Intel's mysterious Arc 140T GPU teases massive performance leap over current offerings

What just happened? A mysterious Intel GPU has surfaced, raising some eyebrows. Lurking in benchmarking databases is the "Arc 140T" and based on the numbers alone, this unannounced unit appears to be quite powerful. It could shape up to be the iGPU to beat, potentially pulling ahead of counterparts from AMD and Qualcomm.

The details come courtesy of @miktdt on X, who spotted the 140T listing in GFXBench's OpenGL tests. When compared to Intel's existing Arc 140V iGPU, the 140T absolutely blew it out of the water, delivering framerates over 60 percent higher than even the 16GB version of the 140V.

To recap, the Arc 140V is Intel's top-of-the-line integrated Xe2 GPU solution for laptops, found in some Lunar Lake chips like the Core Ultra 9 288V. When launched in September, Intel claimed it was 30 percent faster per core than the previous generation, while also slightly outperforming similar offerings from Qualcomm and AMD.

In the shared benchmarks, the 8GB variant of the 140V managed around 107 fps, while the 16GB model hit 110 fps. Meanwhile, the mysterious 140T churned out a staggering 178 fps, leaving the 140V in the dust.

There is an Arc 140T with 128 Compute units on gfxbench, any idea what this is? ARL-H Xe LPG Plus? pic.twitter.com/A69m5fb4V5

Oddly, despite the massive performance gap, both the 140T and 140V are listed as having the same core count of eight Xe units. The leading explanation is that the 'T' model is tied to Intel's next-gen Arrow Lake H/HX mobile chips, expected to launch in early 2025. These upcoming chips are said to be optimized for raw power, in contrast to Lunar Lake's focus on efficiency.

This likely means the 140T is using higher-performance transistors compared to the 140V, allowing it to achieve higher clock speeds for an extra performance boost.

Whatever the reason, the gains are impressive, especially considering that the Arc 140V was previously Intel's fastest iGPU. A 60 percent boost in fps could deliver significant improvements over the 140V, which could already average 39 fps on Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p Medium settings, according to Intel's own data.

To be clear, Intel hasn't officially revealed any details about the 140T yet. The information is based solely on this benchmark, but it aligns with expectations that Arrow Lake will deliver improved graphics performance.