First Intel Battlemage GPU samples emerge - New graphics cards still 2024?
[18:14 Mon,25.March 2024 by Rudi Schmidts]
Intel is still trying to establish itself as the third player in the GPU market. The first product with the chip codename "Alchemist" can certainly be considered a respectable success - we ourselves recently had the A770 GPU based on it in our editorial office. However, despite a very good price-performance ratio, Intel has not yet managed to gain significant market share in the dedicated GPU market.
However, giving up is obviously not an option for Intel. And so the first samples of a GPU expected for 2024 have now surfaced. Intel itself is still very reticent about any news regarding the architecture dubbed "Battlemage". However, according to rumors, over 30 percent of the Intel GPU team is already working on improved drivers for the Alchemist successor (Xe2-HPG). The rest of the team is also said to be actively working on "Celestial", the third generation of the Xe-HPG series. It looks like Intel is not going to bury its GPU ambitions, but will continue to pursue them.
Intel still has a lot planned for its upcoming GPU series
Current entries on the SiSoftware Sandra website now point to at least two upcoming "Battlemage" Xe2 chip variants, which are equipped with 20 Xe cores (160 EU) and 24 Xe cores (160 EU). Both are said to have a memory capacity of 12 GB. There are also rumors that the Intel Battlemage GPU series will have a GDDR7 memory subsystem. This should roughly double the memory throughput - similar to the upcoming competition.
It has long been rumored that "Battleimage" could achieve approximately the performance of an RTX 4070 Ti graphics card. Comparable performance will probably be available from the upcoming models from AMD and Nvidia for less than 600 euros at the end of the year. It therefore remains to be seen whether Intel will once again offer this performance at a significantly lower price with its second Xe generation.
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