Intel's Battlemage and Celestial GPUs are launching in 2024 and 2026, TSMC-made

[DragonSlayer101]

Something to look forward to: Intel's first-generation Arc Alchemist graphics cards may not have been a roaring success, but the company hasn't given up the ghost on its discrete GPU dreams, apparently. According to the latest reports, Intel is going ahead with its plans to launch its next-generation graphics cards in the coming years to compete against Nvidia and AMD. The reports also reveal the possible launch timeframes and process nodes for Intel's upcoming GPU lineups.

Intel has reportedly chosen the world's biggest semiconductor foundry, TSMC, to manufacture its next-generation Battlemage and Celestial GPUs. While the former is set to release in the second half of 2024, the latter is expected to debut in 2026.

According to industry sources cited by Taiwan's Commercial Times, the Battlemage GPU will use the Xe2 architecture and be fabricated using TSMC's 4nm process node, while the Celestial GPU will use the Xe3 architecture and be manufactured using the company's N3X (3nm) process.

If the reported timeline is anything to go by, it will take more than a year for the Arc Alchemist successor to be commercially available, meaning they will likely have to compete with Nvidia and AMD's next-gen GPU lineups rather than taking on the RTX 40-series and Radeon 7000-series products that are currently available in the market.

Intel reportedly expects strong demand for GPUs among gamers and creative professionals, as well as from businesses for AI accelerators and other graphics-intensive tasks. The company believes that the deal with TSMC will help it grab a share of the growing GPU pie in the coming years, but whether that happens remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Intel has reportedly canceled its Ponte Vecchio graphics chips and the second-gen Rialto Bridge data center Max GPUs to better focus its resources on the development of the new HPC-focused Falcon Shores XPUs. These were expected to arrive as a CPU+GPU architecture in 2024, but Intel recently confirmed that they will debut in a GPU-only avatar in 2025.

The lukewarm response to the Alchemist lineup, followed by the recent departure of Raja Koduri, the head of Intel's Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics department, opened the floodgates for wild speculation about the fate of the company's discrete graphics division, so it's heartening to know that its GPU plans are still on course, despite persistent rumors to the contrary.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/98182-intel-battlemage-celestial-gpus-launching-2024-2026.html

 

[Puiu]

That's their release plan... for now.

 

[Kashim]

If Intel is so amazing and so far ahead of everyone else then why do they need TSMC to make their most advanced chips? Didn't their goofy CEO say that AMD and everyone else is in the rear view mirror? Didn't they change their naming schemes from nm markings to angstroms to make it look like they're way ahead of everyone? Oh Intel, you so funny.

 

[neeyik]

If Intel is so amazing and so far ahead of everyone else then why do they need TSMC to make their most advanced chips?

Intel uses TSMC for GPUs for capacity and cost reasons, I.e. it doesn’t have the fab output to produce all of its products, at a suitable enough price.

 

[Kashim]

Intel uses TSMC for GPUs for capacity and cost reasons, I.e. it doesn’t have the fab output to produce all of its products, at a suitable enough price.

Thank you for proving my point exactly. So they don't have the capacity or the price point, but you forgot the third point: advanced tech. They don't have that either. If their own lithography was ahead of TSMC they would never dream of buying it from them. We can wax philosophical about the reasons though, the bottom line is that no self respecting market leader would ever buy parts from the competition if they could produce it themselves. When they do, it signals there's something very wrong.

 

[daffy duck]

Intel uses TSMC for GPUs for capacity and cost reasons, I.e. it doesn’t have the fab output to produce all of its products, at a suitable enough price.

Intel has nowhere the money to build new bleeding edge fabs in the 3nm or smaller class. It will have to leverage TSMC more and more going forward.