Intel’s Arc Alchemist GPUs have had a decent run in the DIY market. Potent ray-tracing performance and aggressive pricing have allowed Team Blue to secure a foothold in the dGPU market. The chipmaker is expected to release an Alchemist refresh in the coming months, followed by the 2nd Gen Battlemage lineup sometime in 2024.
Unfortunately, Battlemage is plagued by technical issues, forcing Intel to push the launch to mid or late 2024. According to Moore’s Law is Dead, the future of 2nd Gen Battlemage GPUs is very uncertain. The best-case scenario is a late Q2 2024 launch.
Battlemage was supposed to be a full-fledged lineup with multiple die configurations, even competing with the GeForce RTX 4080 at the top end. Unfortunately, the G10 die powering the B770 has been nerfed multiple times and may even be canceled. The initially planned Battlemage dies are as follows:
- G10= 362mm2, 448 EUs, 256-bit, 16GB GDDR6X.
- G21= 253mm2, 320 EUs, 192-bit, 12GB GDDR6X.
- G21= 253mm2, 256 EUs, 128-bit, 8GB GDDR6.
Battlemage is set to be fabbed on TSMC’s N4 (4nm) process and has gone from “an RTX 4080 killer” to almost canceled. It is designed to support PCIe Gen 5 and GDDR6X, though a last moment upgrade to GDDR7 is also possible.
