extreme) and the APUs the cheaper option for PC gaming, is a glaring omission not to mention the red team.You left out the next gen Nintendo Switch, which is arguably more relevant in the handheld segment.
The GPU in the T239 purportedly has similar levels of performance to an RTX2050.RTX2050 is closely matched with the Radeon 890M, but DLSS and nvidia frame gen undoubtedly works better.
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