12GB Intel Xe2 ARC Battlemage GPU Spotted

Intel reveals upcoming Battlemage/Xe2 GPU in GFX DRM logs

Intel gave us a preview of their Xe2 graphics architecture at Computex 2024,. There, they confirmed that it will be coming to games with Lunar Lake processors and Battlemage discrete GPUs. Now (thanks gaav87), references to a 12GB Battlemage GPU have been spotted in Intel’s GFX logs, giving us a glimpse of what is to come.

This new 12GB graphics card appears to feature a 192-bit memory bus, and 19Gbps GDDR6 memory.  The listing also appears to suggests that this GPU has 14 Xe cores. This should place this graphics card at the lower end of Intel’s Xe2 GPU lineup. After all, Intel’s ARC Alchemist (Xe1) graphics card features up to 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit memory bus.

With Lunar Lake, Intel has revealed a 1.5x gen-on-gen GPU performance improvement with Xe2. On desktop, larger performance gains are possible if Intel delivers a higher number of Xe2 cores with their next-generation GPUs. This would place Intel in a strong position within the mid-range GPU market.

If well positioned, a 12GB ARC Battlemage GPU could help Intel make a lot of headway within the low-to-mid range GPU market. After all, a lot of today’s lower-end GPUs are 8GB graphics cards, and there is a large, exploitable, price gap between GPUs like AMD’s RX 7600 and Nvidia’s RTX 4060 and 12GB 192-bit GPUs like AMD’s RX 7700 XT or Nvidia’s RTX 4070. VRAM capacity could be a huge differentiating factor for Intel’s next-generation GPUs, if they price their new graphics cards competitively.

We expect Intel to have larger Battlemage GPUs in the works. At a minimum, we expect to see a 16GB GPU with a 256-bit memory bus. After all, Intel’s ARC A750 and A770 both feature 256-bit memory bus sizes.

You can join the discussion on Intel’s plans for a 12GB ARC Battlemage GPU on the OC3D Forums.