Intel Arc desktop graphics card roadmap leaks, enthusiast Battlemage GPUs arrive in 2024

midian182

Posts: 9,661   +121
Staff member
Forward-looking: Intel's launch of its new desktop graphics cards wasn't exactly a resounding success. Arc Alchemist arrived with so many issues and mediocre reviews that there were rumors the company would cut its losses and abandon the entire project. But Chipzilla isn't giving up on ambitions for its GPUs to become a real alternative to Nvidia's and AMD's cards, and that could happen once Battlemage arrives next year.

Intel and Raja Koduri, chief architect and senior vice president of the company's architecture, graphics and software division, have repeatedly said that Arc isn't going away. According to an alleged leaked roadmap from RedGamingTech, we now know Intel's future plans for its discrete desktop cards.

The roadmap shows that Intel will release two 150W SKUs in the current Arc series during this quarter: the SKU4 (D23-P5) and SKU5 (D23-M3), both of which are more mid-range cards offering 6GB of 16 Gbps memory.

The roadmap also includes a refreshed family of Arc Alchemist GPUs called Alchemist+. This is planned (or was planned) to arrive in the third quarter of the year and is apparently based on the ACM+ G21 GPU for the high-end cards with a TDP rating of 175-225W, and the ACM+ G20 for budget offerings with a TDP range between 75-100W.

It's next year when things could interesting. Intel will finally enter the enthusiast graphics card market with its Battlemage GPUs based on the Xe2-HPG microarchitecture. The high-end BMG-G10 GPU that has a TDP of <225W lands in the second quarter of 2024, while the BMG-G21 GPU with its <150W TDP arrives later in the same quarter.

Battlemage looks set to feature a number of upgrades, including better ray tracing, improvements to the microarchitecture, next-generation memory subsystem and compression, new machine learning rendering technology, the latest DeepLink capabilities, and next-gen machine learning-based rendering tech. Intel writes that the cards will target the performance and enthusiast gaming segments of the market.

Following Battlemage in Intel's series of cards inspired by D&D names will be Celestial and Druid. Intel's Tom Petersen said last year that most of the ASIC team is working on Battlemage, with a small portion on Celestial and an even smaller number still on Alchemist.

Permalink to story.

 
If intel can straighten their drivers out before launch this time, battlemage stands a chance of doing very well, especially given AMD/nvidia have totally given up on the sub $500 segments apparently.

The drivers are getting much better but the control panel still has a lot of issues. If you just install the drivers and play games without the Intel panel tweaking, that seems to be best right now.
 
I wonder what is launching Q1 23, those SKU4 and SKU5. Not expecting driver and software to mature before Celestial.
 
What do you mean? The 6600, 6600 XT, 6700 XT, and even 6800/XT when you can find it completely dominate sub $500.

When you say 'dominate', are you talking about something other than market share?

The 3060 and 3060Ti are much more obvious examples.

Wishing Intel well. Nvidia needs a credible competitor.
 
When you say 'dominate', are you talking about something other than market share?

The 3060 and 3060Ti are much more obvious examples.

Wishing Intel well. Nvidia needs a credible competitor.

What matters when you have a GPU installed in your computer: Performance per dollar spent.

1080p/1440p performance:

6600 < 3060 < 6600 XT < 3060 Ti < 6700 XT

Prices:

$250 -- $350 -- $290 -- $390 -- $370

AMD has higher frames per dollar in this price class, especially at that lower end. I might choose the 3060 Ti over the 6700 XT for features as the performance and price are close enough. But the 6600s are both much better than the uncompetitive 3060.
 
But the 6600s are both much better than the uncompetitive 3060.

That's an interesting opinion. However, not unlike the word 'dominate', 'uncompetitive' is an unfortunate choice of words. The 3060 does in fact compete rather well, as is evident by the fact that it is outselling all of the AMD cards by a large margin. One might say it dominates.
 
That's an interesting opinion. However, not unlike the word 'dominate', 'uncompetitive' is an unfortunate choice of words. The 3060 does in fact compete rather well, as is evident by the fact that it is outselling all of the AMD cards by a large margin. One might say it dominates.
Nvidia is selling its brand so they dominate the market. AMD can't do the same so they have to dominate the value. Both companies don't care about their customers, Nvidia caring even less than not at all. But what amazes me, is that there are still people defending corporations just because they think that having one of their products makes them part of the club.
 
That's an interesting opinion. However, not unlike the word 'dominate', 'uncompetitive' is an unfortunate choice of words. The 3060 does in fact compete rather well, as is evident by the fact that it is outselling all of the AMD cards by a large margin. One might say it dominates.

Random claims are fun but sales numbers would be better.
 
Last edited:
That's an interesting opinion. However, not unlike the word 'dominate', 'uncompetitive' is an unfortunate choice of words. The 3060 does in fact compete rather well, as is evident by the fact that it is outselling all of the AMD cards by a large margin. One might say it dominates.
Selling well and being competitive to me may be different. Being competitive means that you have a compelling product, and/ or, compelling price. The RTX 3060 is certainly not a weak performer, but it is priced out of the market. People still buy them as the perception of Nvidia cards are better than AMD's is deeply rooted in peoples' mind. Even without considering AMD or Intel, the RTX 3060 is not competitive against the faster RTX 3060 Ti. I was able to get a 3060 Ti for about 30 USD than a RTX 3060 just about a month ago when both are on sale.
 
Selling well and being competitive to me may be different. Being competitive means that you have a compelling product, and/ or, compelling price. The RTX 3060 is certainly not a weak performer, but it is priced out of the market. People still buy them as the perception of Nvidia cards are better than AMD's is deeply rooted in peoples' mind.

Indeed. Would you say that this perception is something that AMD and Intel have to.. compete with?
 
Back