Intel Fellow Confirms Arc Battlemage GPU on Track for 2024 Launch

[T0@st]

PC World's Adam Patrick Murray and Brad Chacos sat down with a key figure representing Intel's Arc engineering team at CES 2024—Tom "TAP" Petersen was happy to answer queries regarding Team Blue's next-gen GPU offerings. The former long-tenured NVIDIA marketer + engineer confirmed in a video interview (see below) that Intel's Arc hardware department has already moved onto developing the Celestial Xe3 GPU family, while a significant chunk of staff are dedicated to getting software ready for a 2024 Battlemage Xe2-HPG GPU series launch. The latter info tracks with internal presentation material from late last year. The rumor mill has discrete Battlemage GPUs linked to a 4 nm-class TSMC foundry node.

Tom Petersen stated: "It's coming, I am excited about it, and all our engineers you know how they are constantly doing their engineering things. I'd say about 30% of our engineers are working on Battlemage, mostly on the software side because our hardware team is on the next thing (Celestial), so think about it as the Battlemage has already has its first silicon in the labs which is very exciting and there's more good news coming which I can't talk about right now...We hope we are going see it before the next CES in 2025." VideoCardz reckons that Battlemage could reach retail shelves alongside Team Blue's Lunar Lake CPU generation later this year, while Celestial has possible ties to a Panther Lake CPU release in 2025.




Intel's Tom Petersen Talks About The Future Of Arc:

"The PCWorld teams sat down to chat with Tom Petersen, Intel Fellow, at CES 2024 to talk about all things Arc - from mobile to desktop."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[ZoneDymo]

acquiring Tom Peterson is probably the best move intel made in a long time.

 

[Dristun]

He mentioned that they've found their "stablediff/AI on the cheap" niche with the 16gb model — Mr. Peterson, convince your management to roll out a 32gb consumer card next, please! Even if it's slower than a 4080, I badly want one.

 

[Solaris17]

I love this guy because he’s like an engineer for the engineers you know?

 

[Luke357]

He mentioned that they've found their "stablediff/AI on the cheap" niche with the 16gb model — Mr. Peterson, convince your management to roll out a 32gb consumer card next, please! Even if it's slower than a 4080, I badly want one.

I doubt they will have a 32 gig card for consumers but, I could see 20/24 gigs.

 

[Tomorrow]

Yes say what you will about Intel or Nvidia before them - Tom Peterson comes across as genuine, knowledgeable and enthusiastic. It's like an engineer and a PR person had a baby.

 

[Dristun]

I doubt they will have a 32 gig card for consumers but, I could see 20/24 gigs.

Haha, well, AMD has 24 gigs for 999$ (even less now), so I have my fingers crossed for someone to go mad. Maybe Intel, maybe AMD - but being able to do more on your own home hardware is a very exciting prospect.

Spoiler

Especially considering that I have to jump through the hoops every time I want to pay for anything in dollars with services, lol

 

[Luke357]

being able to do more on your own home hardware is a very exciting prospect.

I agree. I hate having services when I can just run everything on the equipment I already own.
(I do want more VRAM for LLMs because my 3080Ti should've had atleast 16GB of RAM)

 

[mama]

Battlemage releasing this year? I believe it when I see it.

 

[Dave65]

acquiring Tom Peterson is probably the best move intel made in a long time.

I can't stand Intel but this guy is the real deal... Intel lucky to have him.

 

[RAA!]

He mentioned that they've found their "stablediff/AI on the cheap" niche with the 16gb model — Mr. Peterson, convince your management to roll out a 32gb consumer card next, please! Even if it's slower than a 4080, I badly want one.

Mmm 32gb would also be great for VRChat. I've been in lobbies with 80 people using as much as 22gb of VRAM in the past.

 

[Minus Infinity]

I have some high hopes for Battlemage. I'm sure the launch won't be the clusterfcuk that Alchemist was and if they can really hit the 4070 Ti in raster that some are claiming, and it's say $599 max, it'll do well.

