Intel's graphics cards with "Battlemage" allegedly about to be unveiled

The market launch of Intel's next generation of graphics cards for desktop PCs , which has been postponed several times this year, appears to be imminent. This is indicated by several leaks from the past few weeks. The GPUs with the project name "Battlemage" are intended to replace the "Alchemist" generation cards, which were launched in mid-2022 with major teething problems with the drivers. These appeared under the official brand names with the GPU architecture "Xe", Battlemage consequently as "Xe2". The graphics cards are also called "Arc", and will remain so.

Only after the market launch of its latest CPUs did Intel also point out that the graphics cores in Core Ultra 9 285K and Co. are also based on Battlemage and therefore Xe2. The architecture, and more importantly the drivers, therefore appear to be quite mature. Compared to Xe, Intel has doubled the number of arithmetic units in Xe2 to 128 shaders per GPU core. The GPU in the 285K consists of four Xe cores and therefore 512 shaders. This allows rough performance estimates to be made for the upcoming desktop graphics cards.

Arc B580 probably with 12 GByte

According to several sources, most recently summarized by Videocardz, the largest model for now, the Arc B580 – with "B" for Battlemage – has 20 Xe2 cores, which means it should be at least five times as fast as the GPU in the 285K. Rather much faster, because the GPU does not have to address the comparatively lame DDR5 RAM of a PC main memory, but should be connected to 12 GByte GDDR6 via 192 data lines. Nevertheless, the B580 is probably more of an entry-level graphics card for 3D games, as it is said to cost just 250 US dollars plus tax. In Germany, this would be around 300 euros including VAT.

According to the unconfirmed report, Intel will follow the proven Nvidia script for the presentation. The B580 and the smaller B570 are to be announced as early as next Tuesday, December 3, 2024. Apart from the specification of 18 Xe2 cores, there is still no data on the features of the latter graphics card. On December 12, tests of Intel's reference designs, called "Limited Edition", will be released and the cards will go on sale. Custom designs from providers other than Intel will follow a day later with testing and market launch. Nvidia has been following a very similar procedure for several generations with its own "Founders Edition" and cards from other manufacturers.

Nvidia's RTX 5090 expected at CES

Whether and if so, which Battlemage variants will be available is currently still unknown. Above all, a larger model like the previous Arc A770, which is equipped with 16 GB, is still missing. There is also no information on the functions of the video engines in Battlemage. Intel's first Arc generation, Alchemist, was also interesting because it was able to both decode and encode the AV1 codec in hardware before the launch of Nvidia's RTX 4000 GPUs. We can therefore assume that Battlemage will have at least this functionality.

In addition to the rumors about Intel graphics cards, there are also new ones about the upcoming RTX-5000 series from Nvidia from other sources. At least its top model, the RTX 5090, will not only be announced at the CES trade fair in the first week of January, but will also be available shortly afterward. So far, the 5080 and 5070 models are also expected to be unveiled. It also seems plausible that at least the 5090 will arrive soon, as its predecessor, the RTX 4090, has been disappearing from the market for months and is currently difficult to come by.

(nie)