Chip giant Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) ended the NVIDIA-AMD duopoly in the discrete graphics card market last year with the introduction of its Arc graphics cards. The company set its focus on the mainstream portion of the market, betting that offering gamers an alternative at lower price points would be a winning formula. By the first quarter of this year, Intel had scored a 4% unit market share, according to Jon Peddie Research.

Intel's graphics cards brought a lot to the table for the price. In Tom's Hardware's review of AMD's budget RX 7600 graphics card, Intel's cheaper Arc A750 nearly matched AMD at 1440p resolutions, and in ray tracing it pulled ahead. Intel's next-gen "Battlemage" graphics cards are expected to launch next year, and Intel is expected to address a larger swath of price points with these new cards.

The biggest weakness of Intel's graphics cards has been software. No matter how powerful or capable the hardware is, the software drivers that enable leveraging that hardware can greatly impact performance in video games. Intel attempted to take a shortcut on the software side last year by leaning on the drivers for its integrated graphics chips, but that was a mistake. At launch, Intel's Arc graphics cards performed well in newer games but were wildly inconsistent in others.

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Source Fool.com