Arc Battlemage leak: Intel to cancel Arc Celestial desktop GPUs if Battlemage fails

We got our first taste of Intel’s next-gen Xe2 graphics architecture with the Lunar Lake APUs. The new architecture gives Lunar Lake class-leading performance as the Arc 140V iGPU beats AMD’s latest and greatest Radeon 890M featured inside the Ryzen AI 9 HX370 Strix Point APU.

According to a new leak by Moore’s Law Is Dead, the Xe2 architecture is making its way to desktops “within the next 4 months” in the form of two Battlemage GPUs: The BMG G31 and BMG G21.

Confirming previous leaks, MLID claims that only two Arc Battlemage GPUs are currently being prepared:

• A mid-range BMG G31
• An entry-level BMG G21

With the BMG G31, we are reportedly looking at 36 Xe cores, a 256-bit wide bus, 20 Gbps GDDR6 memory, support for PCIe 5.0, and DisplayPort 2.1. We have yet to learn about the memory capacity, but it is reasonable to assume a 16 GB buffer.

The smaller BMG G21 supposedly retains the PCIe and DP spec of its bigger brother but gets only 20 Xe cores and a 192-bit bus. While MLID hasn’t shared any VRAM size for the BMG G21, a previous leak had the figure at 12 GB.

Intel is supposedly targeting the entry-level and mid-range markets with the Arc Battlemage GPUs. MLID alleges that the top-end Battlemage die, the BMG G31, will have RTX 4070-level performance, while the BMG G21 will perform close to an RX 7600 XT.

Assuming the Arc Battlemage GPUs perform similarly to MLID’s claims, the BMG G31 will bring more than a 20% improvement over the Arc A770, the Arc Alchemist frontrunner. The BMG G21, on the other hand, is expected to retain the performance of the Arc A770 (Available on Amazon).

Sadly, the Arc Battlemage desktop GPUs may not see a wider release, as AIBs reportedly don’t want to take a chance with Battlemage cards. Biostar is supposedly among the few AIBs that will. AMD is also seemingly offering “good Ryzen + RDNA 4 bundles” to dissuade AIBs from partnering with Intel for Battlemage.

MLID further claims that event Intel is not confident in the Battlemage GPUs, even though the boards are expected to feature “much better drivers than Alchemist at launch”. The company lacks optimism to such an extent that the failure of Arc Battlemage could also lead Team Blue to cancel the “final dGPU Celestial die”, resulting in Intel’s exit from the desktop GPU market.

In the end, only time will tell how much of what MLID has revealed ends up being true, as the leaker has been wrong about the Intel Arc GPUs in the past. For what it’s worth, we hope the Battlemage cards do exceed expectations and succeed in giving AMD and Nvidia some tough competition in the entry-level/mid-range segment.