Intel GPU ASIC team tease: next-gen Battlemage, Celestial GPUs coming

Intel's next-gen GPUs are being talked about before gamers have the current-gen Arc Alchemist graphics card in their hands, with the Intel GPU ASIC team working on next-gen "Battlemage" and "Celestial" GPUs already.

4

Intel Arc GPU roadmap

We are hearing more about Intel's future GPU plans through an interview with Intel's Tom Peterson and PCGamer, where Peterson said that most of the ASIC team is working on the next-gen Battlemage GPU, while a "small portion" are on their future GPU: Celestial.

Intel hasn't even got its Arc Alchemist GPUs ready for consumers and gamers yet, but the Intel GPU ASIC team is already onto (hopefully) bigger and better things. The software team at Intel has been making great strides, getting the pot holes inside of their drivers and compatibility up to scratch over the last couple of months. Things aren't all doom-and-gloom at Team Blue.

During the interview, Peterson said that "the bulk of our design team is on Battlemage" and that "our plan is to start here". Peterson continued: "And then we add on top and then we add on top. And it's not a really hard strategy to understand because we're starting with the volume segment of the market, and then we'll grow into more high-performance segments over time".

• Read more: Intel ARC GPU roadmap: Alchemist, Battlemage, Celestial, Druid teased
• Read more: Intel Arc A380 tested on 50 games: both old and new, includes Crysis

4

Intel Arc Alchemist, Battlemage, and Celestial: "Ultra Enthusiast" GPU roadmap

What can we expect from Battlemage and Celestial?

Intel's future-gen Arc Celestial GPU is the 3rd Gen Arc discrete GPU codenamed "Celestial" and will be ready for the "Ultra Enthusiast" and faster market in 2024+. Before that, we've got Battlemage which will also be part of the "Ultra Enthusiast" market that Intel calls it.

Battlemage will debut with Intel's next-gen 14th Gen Core "Meteor Lake" and their next-gen platform, with an Intel Arc Tile GPU ready for Meteor Lake CPUs alongside the SoC and CPU Tiles. The same will go for Celestial, which will not be here in time for Meteor Lake, but will be ready for what Intel is calling its "Next Platform".

4

Intel's Tom Peterson and Ryan Shrout

During the PCGamer interview, Intel's Tom Peterson explained: "We're not going anywhere on our discrete business. And our discrete business is the basic technology development that goes both into the data center and integrated GPUs. I feel like there's a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) out there. I'd just like to be clear: we're not going anywhere".

"The thing I happen to believe-Pat, and I, and Roger, and Lisa, and Ryan, everybody is aligned on the idea-that graphics is a critical technology to the client, is a critical technology to the data center, and we want to start competing in the mainstream area where our competitors are making a ton of money. So all three of those things are critically important for Intel".

"Most of our ASIC team is on Battlemage. A small portion of it is on our future, which is Celestial. And then there's a very small portion on Alchemist today, but they're kind of different function sets. So like a board and, what I'll call, chip teams are on Alchemist right now. Kind of think of it as getting our board just right, getting our BIOS just right, making all the final tuning. But the bulk of our design team is on Battlemage".

"Our plan is to start here. And then we add on top and then we add on top. And it's not a really hard strategy to understand because we're starting with the volume segment of the market, and then we'll grow into more high-performance segments over time".