Intel Roadmap Points Reaffirms Next-Gen Arc Xe2 “Battlemage” Discrete GPU Launch In 2024 [Updated]

Updated on 12/19/2023, 05.58 PM Eastern Time: Intel has clarified that the bottom right X-axis label translates as 2024 onwards and that the slide was meant to show future products without specific timing.

Intel has reaffirmed that its next-gen Arc Xe2 "Battlemage" discrete GPUs are heading for launch in the coming year.

It's been over a year since Intel launched its first Arc discrete GPUs based on the Xe "Alchemist" core architecture. The discrete GPUs first made their debut with the Arc A380 and gradually saw the release of higher-tier products such as the A770, A750, and the most recent A750. The GPU architecture was also adopted by several mobility chips and since its launch, Intel has fine-tuned and fixed a lot of the performance issues and bugs associated with the architecture, drivers, and software ecosystem.

Now, Intel has introduced the same Arc Xe "Alchemist" architecture on its Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" CPUs as an iGPU. This solution offers very competitive performance against AMD's RDNA 3 iGPUs & we can expect further improvements as the driver improves down the line. But in 2024, Intel aims to release a brand new GPU architecture known as Xe2 "Battlemage" This new architecture will be used by the next iteration of Intel's Arc Gaming & Pro discrete GPUs for desktop and mobility PCs.

During a Client PC roadmap showcased at the Japanese launch event of the Core Ultra CPUs, Intel released a new roadmap that showcases its discrete GPU lineup throughout 2023 then moves on to 2024 pointing out the release of Xe2 "Battlemage" discrete GPUs. Note that the GPU portion of the roadmap only lists Arc discrete products such as the Pro A60, A60M, and the A580, all 3 of which were introduced this year. The Alchemist Arc iGPU for Core Ultra GPUs isn't mentioned since it doesn't fall in the category of a discrete graphics chip.

Intel uses a different terminology for its iGPUs which was first mentioned by Raja Koduri. The GPU tile is called tGPU or Tiled GPU and there are a lot of things that can be done with Tiled GPUs with Arc Xe being the first generation of such a solution. In 2024, Intel will have an updated version of the Arc Xe "Alchemist" iGPU known as Xe-LPG+ integrated within the 2nd Gen Core Ultra lineup codenamed Arrow Lake which is expected in 2H 2024. The company will then move on to launch Xe2 Battlemage on its Lunar Lake and then Xe3 Celestial for future client chips.

But coming back to discrete graphics, this roadmap pretty much confirms that Battlemage Xe2 will be coming to discrete graphics solutions in 2024. The Battlemage GPUs are expected to bring a lot of new features among which we can expect Intel's first frame-generation technology support such as ExtraSS which we recently detailed here. The company has also increased support for its next-gen GPUs within the Xe Kernel drivers for Linux 6.8 which shows its commitment to offering a robust software platform for its current-gen but also next-gen chips such as Battlemage.

Based on previous reports, the Battlemage GPUs have not only fixed some of the architectural choices that felt a bit unnecessary for Alchemist but in the first silicon is shaping out to be very well. The first BMG-G10 GPUs (Xe2-HPG) were also reportedly running in labs so if all goes well, we can expect more information from Intel in the coming months or maybe even earlier at their upcoming CES 2024 keynote.

News Source: 4Gamer