Intel Battlemage GPU: everything we know so far

Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Despite a rocky start, Intel’s Arc GPUs are now among nan best graphics cards you tin buy. Targeting fund PC gamers, Intel has established itself arsenic a awesome subordinate successful gaming graphics cards, and each eyes are connected Team Blue pinch its adjacent procreation of GPUs, codenamed Battlemage.

We cognize Battlemage GPUs are coming, and Intel has slow been dropping hints astir nan graphics cards complete nan past year. Although we’re still waiting connected an charismatic merchandise date, specs, and pricing specifications for Battlemage GPUs, there’s a batch we tin portion together already.

Intel Battlemage: specs

Intel

Intel hasn’t confirmed immoderate specs for its Battlemage GPUs yet, but nan rumor mill hasn’t been quiet astir nan hardware these GPUs could pack.

The astir caller spot of scoop astir nan specs comes straight from a Geekbench benchmark that showcases a discrete Intel GPU successful action. The GPU is only referred to arsenic “Intel Xe Graphics RI,” truthful it’s unclear which exemplary we’re dealing with. It had 160 compute units, which translates to 20 Xe cores, 12GB of VRAM, and a boost timepiece reaching up to 2,850MHz.

These halfway counts are little than some Arc A770 and Arc A750, which had 32 Xe cores and 28 Xe cores, respectively — but nan boost wave is higher.

Wccftech has besides spotted a caller Arc Battlemage graphics paper successful nan graphics-related logs generated by nan Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) subsystem wrong nan Linux kernel. The logs revealed that nan paper was sporting 12GB of VRAM — overmuch for illustration successful nan benchmark I said astir supra — and 19Gbps memory. This is faster than Arc Alchemist, but arsenic nan GPU only comes pinch a 192-bit representation bus, nan bandwidth mightiness still beryllium little astatine 456GB/s arsenic opposed to nan 512GB/s we’ve seen successful Alchemist. The number of Xe cores connected this GPU remains a small uncertain, but nan leak suggests that nan GPU mightiness travel pinch conscionable 14 Xe2 cores.

Originally, leakers for illustration RedGamingTech claimed nan flagship paper would travel pinch 64 Xe cores — double what’s disposable connected nan A770 we person now, and pinch an wholly caller architecture successful tow. At nan opening of nan year, RedGamingTech revised their rumor, saying that nan flagship GPU would travel pinch 56 Xe cores. That’s still a monolithic bump complete nan A770. The latest speculation is simply a small spot different, however.

Frequent Twitter leaker Harukaze5719 recovered immoderate shipping manifests that gave america immoderate penetration into nan rumored specs of Intel Battlemage. According to nan manifests, Battlemage will travel successful 2 flavors: X2 and X3. The X2 paper is said to beryllium nan flagship, and nan specs are drastically trim down compared to what RedGamingTech speculated connected earlier this year.

BMG X2
BMG X3https://t.co/O5v3Tl1Wno pic.twitter.com/lr8uD3bCCz

— 포시포시 (@harukaze5719) June 29, 2024

The X2 paper is said to travel pinch 32 Xe2 cores, which translates to a (presumed) 4,096 watercourse processors (SPs) and 512 execution units (EUs). That’s precisely nan aforesaid arsenic Intel Arc A770, but nan Battlemage architecture is besides said to supply immoderate improvements sloppy of nan number of EUs. The 2nd paper will reportedly athletics 28 Xe2 cores (3,584 SPs and 448 EUs).

According to speculation, nan alleged Battlemage GPU pinch 56 Xe2 cores was canceled. Intel appears to beryllium adopting a akin strategy to AMD’s RDNA 4 successful this procreation by sticking to nan fund portion of nan market. However, conscionable a fewer months ago, nan rumors were vastly different. Apart from nan flagship paper pinch overmuch amended specs, RedGamingTech utilized to declare that nan paper could scope timepiece speeds of up to 3GHz and would travel pinch a monolithic 112MB of L2 cache.

What really stands retired astir nan leak is nan Adamantine cache, however. This is simply a shape of cache that Intel has developed for CPUs, and it’s not dissimilar from AMD’s 3D V-Cache — basically, you stack a bunch of other cache connected nan die. It’s what you’d telephone a “Level 4” cache. It’s slow by cache standards, but RedGamingTech says Intel plans connected packing a monolithic 512MB of Adamantine cache connected nan flagship chip. However, if Intel chooses to instrumentality to nan entry-level paper for a flagship, chances are that nan Adamantine cache won’t beryllium a point successful this generation, either. Mind you, this is speculation.

