First Intel Battlemage GPUs already on SiSoftware Sandra page
Intel maintains a tight-lipped approach regarding Battlemage news, its upcoming discrete graphics architecture. The company has faced criticism for the prolonged delays in launching its predecessor “Alchemist”, which has a tough time competing with current-generation series from AMD and NVIDIA. Despite this, the appealing price and generous memory capacity of Intel’s Arc products have persuaded many gamers to give Intel GPUs a chance. The feedback collected from first-gen Arc adopters, is used by Intel to optimize drivers and deliver even greater performance for all Alchemist products, including mobile Meteor Lake.
Now the attention is slowly shifting to the Alchemist successor (Xe2-HPG) of discrete desktop and mobile GPUs. Intel has not confirmed when such a product would be released, and there has not been a single teaser for Intel Arc discrete graphics in ages. Only recently, Tom “TAP” Petersen, Intel Fellow, confirmed that over 30% of the Intel GPU team is working on the Battlemage software, while the rest is already committed to 3rd-gen Xe-HPG series codenamed Celestial.
Now, according to entries on SiSoftware Sandra page, Intel is working on two Xe2 chips equipped with 20 Xe-Core (160 EU) and 24 Xe-Cores (160 EU) respectively. Both would supposedly feature 11.6GB (so 12GB) memory capacity. These entries were mentioned by @miktdt , and picked up by Wccftech .
Alleged Xe2-LPG entries, Source: SiSoftware
The data indicates that neither of the two is actually faster than its Alchemist counterpart. However, it’s worth noting that Intel software optimizations tend to yield better results with more recent data. Therefore, more recent results are more likely to show improved performance.
Intel Arc Battlemage, Source: RedGamingTech
Intel Battlemage GPU series are unofficially claimed to feature next-gen memory subsystem (possibly GDDR7) and improved ray tracing. The most recent rumors suggest that the architecture may feature doubled core count per Xe-Core; thus the product listed above should theoretically offer more performance already.
| Intel ARC Graphics Roadmap | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VideoCardz | Intel ARC “Alchemist” | Intel ARC “Battlemage” | Intel ARC “Celestial” | Intel ARC “Druid” |
| Architecture | Xᵉ HPG | Xᵉ² HPG | Xᵉ³ HPG | Xᵉ Next Architecture |
| Fabrication Node | TSMC N6 | TBC | TBC | TBC |
| Release Date | 2022 | 2024 | 202x | 202x |
| GPUs | ACM-G10 ACM-G11 ACM-G12 | BCM-G10 BCM-G21 GCM-G31 | TBC | TBC |
| Max Xe-Cores | 32 | 32 | TBC | TBC |
| Max EUs | 512 | 1024 | TBC | TBC |
| PCIe | PCIe 4.0 | PCIe 5.0 | TBC | TBC |
Source: SiSoftware #1 , #2 , Michael via Wccftech