 

[Sabotaged_Enigma]

Seeing they use TSMC process node to make GPUs makes me again want to say that I've got a feeling from long ago that Intel process node has been doomed... They don't even make some parts of their latest Core Ultra out of their own wafers... I don't care what names they changed it into. Falling behind since 14 nm is a truth. Don't tell me Intel's is denser than TSMC's at the same number of nm, it only makes sense to compare them in the same year, say in 2019 Intel 14 nm vs. TSMC 7 nm, the truth is clear.
Raptor Lake's power efficiency's pretty bad already... Seems like their Core Ultra doesn't improve it much either.
Sorry, my words are quite irrelevant to the passage, but I just want to say it out...

 

[Bwaze]

We got pictures of prototypes, estimated performance, packaging, and still the Alchemist got delayed, after long delays.

I'll believe it when it hits the shelves.

 

[AusWolf]

I hope it's coming more than Alchemist came - that is, maybe two models in only one UK store.

 

[watzupken]

I feel the fact that they did not share an indicative timeline is not good news. Again while it sounds like Battlemage will be a decent improvement over Alchemist, the timing of the release is key. If it’s end of 2024, then they will be facing off new Nvidia and AMD GPUs. It’s like Alchemist now where it is pretty decent if you compare it with last gen GPUs.

 

[Onyx Turbine]

Highly likely at nvidia there is a person (people experience) who knows how to pull every cent out of a customers pocket. Launching now the super series is a master move, first sell high price medium spec than sell fair price increase specs.

The 'person' anticipated on this move and as such made sure people have super series cards or discounted 4000 series instead of the battlemage. It is to be encourage intel exploring new fields but
their cards are far from matured yet and are not quite power efficient. What intel did well is paying attention to power curve scaling in recent cpus, where they failed to give the meteor a bit more bite.
Arrow lake and battle mage must be really special else sales may not be reaching the regular or best forecast..

 

[Bwaze]

Maybe it will be more of a refresh than a real upgrade, and they'll target pre-assembled "Gaming PCs" market, or "workstations" that require better than integrated GPU - and with Nvidia focusing on AI and high budget they might have quite a lot to cover...

 

[Onyx Turbine]

True that is their strength there is no high entry barrier and easy 'connecting' but i think its to late as a former intel employee have been advocating a more broader move in the gaming space somewhere more than 10 years ago!

 

[The Shield]

I hope this Battlemage GPU will be huge: we absolutely NEED Intel to be competitive as never before.

 

[Panther_Seraphin]

I was always under the impression that Battlemage was going to be like Zen+ was to Zen. So minor tweaks/fixes/improvements but the major overhaul was always going to be celestial.

The fact that Battlemage has such a huge die coming and in turn a bigger amount of compute makes me think that battlemage is what alchemist could/should have been if allowed to cook a little longer before being pushed to release. I do look forward to seeing what Intel brings to the table because Arc is something I considered for quite a while before jumping to the 6950xt because it came down in price so much.

I think if Intel can manage to get their top end sku selling for $650 RRP and then work down while having 4070ti/4080 like performance? It will be onto a winner and will make serious inroads into the GPU market.

With the focus Intel has also put on the datacenter recently I can also see them possibly having some really decent home/small scale AI/Professional capabilites as well.

 

[archie_kaos]

I love this guy because he’s like an engineer for the engineers you know?

He should wear a Leather-Jacket and play loud Music on Stage and so he could make the Gpu to some luxury Lifestyle-Product. Then Intel could make much higher Prices: So they will sell more - because everybody wants to join this obviously smart and elitist Club of Owners.

 

[kondamin]

Weren’t we supposed to get arrowlake before Lunar lake?

 

[RandallFlagg]

Good.

 

[lemonadesoda]

DEF Tom Peterson as DOUBLEFLOAT
IF it will be good AND
IF it will be cheap THEN
it will be WINNER

/summary of posts so far