In summation to nan exemplary pinch 56 Xe Cores, nan leakers utilized to opportunity that a exemplary pinch 40 Xe cores was successful nan works. This 1 seems a spot much grounded successful reality, packing nan aforementioned cores, a 192-bit representation bus, and nary of nan Adamantine cache. RedGamingTech speculated that this creation mightiness declare nan flagship slot, citing nan mediocre margins that could travel from nan 56 Xe halfway model.

As things guidelines now, we person vastly different accounts from different sources. While immoderate leakers utilized to declare Intel would connection a immense spec uplift successful Battlemage, those rumors person gone silent. Which GPU is real: nan 1 pinch 56 Xe2 cores aliases nan 1 pinch 32 Xe2 cores? It’s intolerable to show correct now.

Intel Battlemage: pricing and merchandise date

Linus Tech Tips / Intel

We expected Battlemage cards to show up successful nan 2nd half of 2024, but nan timeline is increasing uncertain arsenic Intel is still yet to make immoderate charismatic announcements.

At nan opening of nan year, Intel’s Tom Petersen said that engineers connected nan graphics squad are moving connected package for nan next-gen GPUs and that hardware engineers person already moved onto “the adjacent thing.” Battlemage, connected nan hardware beforehand astatine least, is fresh to go. This was precocious corroborated by DigiTimes, which reported (as shared by Gamers Nexus) that Battlemage accumulation started successful nan first half of 2024. Battlemage has besides made an quality successful Intel’s graphics drivers.

Adding much grounds to this is a caller shipping manifest showing 2 Battlemage GPUs. The manifest notes that these cards are “for R&D purposes only,” but sending hardware astir suggests Intel is entering nan last stages of validation. In addition, Intel itself shared a slide pinch Japanese media outlets showing a caller GPU launching successful 2024.

Leakers don’t work together pinch this timeline, however. YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead cites Intel sources claiming that Battlemage is targeting a very precocious 2024 aliases early 2025 release. That’s contempt an early roadworthy representation shared past year that showed GPUs launching betwixt April and June of 2024. Meanwhile, astatine a recent conference that Intel held pinch Asus, nan shaper is said to person promised to motorboat Battlemage earlier nan extremity of nan year.

That April to June roadmap didn’t happen, but Intel mightiness still make it if it really plans to denote Battlemage earlier we ringing successful nan caller year.

The latest leak lines up pinch this clip frame. ComputerBase reported that Intel would motorboat nan GPUs earlier Black Friday successful mentation for nan vacation season, truthful there’s not overmuch clip near for it to make its announcements.

RedGamingTech

At this point, we’re waiting for Intel to stock more. Intel stayed quiet connected nan matter of Battlemage during Computex 2024, truthful now we’re successful limbo. Intel is besides not unsocial successful perchance skipping this twelvemonth pinch a caller GPU merchandise — AMD and Nvidia are now besides rumored to beryllium waiting for early 2025 to motorboat their caller graphics cards. In fact, AMD precocious confirmed that it’s targeting early 2025 pinch RDNA 4, and Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang is group to big a keynote during CES 2025 that will apt see an RTX 50-series reveal.

We won’t cognize thing astir pricing until Intel has much to share. However, there’s a bully chance Intel will attraction connected fund and midrange cards alternatively than costly flagships for illustration nan RTX 4090. That’s what we saw pinch nan Arc A770 and A750 successful nan erstwhile generation. Intel’s stance pinch Arc since its inception has been valuable, and I don’t fishy it will wantonness that thought pinch Battlemage.

Given nan specs, location are 2 ways nan pricing could go. If Intel goes for nan higher extremity and makes a competitory GPU, I fishy nan flagship paper will get astir $500 — but this only applies if Intel goes up pinch nan 56 Xe2-core model. That’s axenic speculation correct now, truthful don’t dainty it immoderate differently. Those much hopeful specs connote that Intel is designing a reasonably powerful flagship pinch Battlemage that will apt bid a higher price, and we’ve seen pinch GPUs for illustration nan RX 7900 GRE from AMD and nan RTX 4070 from Nvidia really important this value bracket is.

On nan different hand, if Intel keeps it conservative, its flagship mightiness extremity up being overmuch cheaper astatine astir $350. We’ll person to hold and see.

