Intel is betting big on next-generation Arc graphics. So says a report from Taiwan, where TSMC manufactures the chips. However, with a release date in the second half of next year, the new GPUs are likely to appear later than previously reported.

According to Commercial Times (opens in new tab) (via Tom's Hardware (opens in new tab)), Intel has announced that the next two generations of Arc gaming graphics chips (respectively Battlemage and Celestial codenamed Battlemage and Celestial, respectively), and that Intel has placed a "bulk order" with TSMC to manufacture the next two generations of Arc gaming graphics chips.

Sadly, Commercial Times does not quantify exactly how large these orders from TSMC will be, stating that "Intel is optimistic that eSports, AI and other related applications will drive strong demand for GPUs"

Battlemage, Inc.

Battlemage will reportedly be manufactured at TSMC's 4nm node, and Celestial will use TSMC's new 3nm lithography; TSMC is currently codenamed Alchemist and Intel Arc A770 (opens in new tab) board, and manufactures Intel's existing generation Intel Arc graphics at the 7nm node.

Regarding these release dates, Commercial Times expects Battlemage to not appear until late 2024 and Celestial until late 2026.

This somewhat contradicts a slide purportedly leaked from Intel late last year that scheduled Battlemage for early 2024.

Indeed, early next year would be far preferable. Currently, the performance expected from Battlemage is at the RTX 4070 Ti or RTX 4080 level. If that happens early next year, Intel could do some serious damage. But if Battlemage doesn't appear until late 2024, that could be tricky.

Almost certainly, Nvidia and AMD will introduce yet another new generation of GPUs in late 2024. So the performance goals of the RTX 4070 Ti could suddenly change to the RTX 5070 Ti, and suddenly Intel could find itself miles behind the pace.

After all, Nvidia's next-generation RTX 50 series (which is supposedly called Blackwell, but is in its very early stages) is expected to be manufactured on TSMC's 3nm technology and will likely offer at least some performance improvement over the existing RTX 40 series

On the other hand, the RTX 40 series is expected to be manufactured in TSMC's 3nm technology.

On the other hand, chips with RTX 4070 Ti or 4080 performance will still be quite fast GPUs even late next year. So at the right price, they could be quite attractive.

We are hoping that Battlemage comes out sooner rather than later; a late 2024 launch would put it in line with the Nvidia RTX 50 series and AMD's next-generation GPUs (most likely the Radeon RX 8000 series).

These graphics chipsets will force even tougher competition. On the other hand, if released early in 2024, Battlemage will have a chance to influence the mid- to upper-midrange GPU market, and given that GPU prices continue to suffer (open in new tab), Intel's addition of a third vector of competition in the market is It would be very nice to see Intel add a third vector of competition to the market.