What to expect from Intel ARC Battlemage, successor of ARC Alchemist GPUs: Predicting specs, release date, and more

Intel ARC Battlemage is set to be the successor to the first generation Alchemist series Intel Arc GPU architecture. In the latest episode of YouTube channel PCWorld's podcast "The Full Nerd," Tom Petersen, the spokesperson for Intel Arc, commonly referred to as TAP in the industry, discussed the progress of their initial graphics processing unit (GPU) architecture, Alchemist, and its future plans.

The gaming GPU market is predominated by NVIDIA and AMD, with their GeForce and Radeon series GPUs. Intel entered the market with the release of ARC series GPUs in March last year and despite a few driver-related issues, it was a success. The latest addition to the ARC GPU series was the ARC A750 and A770 released in October 2022.

The Intel ARC A770, priced about the same as the NVIDIA RTX 3060 with slightly better performance, will probably be one of the last GPUs in the first generation Intel ARC Alchemist lineup. Thereafter, Intel is expected to introduce its upcoming Intel ARC Battlemage (second generation ARC) series GPU lineup.

Let's hear what Tom Petersen has to say about the current Alchemist series and the upcoming Intel ARC Battlemage series GPUs.

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Intel ARC Battlemage GPUs: Specs, expected release date, and more

Petersen mentioned that Intel offering a price drop of the Intel A750 GPU to $249 will result in an increase in sales. Intel GPUs have also had some major issues with the API performance in DX9. But the driver updates developed by the software team over the last few months have resolved those issues.

Intel has also released a number of day-0 and day-1 driver releases for the latest AAA titles in their ARC series GPUs. A number of these drivers have even surpassed AMD’s driver updates, and are currently going neck-to-neck with NVIDIA.

All of the experience Intel has gained during the development of the first generation Alchemist series GPUs will help Intel in the research and development process of the upcoming Intel ARC Battlemage GPU lineup. During the interview, Intel spokesperson Tom Petersen said,

"Obviously, I am not going to disclose new dates for Battlemage or specs but I can say that the bulk of our design team, both on the architecture and software side, are working on it and progress is accelerating and moving along quite quickly. There are some cool new technologies that I want to talk about that I won't but let's just say that Battlemage is our 2nd generation discrete graphics card, it's moving along as expected and the bulk of our team is on it."

While the Intel spokesperson remained silent about the upcoming Intel ARC Battlemage series GPUs, YouTuber RedGamingTech did a detailed analysis of the upcoming GPU lineup. He even mentioned two new GPU SKUs, BMG G10 and BMG G21 in the Battlemage series, expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2024.

The leaked Intel GPU roadmap also mentions two upcoming G21 and G20 GPU SKUs in the first generation Alchemist series.

ARC GPU future roadmap (Image via RedGamingTech/YouTube)

A few features are already rumored about the upcoming Battlemage GPU lineup:

• Targeting enthusiast-level gamers
• Improved DeepLink capabilities
• Next-level Memory Subsystem & Compression
• Better Ray Tracing
• Next-level ML-based rendering
• Improved micro-Architecture

Perhaps the most prominent rumored feature is that this time, Intel might produce high-end graphics cards instead of the entry and mid-level Alchemist series. Some tech evangelists are even claiming that the Intel ARC Battlemage series GPUs will give tough competition to the flagship NVIDIA RTX 4080.

Upcoming generations of Intel GPUs (Image via RedGamingTech/YouTube)

Here is the expected specs chart for the current and upcoming GPUs by Intel:

Series	Alchemist	Battlemage	Celestial	Druid
Technology	XeHPG	Xe2HPG	Xe3HPG	Xe?
Performance	Entry-mid level	Mid-high level	No info	No info
Process node	6nm	No info	No info	No info
Memory type	GDDR6	No info	No info	No info
Launch year	2022	2024 (expected)	2025 (expected)	No info

YouTuber RedGamingTech also leaked the architectural names and technologies of the upcoming Intel ARC GPUs. The current generation of Alchemist GPUs is based on XeHPG technology.

Meanwhile, the upcoming Intel ARC Battlemage GPUs will be based on the Xe2HPG technology and will be released in 2024. We can expect the third generation Celestial GPUs to be released in 2025-2026. However, not much is known about the fourth-gen Intel ARC Druid series GPUs.

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That's all the current information on the specs, performance level, and release date of the upcoming Intel ARC GPUs. However, these are rumors, hence, readers should take this information with a pinch of salt.