Intel Battlemage: architecture

Intel

Intel calls nan architecture down Battlemage Xe2, pursuing up connected nan Xe architecture we saw pinch Alchemist graphics cards. Leakers person shared a fewer specifications astir what this next-generation architecture will entail, but we’re ray connected actual details.

For starters, there’s a bully chance Intel will instrumentality pinch semiconductor shaper TSMC for Battlemage. We don’t cognize what node Intel will use, but rumor has it that Battlemage will usage nan N4 node. There are aggregate variations of this node, immoderate of which are being utilized successful Nvidia’s next-gen information halfway GPUs named Blackwell, truthful it’s not clear if Intel will instrumentality pinch a vanilla type aliases not. A caller DigiTimes study said that Intel will so usage a TSMC 4nm node.

For Battlemage, Intel says it’s simplifying its lineup. With nan first Xe architecture, Intel built it to standard from low-power laptops up to information halfway GPUs. Intel’s Tom Petersen says that Xe2 will person a much streamlined lineup. You’ll get Xe2-LPG for lower-power applications, and Xe2-HPG for high-performance discrete GPUs.

RedGamingTech

According to a leaked soul slide, shared by RedGamingTech, Xe2-HPG will characteristic a “next-gen representation subsystem and compression,” arsenic good arsenic improved ray tracing and micro-architectural improvements. That first statement stands out. Last year, Intel published a investigation paper detailing AI-driven compression to get astir VRAM issues successful modern games. We could spot that tech leveraged arsenic portion of nan architecture of Battlemage.

Intel Battlemage: performance

Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

We don’t cognize astir Battlemage’s performance, and nan fewer leaks that person travel retired don’t supply immoderate hints. Intel has confirmed it’s moving connected package for Battlemage now, and we saw really important that was successful nan erstwhile generation. We won’t get an meticulous image of capacity until nan cards are really here.

The 1 benchmark we person seen of a discrete Battlemage GPU serves to beryllium nan theories that Intel is aiming for nan mainstream market. The paper scored 97,943 points successful nan Geekbench OpenCL test, falling beneath some Nvidia’s RTX 4060, AMD’s RX 7700 XT, and Intel’s ain Arc A770. Considering that AMD and Nvidia are besides group to motorboat next-gen cards shortly, Intel whitethorn autumn rather a spot behind.

If we spot early leaks and judge that Intel mightiness purpose for 56 Xe cores aft all, past there’s a bully chance Intel is targeting nan RTX 4070 pinch its flagship Battlemage GPU. That’s astir apt a bully call, too. There are half a twelve GPUs successful nan value bracket betwixt $400 and $600, making it nan astir competitory portion of nan graphics paper marketplace correct now. However, if Intel only releases a GPU pinch 32 Xe2 cores, nan RTX 4070 mightiness still outperform its flagship. It’s intolerable to cognize correct now.

Originally, rumors claimed Intel would target nan RTX 4080 for its flagship card, but that seems unlikely. This rumor apt dispersed owed to nan size of nan existent GPU wrong nan flagship card, which is rumored to beryllium astir nan aforesaid size arsenic nan RTX 4080. That whitethorn beryllium true, but that doesn’t mean nan paper will beryllium capable to scope nan levels of nan RTX 4080. Intel whitethorn battalion much hardware successful nan cards than it needs, akin to Alchemist GPUs.

Lower down nan stack, it’s difficult to say. All we person now is simply a leaked SiSoftware benchmark showcasing Battlemage successful Intel’s Lunar Lake laptop CPUs. Regardless, Intel apt won’t compete pinch nan adjacent procreation of GPUs from AMD and Nvidia. Based connected nan timeline we person now, it seems Intel is trying to get a fewer months connected nan marketplace earlier AMD and Nvidia merchandise their next-gen graphics cards — but moreover that seems uncertain.

Intel’s large declare astatine nan infinitesimal is that Battlemage delivers a 50% improvement compared to nan erstwhile architecture. That’s wrong of Lunar Lake chips, truthful it remains to beryllium seen if Intel tin present nan aforesaid betterment pinch its desktop graphics cards.

As things guidelines now, rumor has it that discrete Battlemage GPUs whitethorn ne'er make it to laptops, truthful Lunar Lake Battlemage is each that laptop users whitethorn ever see. However, until Intel itself says much connected nan matter, each of nan supra is uncertain.